350 gn 45-70 cast bullet question

[44Blam]

H335, never tried that powder. I have an old can not sure how much is in it. 44Blam do you have a starting load for 350 gn lead with H335? Are you using standard length brass? I have a lot of standard length and only 10 Hornady and made a dummy round out of one of them so only 9 to play with. Jacketed Speer 400, Hornady 300, and Sierra 300 all cycle and chamber with no problem. boolits from my 405 gn RCBS mould have to be seated just about past the crimp groove, but that is using a .460 NOE size bushing. I have a Lee .459 sizing die that was part of what I inherited from my grandpa, I will size a 405 gn with it and make a dummy round. I placed an order for the NOE mould, do you think a .458 size bushing will help?

Hey Odette, my barrel slugs at .4585 so I size to .460.
I use standard length cases and give my Hornady cases to a buddy who loads those XTP bullets.
**** USE THIS INFORMATION AT YOUR OWN RISK *****
I crimp on the crimp groove and my COL is: 2.500" With that 350 grain boolit, my H335 load is 54 grain. This is because I wanted it to be around 1900 fps as that is plenty of power and has a good thump but it is not a shoulder breaker. 54 grains of H335 gets me about 1920 fps and is accurate. According to Quckload, that puts the pressure at 28663 PSI and says it should be 1848 fps. For me, I won't go above this because that same boolit at above about 2000 fps is no longer fun to shoot.

I would recommend that you start lower and see how your rifle shoots that boolit. H335 is very fine ball powder and seems to burn well even at lower pressures.

With this powder, it does pressure spike pretty quickly when it starts. I was shooting it under a NOE 460-396 RF and every 1 grain increment was pushing that boolit about 20 fps faster. UNTIL I got to a certain point and it went 200 fps faster with a 1 grain increment... That particular round (I shot 3 to make sure of the FPS) leaded the bejabbers out of my barrel... SO - keep that in mind with H335.

[robg]

im not that precise i fill lee 10 pot with wheel weight lead then add a couple of yards of solder if boolits weigh within 10% of mold figure thats fine for me.my guess is close to number 2 alloy .

[odette]

I got the 460-350- RF mould today. It's profile is definitely slimmer in the nose. I will cast some this next week. Does 48 gn of H335 sound like a good start?

[44Blam]

I got the 460-350- RF mould today. It's profile is definitely slimmer in the nose. I will cast some this next week. Does 48 gn of H335 sound like a good start?

I have not loaded that low with this boolit but Quickload shows that it should give you around 1625 fps and should have a max pressure of 20167psi. You should chrono these and see if it truly does fall into that range ~1600 fps.

I would think that it won't be unpleasant to shoot and should be effective.

[gsdelong]

The very 1st thing I would do is try an uncoated boolit to see if it chambers and the a single coat of pc. I a curious why you are putting 3 coats of pc on?

Greg

[Dom]

I have an RCBS 405gr GC bullet mold. Cast from scrap WW ( 10.5 BHN ) & sized 459 + . With the case crimped into the crimp grove provided on the bullet it chambers effortlessly in my 1895 Marlin. Shoots quite well with 34grs IMR-4198 & ( my rifle only ) enough Dacron to hold the powder firmly in place. This is a light load in
MY"rifle ( 24" Bbl ) for a little over 1400 fps. According to my chrono..

[odette]

i was putting 3 coats of Hi-Tek on. There is a difference between Hi-Tek and Powder Coat. Hi-Tek goes on as a liquid and is a thin coat that can take as much as 3 coats for complete coverage. When I use Eastwood PC, I use just 1 coat. I am going to try one dummy plain, no coating of either PC or Hi-Tek. 1 with PC and 1 with Hi-Tek. I will see which chambers better using .460 and .459 sizing dies. Tried to get a .458 bushing from NOE, but the cart on the order page has not worked

[charlie b]

As others have pointed out, the throat may be part of the issue. When trying a new bullet I will color it with a sharpie and then chamber it. I seat it deeper as I go until I just barely get rifling marks on the blackened area.

PC and HiTek increase the dia of the bullet, including the nose. Sizing does not decrease the dia of the ogive area. So, a plain bullet that fits nicely in the bore will have to be seated deeper, usually by quite a bit (0.1" or more). The taper of the ogive is working against you here. This can affect which powder load you use since you are decreasing case volume, so be careful there.

Seating deeper is not that big a deal and you can still have very accurate loads, just use a bit less powder.

PS if you are going to be shooting a lot of cast in this rifle you may consider having the barrel throated for cast.

[odette]

I have found an RCBS 405gn mould and boolits also a Saeco 405gn spire point, both are gas check. I have not used them yet as I found an ice cream bucket of bullets from each mould. I have no clue the lead mix used. Bullets are runnning around 426gn. Any idea if these moulds are 405gn wheel weight moulds. I PC'd a few of the RCBS flat points with Eastwood Powder Coat and I can just seat them at the top of the crimp groove and close the lever. I cast a few 350gn from the NOE mould and will seat a bullet no lube no coating of any kind sized at .458, .459 and .460. I will do the same sizing 3 PC'd bullets and see if they chamber seated in the crimp groove

[odette]

I sized one bullet to .4585 with a Lee sizer. I made a dummy round, seating to the crimp groove and tried it it the 1895LTD. This was a plain no lube, no PC bullet. It almost chambered, but the final .05 I could feel contact in the barrel. I ejected the round and could see a slight ring at the nose of the bullet where contact was made.

[44Blam]

I sized one bullet to .4585 with a Lee sizer. I made a dummy round, seating to the crimp groove and tried it it the 1895LTD. This was a plain no lube, no PC bullet. It almost chambered, but the final .05 I could feel contact in the barrel. I ejected the round and could see a slight ring at the nose of the bullet where contact was made.

Dang - I have the plain jane 1895 that I bought in 2019... I trim my cases using the lee trim die and I seat pretty much to the top of the crimp grove that way when I crimp it in it goes kind of in the middle. But I also powder coat which adds about 0.001" to both sides. Occasionally when chambering I feel it engage the lands but I generally try to load cast boolits so they are as close as possible to the lands to avoid excessive jump.

Seems strange that you would get a ring... For me, on the ones that do engage the lands I only get the impression of the lands on the nose of the boolit in the PC... The LTD must have a bit of a tighter throat?

[mehavey]

"...made a dummy round, seating to the crimp groove and tried it it the 1895LTD.
This was a plain no lube, no PC bullet. It almost chambered, but the final
0.05 I could feel contact in the barrel. I ejected the round and could see a slight
ring at the nose of the bullet where contact was made."

Sounds like you found both your problem, and your solution.
Thin-film Lee Liquid ALOX, load for slight engagement, and call it a day.

[pjames32]

I use the NOE 460-350 sized .459 in my 1895 Marlin. I crimp in the crimp groove with RCBS cowboy dies and have had no chamber problems. Hope your new molds solve your problem.

[odette]

been working and had to hold off playing with this bullet. I managed to find a Henry X Model 45-70 and was compelled to snatch it up. I tried the LBT 350 gn and it did the same as the Marlin 1895, maybe even a little tighter fit. Will try the NOE sized at .459 gas checked and PC'd. Unfortunately, I found no H335, neither at home, in stores or online. Any one use A5744, A2015, H4198, IMR4198 and have a good starting lever load. I have some IMR3031 but it has red dust in it, so think it is bad

[dondiego]

been working and had to hold off playing with this bullet. I managed to find a Henry X Model 45-70 and was compelled to snatch it up. I tried the LBT 350 gn and it did the same as the Marlin 1895, maybe even a little tighter fit. Will try the NOE sized at .459 gas checked and PC'd. Unfortunately, I found no H335, neither at home, in stores or online. Any one use A5744, A2015, H4198, IMR4198 and have a good starting lever load. I have some IMR3031 but it has red dust in it, so think it is bad

I shot a pound of old IMR 4227 that had red rust in it. Worked fine. Try it first.

[odette]

I loaded 10 rds using the NOE mould, bullets were PC'd OAL was 2.49" and lever would not close on either the Henry or the Marlin. I loaded 10 more rds with bullets sized and lubed on RCBS lube/sizer, no PC. These fit in both rifles and had bullets seated to the same OAL as the other 10. I seated the 1st 10 to OAL of 2.484 and they fit both rifles. Bullets are seated just past the crimp groove and factory crimped. 1st 10 are loaded with 33.8 gn of A5744, 2nd 10 loaded 34.3 A5744. I will compare 5 rds of each load out of both rifles and plan to do the same with every increase in powder and loads from other powders I try.