Got some rain the other day which kept me inside so I spent the day in the dungeon fooling around . Found a mold I'd bought sometime back , a Lee six cavity marked 314-115 . I warmed it up with whatever mystery metal was in the pot and made a small pile of bullets .
They measured at .3145" or so and mostly round , they got two light coats of Ben's liquid lube and let dry well but no sizing at all .
The intent was to load them in my number one MkIII that has a groove diameter of .314" (ish) .
First try was a Lee powder scoop holding 6.6 grains of Bullseye . Seated to 2.610" using a Lee seating die , incidentally the Lee die was scraping off the lube from the front driving band . While all shots hit the black of a pistol target at thirty yards I was not impressed with the accuracy . One of the wise men I know suggested to turn down the powder charge a bit . OK , so I did .........................
Second try I did two charge weights 3.0 and 3.2 of Bullseye and failing to change only one thing at a time . I switched the seating die to a Redding and further sinned by seating the bullets to 2.560". Well forgive me or don't , it worked , The three grain load was larger than the 3.2 by enough to say that it would work for my needs .
The down side of the load is that it hits to the right of my heavy loads . Since I'm not going to bump the front sight back and forth , I'll have to just deal with it or wait for the donation of another rifle to the pile .
Maybe a good thing is , I have one of those Mosin zip guns that may like this bullets so all is not lost huh?
Oh and My thanks to the wise council of the frozen north
Jack