Lee .309 150 FP cut down to 135 grains W/O a gas check.

[Farmer&shooter]

Gas checks being as expensive as they are, and wanting just a plinker at about 1200 FPS in my .30WCF sagebrush hike carbine, I milled just enough off the top of my Lee, .309 150 grain Flat Point mold (number 90366) to make a flat base boolit with no gas check shank. I then remounted the sprue plate. The resulting boolits are approx. 135 grains from wheel weights, and are the perfect plinker. They are more accurate than the .309, 113 grain Lee Flat Point, mold number 90362. Plus, as an inconsequential bonus, the shells with the 135 grain slug look "right" (proportional), which is always so important to Jack Rabbits.
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Edit: Hopefully this is a picture of the original bullet and the shorter, 135 grain new one.

[GoodOlBoy]

Would love to see pictures of this. Sounds like a heck of an idea!

GoodOlBoy

[Urny]

Farmershooter, did you try shooting the original configuration boolits as is without gascheck to compare with the new ones? Just wondering how much of an accuracy improvement is likely by milling off that gas check shank.

[Ben]

Where are the photos ? ?

We MUST have photos of your new bullets !

Ben

[paul h]

Great idea! Another option to pb a 30 cal mold is to use a 5/16" reamer to get rid of the gas check shank.

[Farmer&shooter]

Urney, I didn't. From my Model 94, I doubt I could have detected a difference. I wanted to save a little lead and have very light recoil for my Grandson. My experience has been that it is difficult to detect a difference with or without a gas check on a gas check design as long as the velocity is kept down to about 1200 fps or less.

[Farmer&shooter]

Paul, I didn't follow you here. How could a reamer take off the base of the boolit?

[GP100man]

Is`nt 5/16 .3125" ???

[MT Gianni]

Paul, I didn't follow you here. How could a reamer take off the base of the boolit?

It would ream the check portion to .309" or so. resulting weight would be 150+ 2-3 grains.

[Farmer&shooter]

GP100man and MT Gianni,
I see, but the idea was to get a lighter, less lead consuming bullet.

[GoodOlBoy]

I like what ya did.

GoodOlBoy

[GP100man]

I can surely understand the thoughts on conserving lead as COWWs are slowly getting harder to find!

If the 135gr boolit fits the bill then good on ya as I have 2 young ladies that are kinda recoil sensitive & I don`t want em to progress to something that "KIKs to hard" & cause a disintrest in shooting longarms.

On the logical side of trying the 135 cutdown version ,if ya tried this with a 2 holer & it don`t works, you`re only out 20bucks or so .

I`ve been shooting em GCless & pushing em to 1500fps or so in a Marlin Micro Grooved barrel & getting good accuracy but it kinda goes south after 1500. I`d be interesting to see how the 135 does on the hi end.

GP

[Urny]

I agree that saving 10% or more lead per shot is a good objective, and the mold chosen is probably a good one for that. A light recoiling load for the grandson is also a laudable goal. Hope you both enjoy it.

[Blammer]

the 311316 is a dandy too at only 115gr.

[MT Gianni]

I dehorned a Lee 30x113 that weighs in around 117 gr and shoots OK.

[leadman]

Sounds like to OP got just what he needed at little risk. Sorta duplicates the Lyman 130gr plain base, but less expensive.

[WALLNUTT]

I had a friend mill off a double cavity RCBS 180FN to about 138g PB. Made a great bullet for light loads.