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  1. #41
    Boolit Bub
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    Quote Originally Posted by Don McDowell View Post
    What is the diameter of the freeborn?
    It’s difficult, I feel like the cast came out really nice it looks really good, but I feel like I need to spin it a little bit like when you’re trying to measure off an ogive. With calipers I’m coming up with 453. Not spinning it using micrometers .4535.

  2. #42
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    Click image for larger version. 

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  3. #43
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    You could most likely get by pretty well with a slick cast at .450 and wrapped in seth cole 55w. Something around 1.4 or 1.45 long.
    In that 120 I wouldn't use anything softer than 20-1 and 16-1 or harder will likely treat you better.
    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  4. #44
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    Thank you guys for the replies. I guess I’ll make up a few rounds this weekend and slug the bore.
    Could be I can get some better measurements off that.

    Click image for larger version. 

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  5. #45
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    Pulled out my old casting part. This was my grandfathers I don’t think it’s been out of the box for at least 20 years. It has a good amount of surface rust on it, so I just filled it up Click image for larger version. 

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ID:	280267full of rust illuminator. I’ll give it three or four hours then try to cast a few.

  6. #46
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    Is that a 5 groove barrel or a 6 ? It almost sounds like your measuring from the top of the land to bottom of the groove.

  7. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lead pot View Post
    Is that a 5 groove barrel or a 6 ? It almost sounds like your measuring from the top of the land to bottom of the groove.
    It’s a 6 groove. I put a small dot on each groove to make sure I was getting in the right place.

  8. #48
    Boolit Master
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    [QUOTE=Bent Ramrod;5152190]

    Get a 0.457” or so round lead ball, oil your bore up, expand the ball if necessary with a couple taps on the anvil of your vise, (the one you’re going to hold the gun in vertically) tap the flattened ball into the muzzle with an aluminum or brass punch, and shove it through with a stout cleaning rod with a flat tip. Catch it in a hat or dish with a shop rag under the breech.

    Better still, why don’t you cast some boolits out of those Lee moulds, lube them with SPG, load up some shells according to established practice and see how the thing shoots before going through all this ancillary factfinding? Am I the only one who gets a rifle and shoots it without doing all this mechanical heartburning first? Modern firearms (and Pedersolis are state-of-the-art) don’t have all the glitches that a worn, rusty antique is liable to. Even with them, I see how they shoot with regular load development before mechanical analysis. Usually, it isn’t necessary anyway.

    No you are not the only one - there's two of us at least - I second it - load some grease boolits and get out there and shoot it !!!! ... Its pretty darn easy to get lost in the haze of technicalities on this site if you're not out there pulling the trigger as well. Do all this stuff later if it dont shoot up to par - if theres a problem then come back chasing advice.

  9. #49
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    Indian Joe wrote: "No you are not the only one - there's two of us at least - I second it - "

    Make that three.

    If it were me, I would load it like I think it should be loaded and go from there. These aren't that hard as to agonize over it. Go have some fun. Improve from there. There are more than a few skilled BPCR riflemen here that can give good advice after you have a baseline.
    Nothing like doing to understand the what and why.
    Chill Wills

  10. #50
    Boolit Master Bad Ass Wallace's Avatar
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    My "reservations" regarding paper patching! I have a special adjustable mold that can cast 320gn to 540gn plain boolits with a diameter of 0.448".

    The paper that I found best was 'bank' 50 gms acid free from a specialist supplier. Using AutoCAD software I designed a two wrap patch that bought the diameter to 0.460". Now here is the 'catch', wrap the boolit dry and it soon swells to 0.462" in any sort of humid weather, if you grease the patch it will also swell, so all the measuring and slugging will be worth diddly squat at the range.

    The other catch for new players is a cast of 1:40 or relatively soft so that the paper bonds to the soft cast boolit, believe me, I've tried many combinations over many years and I got good enough to be placed in the World Creedmoor Championships.

    As I have said before, it is easier to tune with a correct size cast boolit and a good lube like SPG than dabble in PP'ing, at least for a beginner.

    Hold Still Varmint; while I plugs Yer!

  11. #51
    Boolit Master Castaway's Avatar
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    Wallace, are you seating paper between your primer and case? I’m leery of peening the breech face of my Sharps from the primer slamming against it

  12. #52
    Boolit Master Bad Ass Wallace's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Castaway View Post
    Wallace, are you seating paper between your primer and case? I’m leery of peening the breech face of my Sharps from the primer slamming against it
    No some of my guns are near 30 years old and no visable 'peening' of the breechblock from use. I use Federal LP primers which give more consistant ignition.
    Hold Still Varmint; while I plugs Yer!

  13. #53
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    Lots of misinformation about paper patching spread around the internet, concerning soft alloys, in appropriate paper and the like that causes a lot of headaches for new people venturing into paper patching.
    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  14. #54
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    Don,
    The internet has what I call Parrots they repeat what they read with out ever doing it. They are not hard to spot.

    Jconley, cast and shoot what you have to see what the results are and go from there. I always recumbent doing what I call a ladder load.
    Pick a bullet use what ever alloy you have or make.
    Pick a powder.
    Start with slight compression with three loads each increasing them by one grain three each.
    Pick your primer and wad stack and go shoot. This will give you trigger time and you will also see what is getting close to what you like, and it's usually with around 23 to 25 shots fired.
    Then you can try something different one component at a time like changing powder, primer or wad stacks.
    Your cast bullet, PP or GG if it's out of round or undersized will be bore/groove diameter and and round as it starts to move down the barrel.
    I have seen rifles that had slugs pounded through ruined.
    When I make a chamber cast is when I see patches with burned edges or when I get leading shooting the PP bullets to see if I have a overly deep groove for the paper I used, and to check to see if I got the dimensions I special ordered.
    I have had two barrels that came that had a muzzle loading deep groove that gave me fits.
    For a PP bullet a .003" deep groove is better than a .005-.006" deep.
    I special order a barrel for the PP bullets that have .003" deep grooves but there is nothing wrong with a .004" .

  15. #55
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    Leadpot it is interesting that the dead soft bullet thing lives on and on and.... Yet a bit of historical research has shown that the ODG's preferred alloy's from 15-1 to as hard as 11-1, and the Brits were experimenting with making harder bullets yet..
    Patching paper was known in 3 thicknesses, thick, medium and thin. It appears that the thick equates to the 9 lb we have today, medium 8 lb and thin 7 lb.
    The excessive freebore of the early Shiloh's and the copies the Italians made of those rifles can be a massive headache to get to shoot well, but it can be done, with enough money spent in different diameter moulds.
    I think the biggest mistake folks make when jumping into the paper patch realm is going by weight and not paying enough attention to the length of the bullet to match the twist. Adjustable nose pour blocks can be a great help in finding the length a rifle likes.
    The OP here has a grease groove mould, and the advise to cast some and shoot it is probably great, but he's interested in diving off into paper patching. It'll be an interesting journey for him, probably going to end up with a shelf full of moulds and stacks and stacks of different papers, wad material and the list goes on.
    It hasn't been brought up yet, but probably the most important thing to shooting well at distance with patched is a great fouling control routine, and that can get almost involved as finding the right bullet/paper/wad and powder.
    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  16. #56
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    The last few post have been very kind and informative I appreciate all of your advice.

    I will take this rifle out and play around with it a little bit before I get started. Most of my questions have resolved around how things are done and establishing the information I need to order the correct materials and tools. I’m trying to buy once and cry once.
    I am an avid shooter and try to shoot in some type of competition every Saturday morning. Being in Texas there’s no short in shooting events on a weekend. I’ve been a serious competitor for the past 25 years shooting in different disciplines from IDPA, 3 gun, F class, and traveled to many different states shooting BenchRest at a regional and national level.
    I didn’t decide to start shooting 45-120 because I needed something to shoot or something to do, I chose this project for the very reason that it is hard and it will be difficult.
    I spend a good amount of time laying down prone on 1000 yard range, we always try to have several rifles so you don’t have to wait to shoot while your barrel cools down.
    I just thought this would be a fun rifle to try to consistently hit a target at 4 or 500 yards while In between different rifles.

  17. #57
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    Well have fun with the journey.. and it is fun. Even shooting grease groove bullets.
    Just keep in mind that conditions that won't even make a 168 gr. SMK or Berger blink will make these fat ol chunks of lead puke their guts out.
    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  18. #58
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    All this fuss and you haven't even shot it yet?

  19. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Don McDowell View Post
    Well have fun with the journey.. and it is fun. Even shooting grease groove bullets.
    Just keep in mind that conditions that won't even make a 168 gr. SMK or Berger blink will make these fat ol chunks of lead puke their guts out.
    I think that’s exactly the point, it should be really interesting.
    I want to get it shooting decently, Get all the information needed, work up ballistic solutions with software and see what it will do.
    I just had a few things I needed to buy before I got started, sizing dies , Lube, expanders, compressors, powder and paper. This place has proved to be a great archive of information and I was able to figure out just about everything I need it in one source.

  20. #60
    Boolit Master semtav's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jconley View Post
    The free bore is difficult to get an accurate measurement but I’m somewhere in the neighborhood of .320, so I’ve got a decent idea where to start with my seating depth.
    With that much freebore, I would start completely over in your thinking.

    forget about a GG bullet with any bore riding characteristics.

    And forget about paperpatching with anything but a Patched to Groove Dia Bullet

    Start out by measuring the inside dia of a fired shell, and the dia of your freebore.

    Then use the smaller of the two measurements for the dia of your bullet.

    If your internal case measurement is larger than the freebore, will have to resize your brass slightly

    If your case is smaller than the freebore, that is all can load in the case so you have to use that. ( you may be able to go slightly larger because of springback of the case walls)



    If using a GG bullet, get one that has that dia on a land ahead of the last Grease Groove or the nose section starts out at that dia.

    If using a PP bullet, patch it to that dia

    I'll try to get a pic of the type of bullet I am talking about.
    Last edited by semtav; 03-28-2021 at 11:11 AM.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check