Poor first outing with precast in 30-30, 308. Diagnosis?

[toallmy]

Now you're getting somewhere ..... good on you for sticking in there .

[Dom]

My success came with hard cast ( at least 16 BHN ) with a gas check.Then started powder coating. That's when accuracy became much better & with added velocity. Lead free bore allows each bullet travel down a clean bore ( no lead streaks ) . Makes a significant difference.

[Beaverhunter2]

ATTABOY !
Very nice , improvement is evident .
Finding a mould might be hard , Titan Reloading, Midway USA and Lee Precision all had "out of stock" on the Lee C309-170-F double cavity I use in 30-30 ... they are/were usually easy to find !
Keep looking ... I don't know where all the moulds went but I hope they return soon .
Gary

I agree. My Lee 309-170-F is my "go to" bullet in .30-30 Usually 182gr. ready to load with 50-50, PC and Gas Check. 28.0gr of IMR 3031 gets me 1960fps and 1" - 1 1/8" groups at 100yds. I also size to .311"

I've been looking for another but they are really hard to find.
Backcut, I hope you find one first because you need it more than I do- but if I see one I'm grabbing it!

Good hunting (and shooting)!

John

[Backcut]

I see 309-170-F on Ebay for $90 -- too much markup for me. But there's 309-160-R and also 180 for $26, plus shipping.
Some things I learned to buy-once-cry-once, and other things (where there's a zillion choices) just get something inexpensive to get started and then figure out which way to go.
NOE HTC310-173-FP looks promising too, but I'll probably hold off and experiment to see if I want to run gas checks etc before getting fancy.
I will also need to figure out how to alloy my range scrap ingots. Maybe mix in hardball or foundry type alloy? I will likely be powdercoating.
Much research to be done and stickies to browse while I'm busy smelting my scrap and saving for equipment over the summer.
Thanks again,
Tom

[charlie b]

I started casting for my .308 with the 309-180 bullet. It worked really well. I did lap it a bit to increase dia for my rifle.

[Hanzy4200]

To high velocity for plain base. Might want to slug your bore. None of my .30 cal rifles like .309 sized pills. .310 is usually a better fit.

[charlie b]

I agree. But, I use a .309 sizing die. The 'springback' means they are .310 after sizing.

Just because they are cheap does not mean they don't work. Lee molds can make some good bullets.

[mac1911]

Greetings! Thanks in advance for any advice, or if you can point me to any stickies that'd be helpful. There are many.
I had a very poor first outing in .308 and 30-30 using precast lead boolits, abysmal accuracy. Could use help diagnosing my errors.

Background:
I previously had decent success with reduced loads in .308 win and 30-30 using Speer 100gr half-J and 110gr TMJ 30 carbine bullets, with reduced 4895 loads, Trail Boss, and 2400. Got around 1.5" groups from the bench at 50 yards, good enough for plinking. Next I wanted to try cast. I have never shot any cast boolits before in handguns or anything else.

I got some .309 precast boolits from Rim Rock, which I believe to be good quality. My poor performance is no reflection on these nice boolits.
For all loads, I used a Lee universal case expander before seating, then crimped with a Lee FCD.
I measured the boolits at .309. The boolits are advertised as coming with magma lube.
I pulled them out of the box and seated them over powder, crimped, and shot. 5-shot groups.

Winchester 94, 1980s manufacture, shot very little.
FC brass, CCI 200 primers
Rim Rock 165gr hard cast RNFP. Advertised 22 BHN, magma lube.
Seated to crimping groove, moderate crimp with Lee FCD.
Powder: 2400
15gr 1650fps 8fps sd
17gr 1769fps 16fps sd
19gr 1919fps 20fps sd


Ruger American 308 Win
PPU brass, CCI 200 primers
Rim Rock 115gr hard cast RN. Advertised 22 BHN, magma lube.
Seated to OAL 2.450", moderate crimp with Lee FCD.
Powder: 2400
16gr 1725fps 20fps sd
18gr 1867fps 6fps sd

Powder: Unique
12gr 1801fps 11fps sd
14gr 1971fps 8fps sd
16gr 2137fps 7fps sd


I shot all of these from the bench at 50 yds, in 5-shot groups. The chrono results were consistent and I was happy with the velocity sd, but accuracy was abysmal. I was all over multiple sheets of printer paper with shots a foot apart at times. Accuracy was bad from the start, it didn't get any better or worse as I went.
After shooting my cast loads, I did 4-5 shot groups of factory Rem 150 in the 30-30 and surplus 147 in the 308, and got close to 1" groups, just to confirm nothing else is wrong.

I think I'm going to set aside the 308 for now, and focus on seeing if I can get the 30-30 to shoot these cast boolits.
I'm not sure how to tell if I'm getting excessive leading, most of the threads I've found on that talk alot about forcing cones. Peering down the barrel I don't see anything that jumps out.
Do I need to slug my barrel(s)? I figured these are relatively new rifles, fired little, with no microgroove or any other funny stuff, and the basic off-the-shelf precast ought to shoot ok at .309 or they wouldn't sell many. These rifles both shoot just fine with my handloads with speer/hornady/whatever .308 projectiles.
Am I at the wrong velocity for my BHN? Manufacturer's FAQ says you can run the 22BHN boolits up to 2200 fps, and I never exceeded that.

I'm thinking there ought to be a way to get the boolits I've got to shoot acceptably well or at least better than this in my 30-30. What should I try next?

Many thanks,
Backcut

My first attempt at cast in 30-06 was not good
Later I found if I cleaned the bore really well, free of copper fouling and ran 5-10 cast fouling shots the groups tightened up
Also if your 308 has a 1-10 - 1-12 twist accuracy for my goes bad quick right around 1800fps
The RPM s. Are to high I guess
For me in my miltary rifles 308,06,8mm, brit, jap, swiss
Accuracy nodes are all in that 1600-1750fps range.

I do have a 1000fps load with TrailBoss that is darn good in most 150-200 gn bullets out of my 1/10 twist 308 barrels mauser.

[Horseman]

Thanks a million for this thread Backcut. I've been casting for handguns for 35 years but have never ventured into the rifles. Your post has inspired me to pull the old model 94 out of the safe and give it a try. I'll probably choose a plain-base mold as I'm fine with 1100-1200 fps. Just looking to have some fun plinking.

[scattershot]

Just keep your velocity down with that plain based bullet. This was 1080 fps, using a 165 grain boolit and 5.5 Red Dot.