350 Legend and Cast Boolits

[45 hunter]

Thank you for the info! I got my dies yesterday and my Winchester brass should be here today. I will check the length of them. Would I be better off buying Starline brass?

[tomme boy]

Yes and no. Starline is thinner and can make holding a bullet difficult. Last batch of Winchester I got a month ago was spot on.

[45 hunter]

Okay, I just checked my new Winchester brass and it's right at 1.700. Now I am just waiting for my gun to come in!!

[cwlongshot]

Awesome!

I agree with TB.

Have fun!

CW

[mehavey]

Would I be better off buying Starline brass?

It would not be my recommendation.
https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...&postcount=203

You want the extra base thickness to ensure pressure containment at the chamber entrance/chamfer.

else.....
https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...&postcount=189

[mehavey]

First ran QuickLoad against the ACC 36-270CG for Subsonic info and the usual fill/burn constraints.

Green Dot & Viht_N110 & Viht_N320 fit the bill and tested well (except GD didn't even generate
enough port pressure to even unstick the case. (N-110/N-320 did well, but also wouldn't function)

Went looking for slower powders at the expense of burn efficiency and pressure -- focusing on 7" port
pressure and enough chamber/peak pressure to obdurate the projectile.

AGAIN... NORMA-200 popped up. Magic stuff from top to bottom.
But at BP chamber pressures (~12K), went to extremely soft 30-1 alloy (it tests about BN~6 no matter
what anybody writes "on the internet")

Powder Coat w/ Eastwood Red Mirror and out to the Range



The ACC 36-270LG performed well. Locked back on the sled -- but the 270's wide metplat being real soft hung up
& got cut up upon chambering while trying to function in a regular magazine.

Back to the tried & true SAECO #352, 250gr when cast 30:1

Bingo:


Could probably pick it up to and even 14.6 grains without coming close to supersonic at 100° Wx

(FWIW: POI about 15 MOA down from the two high-speed loadouts of these two same bullets)

[cwlongshot]

AWESOME GROUPS MAN!!!

I was concerned about functioning in the AR... I just have the bolt now. But Im a step
Closer, my upper FINALY arrived last night!! Faxon is out of stock on my Bbl. But Amazon has so might jump on that soon.

I cast a hundred more 20:1 270's this am!! I thought I had plenty... But everything was harder then I wanted.

As for the budged case. (Second link). Im more blaming LIL GUN. I have had pressure spikes all
Too often with that powder. Its never much of a consideration because of that. Not to mention how hot it burns. (Heat)

First link is good information. But remember the legend is a LOW PRESSURE 55 k caliber. The brass is but a vessel to hold the primer and powder. Its slightly more of a consideration in a MSR. But its not really a issue. All the brass is more than sufficient to the task of those pressures.

CW

[mehavey]

We went round & round on another forum as to the reason why we were seeing bulged-bases and even blown out bases on early Legends. It came down to that insufficient base thickness/web floor to handle "slightly out of perfect spec" chamber entrance chamfer that exposed just enough of the sidewall to high pressures.
See https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...&postcount=257

I relegated 300 starline cases to the closet, went Winchester, and sleep better at night.

[tomme boy]

That is also the reason lots of people have kabooms in 556. They seem to always blow out right at the web. Everyone thinks it is a overloaded round but it is actually just a normal load that had a case failure. But a 60K psi load can blow the whole side out of the up supported case head.

[44Blam]

A buddy of mine had a Kriss Vector in 45 ACP and somehow a round did not go fully into battery and the firing pin was still able to strike the primer. It BLEW the whole side out of the gun! And 45 ACP is a much lower pressure round.

[mehavey]

One of the saving graces of Gene Stoner's design is that the firing pin cannot
protrude at all until the bolt is near completely rotated.

Doesn't prevent "unpleasant" things, but disasters are very, very (very) rare.

[44Blam]

(Disclaimer: This works with my gun - could blow up your gun... So, work your load up for YOUR gun.)

Went to the long range today and went to get some DOPE on my new load. The boolit is Accurate 36-180LG and it is sitting on top of 23.5 grain AA #11FS. It is also seated at 2.195" COL.

I chrono'd this a little while back and it averages around 2175 fps. My rife is the Bear Creek Armory upper with a 16" barrel and I have an obnoxious muzzle brake. I've also got a Nikon 2-8x scope (it's M-223, so the #s on the turret are not useful).

I am getting MOA accuracy - probably better but the limiting factor is the shooter.

I zeroed it at 100 yards, so it is about 1" low at 50 yards.

Then:
200 yards - up 3 MOA for a bullet drop of about 6"
300 yards - up 7.5 MOA (total) for a bullet drop of about 22.5"
400 yards - up 18.5 MOA (total) for a bullet drop of about 74"

So, it looks like my bullet went subsonic between 300 and 400 yards. I did not shoot past 400 yards.

I did another ladder with a 125 grain boolit where I had similar accuracy and was able to push it about 2650 fps. So, I think I'll make up a hundred or so and take it back out there and see what the DOPE of it is. I bet it gets out a little further.

[44Blam]

The range I shoot at has steel targets all the way out to 880 yards so it is really entertaining to shoot there. A lot of these targets are knock down targets. Today at 300 yards there were a bunch of knockdown pigs...

350 legend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq2iAhWFYaI
308 (first shot hit the rail - oops):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQpXWPNJgpc

It was interesting to see how much more power that 308 has - headshot flung it around!

EDIT:
I got a thing that I can hold my phone up to a spotting scope a couple months back because my buddy got stuck in South Africa (he's still there) - so I have no spotter... Mostly, you can tell if you miss, but I thought I was hitting the pig because I could see the boolit explode but the pig wasn't falling over!!! So, I reviewed my tape:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNiTaUu6fE0

[cwlongshot]

Looks like you where hitting the horizontal stand Under the pig.

Fun video! Wish my main club allowed steel.

CW

[44Blam]

Looks like you where hitting the horizontal stand Under the pig.

Fun video! Wish my main club allowed steel.

CW

Yep - once I saw the video, I was like "Ahhhhhhhh" need to go up about 1 1/2 MOA (4.5" at 300).

[moto357]

This has been a fun thread. I’ve recently acquired my first AR and it’s a 350, because I love 35’s and especially my Max. Trying to keep this one a strictly cast shooter. The only boolit that feeds reliably that I have is the Lee 358-200. Sized at 358 in starline brass passes the plunk test, no go with Winchester brass. Playing now with alloys and powders, and of the powders I have I wish there was some sort of 300-mp data! I’ve had good Results with 4227 and 1680, though nothing special. Best accuracy has been with 300-mp but I feel like I’m flying in the dark with that one

[tomme boy]

use h110 as a baseline for the 300 powder. Some say it is the same.

[brewer12345]

Guys, I have a Bear Creek 350 upper I have thus far been using factory loads in. Obviously I would like to cast for it. What is the mold most likely to work? Lee 200 grain 35 rem mold? Something else? Powders I suspect wil be limited to what I have on hand given the crazy market right now.

[cwlongshot]

The lee 200 is a fine bullet.

[garandsrus]

I shot the RCBS 35-200 and Lyman 358315 in a Savage 350 Legend. Both had to be seated a little deeper than normal but they worked well and were accurate. I sized them to .356.