Gearing up for 8mm Mauser

[Soundguy]

if you add a gas checked and drop the bhn..the as cast size should drop from increased shrinkage. then size it...323 or so.

[Wolfdog91]

So after the initial sizing I went to powder coat these....aaaannnnnnd couldn't find any of the stuff I had seom smoke.... Allll I had was this.


But said screw i gotta do what I gotta do. Place a order for more of smokes stuff but till then.... Decided bre heading the bullets would be the way to go

Aannnddd ugh just such a crappy coating

Tired hand tumbling using my vibratory tumbler , even messed with trying to see what would be the best temperature to pre heat but .... egh..

End up doing like three coats


Just terrible but they shouldnt do any leading


Compared to smokes on the left


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[405grain]

Wolfdog: I was casting some 225 grain 30 caliber bullets the other day in a Hoch mold, and I was getting a rough finish in the middle of the bore riding section on the bullets nose. This defect looked kinda like the ones on your bullets. After a little experimenting I found that this effect was not heat related (in my mold), but was a general character of the bullets I was casting. To correct this problem I tossed the defective bullets back in the pot and started pressure casting. (Not sure if this is the official term or not, but I'll explain what I was doing and other more experienced casters can correct me if it's called something else) When you are casting normally with a bottom pour pot the weight and momentum of the stream of alloy is what provides the force for the liquid metal to fill the mold. I was placing the sprue opening on the mold directly in contact with the spout on the bottom of the pot and filling the mold that way. With the mold in contact with the spout the "head", or weight of the metal inside the pot becomes the force that pushes the molten metal into the mold. It's a little tricky because you have to lower the mold away from the spout just a bare moment before you cut off the flow of alloy so that a sprue will form on the top of the mold. You need that puddle of metal on top of the sprue plate so that there will be some metal to feed into the mold as the bullet solidifies and contracts. Once I started doing the "pressure casting" the bullets from that mold came out perfectly formed. It's an easy thing to try next time your casting with that mold, and it will either work or it won't.

Do yourself a solid and and fling that Harbor Freight powder coat in the dumpster. Smokes stuff is awesome. IMHO flame red and signal blue are his best powders. Eastwood Ford Light Blue is also a proven powder for bullets, and works really good.

[Wolfdog91]

So just some brass prep. Bought 100 pieces of range brass from MOJO brass a while back. Went though and found 30 pieces of PPU.
Did have any factory ammo to fire form and get measurements off of so just sized them all and see what happens as far as cleaning. Wet tumbled in water and stainless pins for a few hours with some dawn. Usually use lemmi shine too buuut think the wife tossed mine
Then trimmed de burred tumbled in rice to get rid of any lil burs still


So expanded the necks with a NOE expander plug (.324") had to change out my rice and the lil powder you get off of the new stuff made it pretty easy to see the expansion

And as you see the bullet starts in perfect. Can actually and seat these pretty deep if I wanted


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[Wolfdog91]

And some of my first shots. Started late so I only did two loads. Load came from the Lyman manual....about the only thing that book is good for imo


And as usual cast loads barley do much as far as case fill. Expecting a good bit of un burnt powder considering using a filler already but not sure

And for our COAL , custom as usual, just found jam and. Kept backing off but by but till I got a nice easy loading. I don't like hanging just because....well noting like having a bullet pull out and your chamber is full of powder


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[Wolfdog91]

So two compliments I ALWAYS get when it comes to my load testing
1. I'm not shooting off of a bench
2. My magneto speed Chronograph that fits to the barrel

So I built me this lil bench a few weeks back. Actually not bad now that I have one that actually fits me. Yeah most benchs are not made for 5'1" tall people like me and honestly it makes me prefer shooting prone

And no magneto. Now honestly I've found in most of my other rifles it doesn't cause any problems but this thing has a really long pencil barrel sooo


Aannnddd our first group


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[725]

I've always found a horizontal group tends to indicate an adjustment to overall cartridge length. Made a different seating depth will give you a "rounded" group. As always, I'm following your thread. good luck.

[Wolfdog91]

So went and gave her a cleaning, probably the first in along time .
One patch of Iosso....then I misolaced the tube so then two of JB bore paste , short stroked
Then dry patched for a bit
Two more of JB
Dry patches
Then a few of hoppes #9 traditional
Then dry patched till farily clean
Then alcohol patch

Also had to get a new scope since the last one didn't have enough windage.....o happen to notice anything? Lol


Any how the groups


I'm 100% convinced the three super UN even coats of this crappy HF powder coat are a large part of the problem. But at least I got a dect place to start on I feel with the middle load

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[gwpercle]

So after the initial sizing I went to powder coat these....aaaannnnnnd couldn't find any of the stuff I had seom smoke.... Allll I had was this.


But said screw i gotta do what I gotta do. Place a order for more of smokes stuff but till then.... Decided bre heading the bullets would be the way to go

Aannnddd ugh just such a crappy coating

Tired hand tumbling using my vibratory tumbler , even messed with trying to see what would be the best temperature to pre heat but .... egh..

End up doing like three coats


Just terrible but they shouldnt do any leading


Compared to smokes on the left


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When you get in a tight spot for Powder Coating ... just Pan Lube or Dip Lube the darn things ... I know this is hard to believe but Lubed boolits still work ...
I'm probably not supposed to say that ...
Gary

[Wolfdog91]

So got my order from smoke in yesterday and was able to make a new batch .

Lyman #2 725°-755° air cooled

then sized down ( and gas checked ) to .323"
washed them in some acatone, let em dry then ,tossed them in the tumbler with a signal blue and a lil bit of jet black. And Lord I missed how well smokes PC coated . Only five minutes in and

Now actually these aren't the best, originally tried pre heating the bullets and tubing them...buuutt headed them a little to hot and long story short I had to we tumble them for a bit to get all that off then threw them in the oven at 250° for a bit just to dry them out then back in the tumbler.
Anyhow got them coated tossed them in at 450 on the air fry function till they looked wet and shiny then dropped it down to 350 for about 10-15 then water dropped them

Siz d them again at .323" just to be safe and even though these weren't perfect there still waaayyy better then that crappy Harbor freight crap


So for today's test, honestly I said let me chill out a bit. I've been getting way too into this and freaking out , need to just have fun again. So just did three each this time . Also noticed the barrel gets pretty hot pretty quick so .... Maybe a bit better if i was able to wait long in between shots lol.

So what I did with these was I too the best shooting seating depth from the last batch and paired it with one of the better shooting powder loads
Right off the bare they **** better going from 3.5" to under 2" then I decided to keep the same charge and lengthen out the COAL ( shortened it due to the Three coats of the last powdercoat making the nose too fat ) still chambered well but mehhhh. So went back to the shorter COAL and jumped up in powder charge by .5



Aaaannndd



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[K43]

Yay!

[725]

Great development. Keep your stories coming.

[Wolfdog91]

So let it be known that ...I may be replacing my target chains soon. Lil clip from today , this thing gets down with some AUTHORITY!

[waksupi]

So let it be known that ...I may be replacing my target chains soon. Lil clip from today , this thing gets down with some AUTHORITY!

Aw man, you could have made that edge shot!

[405grain]

Great shooting! Good to see that you're getting both the rifle and the loads working better. I agree with waksupi; you coulda made that edge shot!