Alloy for Gould HP?

[WARD O]

I would like to cast up some Gould HP's for my 45-70 lever action for use with black powder. I would imagine muzzle velocity will be something around 1300 fps. I plan to hunt deer here in Minnesota with it this fall. Ranges will be short, 50 yards is the norm and 100 yards is a long shot. I want to get some expansion and want it to be accurate. For supplies I have: pure tin, pure lead, ww, and some misc stuff as well.

I'm thinking 16/1, 20/1, or maybe even 30/1 - anyone care to offer a suggestion on a good alloy for rifle HP's?

Thanks for your opinions!

Ward

[Glen]

For that velocity, I would use something like 30-1 lead to tin, or 1:1 WW to pure lead. Good luck and good hunting!

[masscaster]

Hi WARD O,
Not sure how much alloy you can smelt at once.
Try this for 25 lbs.
18 lbs WW's
6 lbs Pb
1 lb 80/20 Solder.
Flux well. My dad & I used this mix on the little .375 146 gr. BP revolver boolit loaded in the .375 H&H. Very good on varmints, anything up to coyotes. Opened up nice w/ no ill effects.
This should be good up to 1500 fps with a good lube.
Jeff @ Forefather's

[wilddog45]

50/50 WW to PB water dropped works great in my 30-30 at 1847 average velocity. Air-cooled may work good with the Gould.

[Matt_G]

50/50 WW to PB water dropped works great in my 30-30 at 1847 average velocity. Air-cooled may work good with the Gould.

50/50 Pb and WW's should work great for HP's, though I wouldn't water drop them.

[Dale53]

I would recommend 30/1 lead/tin for sure expansion and hanging together. Lead/tin alloys are more malleable than lead/antimony/tin alloys.

I have a Ruger #3 in .45/70 and have cast up a PILE of the Gould bullets for use with black powder. Within the range limitations you discuss I can't think of a better combination for medium and large game. At one time, Lyman made a few four cavity moulds for the Gould bullet SOLID. I have a friend who loaned me his. I cast about forty pounds of those for practice and will reserve the "somewhat slow to cast" hollow points for hunting.

I have often loaded duplex loads for hunting and when shooting BPCR's in the days before we went to NRA Regulations for Silhouettes locally. It is a very practical way to load (very clean burning and slightly more velocity) if reasonable safety practices are maintained. The Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook (version #3) has pressure data with duplex loads. They are quite mild for the stronger actions.

Dale53

[1874Sharps]

Ward=O,

I assume you will be using the HP version of the Gould boolit and not the solid variety. The Gould has a pretty good meplat, as I recall, and there is no doubt it will serve your purposes well. I do believe that the alloy will not be critical, as you will definately be bringing "enough gun" on your hunting trip. You could probably use any of the alloys you cite to great effect. The buffalo hunters of 130 years ago kicked some very serious bison butt with soft lead boolits!

[WARD O]

l am hoping the weekend will allow some time to fire up the pot and cast a few of these HP's. I am thinking I will try the 30-1 alloy, keep it simple. I'll let you know later how it works out for me. I'll be shooting these in one of Marlins Ltd Ed 45-70 octagon rifles.

Dale53 I have done some duplexing, I recently worked up a loading for a friends 1880's hammer double rifle in 450 black powder express. I used Reloader #7 in that instance and was quite happy with the final results. What smokeless powder do you prefer for duplex loading?

Thanks for all the advice guys, I do appreciate it.

Ward

[fredj338]

l am hoping the weekend will allow some time to fire up the pot and cast a few of these HP's. I am thinking I will try the 30-1 alloy, keep it simple. I'll let you know later how it works out for me. I'll be shooting these in one of Marlins Ltd Ed 45-70 octagon rifles.

Dale53 I have done some duplexing, I recently worked up a loading for a friends 1880's hammer double rifle in 450 black powder express. I used Reloader #7 in that instance and was quite happy with the final results. What smokeless powder do you prefer for duplex loading?

Thanks for all the advice guys, I do appreciate it.

Ward

Not for a 45-70, but I have found 25-1 lead/tin mix gives good expansion for my 44mags (270gr) & heavy 45colts (270gr) to 1225fps. Then I tried ww, the antimony causes the nose to shear off. Going to 50/50 ww/lead works better but above 1200fps I still get the nose shearing off. Maybe 20-1 above 1200fps.

[Dale53]

WardO;
My preference for duplexing is also RL-7. The reasons are not complex. It is in the right burning range and the small grains measure VERY well. When shooting BPCR, I duplexed 10% (weighed the total black powder charge as if I were only going to be using black, reduced that measurement by 10% by weight and replaced that with 10% by weight of RL-7). As a for instance, if the total charge was 60.0 grs, I used 60.0 - 6.0 for 54.0 grs of Black and added 6.0 grs of RL-7 next to the primer. In other words, I dropped the RL-7 first, THEN the black powder.

Spence Wolf, who wrote THE Trapdoor Book, stated that in his experience, each grain of smokeless was worth about 3.0 grs of Black Powder when duplexing. Using that experience, the velocity would be somewhat greater than a straight black load. That was also my experience.

When using straight Goex, I would work up a load by starting with no compression but using a full case I would fire ten rounds. I would keep increasing the powder charge by two grains at a time. The groups would start large and then as powder was added (and thereby increase the compression) the groups would get progressively smaller. Then, at some point in the cycle, the groups would start enlarging. At that point I would vary the group up or down until I was satisfied. Each time I would get another lot of powder, I would run this again (getting a large lot meant I didn't have to do this very often). Goex often required as much compression as .350" (using a compression die to avoid damaging the bullet). When going to duplex, I would just use the same compression as the straight black had shown. I used a .060 LDPE wad over the powder and would seat the bullet tight down on the wad.

I built my own duplex powder measure using parts from a discarded Mec shotgun loader.

Dale53

[WARD O]

DALE53

So with the duplex powder dispenser, are you using some sort of MEC bar that slides back and forth dropping both powders? Do you like the LDP wads? I was always a little shy of putting anything plastic into the powder mix...

As for the Gould, since it was designed during the black powder era, it sould have not required any alloy much beyond lead and tin. I just wasn't sure what would give the best results... Probably will try a couple anyway...

Ward

[WARD O]

I had time and cast up a few Gould HP's out of 1-25 and pan lubed them with SPG. I loaded them with a couple of different choices of black powder and shot some groups at 50 yards. I would shoot a five shot group and then clean before trying again. Four groups all ran 2" or a little over with one load putting the first 4 into one hole and opening up on the fifth shot, that might be blamed on fouling?

I recovered one bullet from the dirt behind the target and it looked more like a 50 cent piece than a bullet. It had a little less than 1/4" of its base intact and the rest was a very nice mushroom. Lubed bullets weighed 337 grains and the recovered bullet weighed 323 grains with all dirt removed. Seems like it held together prett well.... Bullets measured .457 as cast - a tad small for my Marlin maybe but I would think that obturation made them fit.

The other thing I noticed was that the HP seems to be slightly off center, isn't there someone that offers a repair/fix for that problem?

Anyway I think that if I fine tune a little that these bullets will do just fine for my purpose.

Thanks
Ward

[Dale53]

DALE53

So with the duplex powder dispenser, are you using some sort of MEC bar that slides back and forth dropping both powders? Do you like the LDP wads? I was always a little shy of putting anything plastic into the powder mix...

As for the Gould, since it was designed during the black powder era, it should have not required any alloy much beyond lead and tin. I just wasn't sure what would give the best results... Probably will try a couple anyway...

Ward

Yes, I used the MEC bar and frame from the top of the discarded shotshell loader (you can often find these for not much money at flea markets). I used powder bushings from a MEC loader by trial and error until I had what I needed (you can alter the bushings by drilling out or filling the cavity to meet your needs). If you have access to a lathe making bushings for your specific needs would be a "piece of cake".

Using black powder, I would try alloys from 30/1 lead/tin (which is my favored BPCR Silhouette alloy) to as soft as 50/1 lead/tin. However, with the Gould, it looks like you already may have what you need (25/1 lead/tin).

Of course, dirt has a lot more resistance than flesh, but the Gould won it's reputation on performance so I suspect it'll do just fine in flesh.

Straight black powder or duplex smokeless + black should work just dandy with this classic bullet and the alloys we have discussed.

When deer season rolls around, let us know how the Gould worked for you...

Dale53

[IcerUSA]

WARD O
I would check to make sure the pin is center of the cavity . Mine is not so it will forever be off center as the pin is put in the blocks after the cavity has been cut and the mould has set on the shelf . My asumpsion, if it was done in the same setup it would be center. Only takes a couple thousands of an inch off too look bad .

Keith

[WARD O]

So is there any fix for the off center HP pin?

Ward

[Dale53]

ward o;
If the pin is bent, then a new pin will put you right. However, if the mould is drilled off-center it needs to go back to Lyman for replacement.

Dale53