AR -15 cast @100yd

[Wolfdog91]

Well woke up kinda early and had a itch to go to the range so loaded up some more cast bullets I had weight sorted and went to the range for a little fun. Now after going over my notes I found out I added ten thousands to my hard jam measurement instead of substracting it so now I know why I was pulling bullets before crazy but anyhow loaded up 30rd of Lee 55gr boolits ( weight sorted to 56.5grains) over 18.2 grains of accurate 2015 and was actually pretty surprised at what I got me. My smallest group wish cast out my AR was four rounds within 1.3" @50 well with 10rd seems I'm keeping around the same level of accuracy ,at least in my core grouping.



But that's just 50yd so decided to streach out to 100 and again pretty surprised. Not gonna win any awards but heck I routinely see guys at the range not able to do this with Standard ammo !




10 out of the 15 grouped pretty decent all things considered ,at the very least it's minute of beer can. The whole time I had complete functionality and a nice little speed of around 2200 fps average. Honestly wasn't trying to make them go this fast but it's the best shooing load to date soooooo. Ow the only thi v is the five that flew pretty wide . What I'm thinking these where flawed ones I didn't catch but who knows . Definitely a fun little side project

[Winger Ed.]

That's decent.

If you're casting for an AR, check into casting with Zinc from modern wheel weights.

There is several guys on youtube doing it.
As Lead dries up, its the future of casting and is coming along like powder coating did several years ago.

The same boolit will weight about 60% as much as Lead, but you can push it along almost at jacketed speeds.

[Wolfdog91]

I've been looking into actually,I'm just geared up for lead rn though lol

[Wolfdog91]

So got home and was able to measure everything and as far as the core groups ( when a majority of the bullets where landing ) I got 2.080" @50yd and 2.631" @100 ! pretty happy to say the least . Definitely gonna play with this some more

[sigep1764]

Sort your brass for groups and check the trim length. Same brass stamps, same trim length, anneal the necks. Bet that 2.6 inch group, which is awesome with cast, shrinks an inch.

[Larry Gibson]

No, those flyers were not "flawed". They are out there because they have exceeded the RPM Threshold. Also, unless you have 2 holes hidden by the coin then they are off the paper. If those 2 missing shots are not under the coin 45+% of the shots were flyers out of the group. Also comparing the size of that group to the 50 yard group it's pretty obvious the group expansion is much larger than it should be if it were linear in expansion. Were you to test at 200 yards you would find the group expansion much worse.

With your AR if you want speed you got it. As to accuracy; at least kind of at 100 yards. However if accuracy of which your rifle should be capable of, even with cast, then you must sacrifice speed for it. Suggest you start even lower where you'll find the best accuracy will be right at functional reliability. Traditional 5.56 powder do not work well in that arena with 55 gr traditional lubed bullets. You should try 4198, RL7, H4895 and give a dacron filler a try.

Just depends on what you want and will be satisfied with given the size of the target and max range you be shooting at.

[Thumbcocker]

+1 on 4885. I found happiness around 18 grains

[dverna]

nicovanj made a good point....what are you trying to do? IIRC you were deer hunting with the gun, or is this a fun/plinking load? Coyotes to 100 yards...and a 5" group is going to be OK. If you afford it, s 75 gr bullet mold might be a better choice.

[Mal Paso]

So got home and was able to measure everything and as far as the core groups ( when a majority of the bullets where landing ) I got 2.080" @50yd and 2.631" @100 ! pretty happy to say the least . Definitely gonna play with this some more

Can I ask, what is the rate of twist. I've seen 1 in 7, 1 in 11 and a few others.

[Wolfdog91]

Simply why not, it's a challenge and I find it fun. Why do you think I want to shoot long range with this gun ? Like I don't even have 1mile to shoot, I have two guns riged up to shoot as long as I can. They barely get touched .

[MUSTANG]

Wolfdog91: As long as you are enjoying the challenge; keep experimenting. Sometimes in learning it takes personal analysis of what does Not Work; in order to establish what does work for ourselves. I have moved back from cast (or swaged) .223's because for whatever reasons I moved back to the 30 calibers (cast and swaged). Larry Gibson has some wise insight in his post #6 above. I (actually my wife's) only have a single AR, and it's a Colt HBAR with 1/7 twist. So my heavier cast and swage .223's work well in it. But; I am doing much more shooting with numerous Bolt .223's and .30 calibers (cast and Swaged) where the .223's are usually 1/9 twist and the 30's tend to be 1/10.

Press forward, keep good detailed records, take others ideas and comments - experiment and see what works for you.

Best wishes on the journey - and most importantly Enjoy the time on the range validating or revising your thoughts and experiments.

[Wolfdog91]

I haven't added anymore powder dude. Ive litterly worked up from the lightest load I could to this one because it was the most accurate. Also it's not my only one I have. Like I've said probably a dozen times now I don't really care about speed, I really don't heck if my AR would function at 1500fps and get decent accuracy I'd just leave it there but it doesn't. I enjoy the problem solving process of this .
I'm simply starting off with orders that other experiences casters have used .

[Wolfdog91]

Wolfdog91: As long as you are enjoying the challenge; keep experimenting. Sometimes in learning it takes personal analysis of what does Not Work; in order to establish what does work for ourselves. I have moved back from cast (or swaged) .223's because for whatever reasons I moved back to the 30 calibers (cast and swaged). Larry Gibson has some wise insight in his post #6 above. I (actually my wife's) only have a single AR, and it's a Colt HBAR with 1/7 twist. So my heavier cast and swage .223's work well in it. But; I am doing much more shooting with numerous Bolt .223's and .30 calibers (cast and Swaged) where the .223's are usually 1/9 twist and the 30's tend to be 1/10.

Press forward, keep good detailed records, take others ideas and comments - experiment and see what works for you.

Best wishes on the journey - and most importantly Enjoy the time on the range validating or revising your thoughts and experiments.

Thank you , btw enjoyed your 350 legend post a while back

[waksupi]

I'm not sure of the capabilities of an AR platform for accuracy, but I was getting 1 5/8" at 100 yards, at 2680 fps with my heavy barreled .223 and cast bullets.

[Wolfdog91]

I literally had not shot this load @ 100yd. At 50 how ever the it was the best out of 2 different powders and 8 different loads giving me 1.3540" four round group ( one bullet pulled due to a sizing mistake so wasn't able to do a complete five round groups )@50 average fps of 2150.
That was eight months ago. And I'm just now getting back to messing with casting. And I'm not done with load development I still have alot of stuff I wanna try guns functions better then it did so probably gonna start downloading charges again to see what that can do. I have a few different powders I bout to try and I still need to go though those,still wanna try the Dacron filler. Got 62gr mold I wanna try.Im no where near done
I specifically picked casting with for this gun because it's difficult. I have a few guns that would probably work much much better but that just simply doesn't interest me right now

[Wolfdog91]

I'm not sure of the capabilities of an AR platform for accuracy, but I was getting 1 5/8" at 100 yards, at 2680 fps with my heavy barreled .223 and cast bullets.

What's the twist rate you running ?

[Wolfdog91]

No, those flyers were not "flawed". They are out there because they have exceeded the RPM Threshold. Also, unless you have 2 holes hidden by the coin then they are off the paper. If those 2 missing shots are not under the coin 45+% of the shots were flyers out of the group. Also comparing the size of that group to the 50 yard group it's pretty obvious the group expansion is much larger than it should be if it were linear in expansion. Were you to test at 200 yards you would find the group expansion much worse.

With your AR if you want speed you got it. As to accuracy; at least kind of at 100 yards. However if accuracy of which your rifle should be capable of, even with cast, then you must sacrifice speed for it. Suggest you start even lower where you'll find the best accuracy will be right at functional reliability. Traditional 5.56 powder do not work well in that arena with 55 gr traditional lubed bullets. You should try 4198, RL7, H4895 and give a dacron filler a try.

Just depends on what you want and will be satisfied with given the size of the target and max range you be shooting at.

As soon as this shortage is over and I can get some better powder I will but right now I'm kinda stuck with 5 some other .223 caster helped me pick out. I don't traditional lube PC only but I am looking at giving Dacron a try. Any chance it would help with standard deviation

[waksupi]

What's the twist rate you running ?

I couldn't tell you that, as I got rid of the rifle. The boolits were too small for my fat fingers!