Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting May little Mosin Casting adventure

Just my little adventure a while ago casting for my old bubbaed Mosin

Can't wait to play with it in the old garbage rod. Slugged it out at. .313 bore so got a .316 bullet and figured that will give me lost of play around room as far as sizing it up and down.

Got to cast a few up this evening and just got the first 29 out of the oven. Gotta say I think I like casting my .22 cals compared to these 30.cals but think their good enough for this project. 100yd and in pie plate type gun. Just gotta don't know if I want to wait for my expander plugs to come in in the next day or two or if I just wanna run it with my lee expander

Welp after having this thing for......5- 6yrs now finally staring loading for it. She's been bubba's not the best bore , ect so decided I want to make it into just a good ole practical minded rifle. Nothing fancy past the strap on check piece. Will say though who ever had it last did make the trigger kinda nice


Anyhow got this mold from NOE 316-213-RN HP. Sized it down to .314 to begin with ( bore slugged at .313) gas checked powder coated instead of traditional lube. .315x.311 neck expansion IMR 4227 power .
Probably would have really helped if I was
1 not shooting off the tripod which I suck at and 2 if I don't wait till I could barley see the target...plus the rain ... But hay I was excited ..and there was a random calf walking around my back stop so had to take care of that guy anyhow hopefully itll be better tomorrow and I can get on the ground on my bipod or rest .... Still better then what I've had other people tell me about their experiences with cast in Mosin's. Not being able to say on paper at 25 , shot gun patterns , key holeing and all that goodness.

Little update in the Mosin and The NOE 316-213-RN HP.
First group of the day right at 2" @50yd . Not too loud very nice light recoil
Cased up a bunch more with a harder alloy. Checked this morning and after casting water dropping PC and water dropping again they where around 15bhn if I remember right. Sized and gas checked too .314 ( bore slugged at .313 would have went to .315 but I forgot it order a .315 sizer bushings and since I'm only home for a short amount of time I just said I'll work with this till next month ) powder coated then sized again to make sure it's still a good .314. Expanded my necks with my NOE .315 x .311 expander plug. No crimp


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So as y'all know I've been messing with cart in my Mosin and today I experienced something with it I have experience with shooting cast yet. Leading. Noticed it at the table around the crown and picked at it a little and sure enough it's leading ( along with shooting all 20 test rounds before realizing my scope rings where loose )

No big deal I prepped in advance for this but was confused as all get out . I mean I've shot cast out of my AR and .22hornet way faster then this with no problems . So while I was scrubbing her out I went down the check list and everything was there ,powder coat procedure, sizing, gas check, velocity,neck expansion...then something told me to check the alloy. Now I generally use a pretty hard alloy like 16 on the low side 19 -20 on the high side, because I play around with high velocity stuff alot. Well I got some sheet tin the other day which is supposed to be pure lead and supposed to be good for fill out so I've been adding a little to my mix thinking the little I've been adding shouldn't hurt too much.....yeah well I checked and according to my lee tester I'm at like 7.4bhn that is STUPID SOFT for anything other then paper patch of muzzleloaders so yeah....that explains that. Now I gotta try and dig though my wheel weight buckets to get enough clip on weights to make my old mix again ... Boy imma just order 50lbs of Lyman #2 alloy next month and just run off of that stuff for a while because this scrapping and scrounging for lead is for the birds lol. Not like I save money on this anyway
Another funny little learning experience

And today
Little more velocity seems to be doing something lol.

And some stuff where I bore scoped before and after cleaning the leading .

video:youtube][/video]

I did the whole chore boy thing and honestly I have to say it just plain don't seem to work like everyone said. Eveyone talks about how it rips out big chunks of lead and stuff but egh... I had a pice of paper below the bore while I was scrubbing and honestly don't see that much. Like it was getting stuff out but just not like what people said


But anyhow it's not a really hard thing to do so I put a video on and zoned out and just scrubbed for a bit and got this



And this is after I took the advice of some FClass guys and tried abrasive cleaners with nylon brushes. Use both JB AND Iosso

Okay. First, what are your goals in this exercise? If it's simply to make a tired old war horse capable of "hitting stuff" it would appear that you've accomplished that. If you wish to attain accuracy, like you've shown, at long(er) distances then fine tuning and experimentation is in order.

In this game thousandths of an inch matter. A lot. Have you done a chamber cast to see exactly what neck dimensions, throat diameter, etc. you're dealing with? Does the long bore riding nose of that bullet actually ride the bore with faint impressions from the lands? Does the major diameter of the bullet match the throat diameter? (Much more important than going by groove diameter.)

What velocity are you achieving, and is it what you want? What powders have you tried? 4227 may or may not be ideal for this rifle.

Have you tried loading/shooting this bullet plain as-cast without any fancy gyrations applied to it between the mould and the rifle barrel? In other words, have you established a base line of performance by which all things like alloy, hardness, dimensions, etc. are compared? Sometimes what we assume to be beneficial may actually be detrimental, if a basic standard hasn't been established for comparison so we know what we're dealing with.

Being a hollow point with that powder coating inside it, do you know if the stuff is evenly distributed in there? If not, that's one spot on a bullet that you don't want to be unbalanced. Yet another reason to fully explore the use of the bullet in its bare naked state first, and then trying other things that may (or may not) improve performance. Elimination of as many variables as possible is key to getting a handle on things.

Good luck! It'll be interesting to see what you can do with a good rifle with a dandy barrel.

Good luck with your new/old project. Enjoy the process.

I'm not a powder coater, so in my ignorance I have to ask...Does powder coating need to be closer to bore dimensions than lube bullets?
Us grease guys have a great deal of latitude in bullet dimensions/fit....especially with gas checks and most importantly with a good fit at the throat. It occurs to me that perhaps your bullet is oversized enough that the powder coating is sheared off in the trip down the barrel? And since I'm asking...are powder coated gas checks defeating the purpose? I don't see you mentioning velocity numbers either, I'm very curious about that.

That is a good looking bullet. A couple inches at 50 yards makes if a fully capable plinker.

Nice looking bullets Wolfdog. Looks like they are pretty accurate as well.

Jim

Guys gonna have to give me a sec lol , took 20min tryin to respond and ended duo getting a page refresh that deleted it all lol

My 1933 M91/30 Tula HEX receiver, it likes cast bullets coated, checked and sized to .314". Shoots several differ cast bullets with excellent results, including any of the Lee .312" bullets, it's favorite by far is the Accurate 31-215B which was designed by Tommy Boy, I had mine modified to cast a little larger. All bullets are cast from, 50/50 PB/COWW and quenched after coating and allow to sit about two weeks before loading.





5 shots at 50 yds.

Thanks for the info. I just got back into casting a few years ago and haven't done much for bolt guns yet other than my 77/44. I've got some loads that are working for my 45=70 guide gun so I'm working on my 444p outfitter next. Then I want to find a good mold for my 30/30s and other 30 cala. Lee has a new 6.5mm mold I'd like to get and cast and powdercoat some to see how they'll work in our 6.5 grendels.

I wish I'd have bought some of those Nagants when they were cheap.

Bb

I picked up the MP-308 Hunter HP mold late last year, after coating it produces a nice .314" dia. bullet suitable for use in my Mosins, SKS and other 30 cal. rifles sized accordingly. I have a good batch ready to load, but lots of stuff has gotten in my way of setting down at the bench and working up some test loads, but that will come soon. I'm looking forward to seeing the expansion results, but I may have to work on my allow mix a bit, just have to see.

MP-308 Hunter HP

Took my M44 and M91/30 out today to get some chrono data with a couple cast bullet loads in each rifle with the Garmin chrono. My eyes a pretty bad with iron sight right now till I get my new glasses, but they shot ok. All bullets were powder coated, gas check and sized to .314" groups were shot at 50 yds.