Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Is 2400-2500 fps possible for rifles?

Never poured my own, but I'm interested in casting for my 9.3x62. I would like to make cast bullet loads which duplicate the velocities of my jacketed loads. I like the idea of making my own bullets which will do the same work jacketed ones will do.

Based on a bit of research I'm thinking perhaps a WW gaschecked bullet could be driven at these speeds. What are the common concerns or pitfalls for this sort of idea?

Well, yes and no. Yes it can be done, and no it can't without paying very strict attention to details.

First off, forget the WW alloy. It won't withstand the pressures/velocity you're talking about. They will lead up your barrel to a fare-thee-well, and accuracy will likely suck. At the very least plan on heat treating them- you want an alloy a lot harder than the bhn 11-14 typically provided by straight WW's. Linotype is an excellent alloy for such work. Shoot for bhn 20-24 hardness. All the rules concerning bullet fit in the barrel apply doubly here also- mainly size them .0005" under throat diameter regardless of what the groove diameter is. Use an excellent lube or you'll be sorry too. Follow those basic protocols and you'll attain your velocity goal. Whether or not you get good accuracy is a toss up. Be prepared to spend a lot of time experimenting with alloys, mould designs, powders, lubes, etc. before you hit the right combination. It isn't as easy a goal to reach as accuracy at the 1600-2000fps range is. A worthy/fun endeavor though.

Now for the bad news: bullets of a hardness that will allow such high velocity can't be expected to expand reliably on game animals. If anything, you should expect fragmentation if heavy bone is hit, but forget about the classic mushroomed bullets we expect to see from jacketed designs at that velocity. Without hitting bone and fragmenting, they will punch through rather a lot like a FMJ military bullet. Frankly, I think you would be better served with a soft alloy at 2000fps- it'll mushroom and kill them deader than dead. Of course all this is a moot point if paper targets are the only thing you plan to kill.

There is another technique available to guys with a doctorate in bullet casting wizardry- two piece lead bullets. Hard as sin bases with butter soft forward sections. I only know of their existence, never having messed with them. I'm sure others here have done so and hopefully will chime in.

Good luck, and keep us appraised of your progress, for that is how we all learn.

It's certainly possible to push cast bullets that fast, but doing so with no leading and top accuracy will take some fiddling and everything needs to be right in regards to bullet fit/sizing, lube and alloy/hardness.

I find it reasonable to get good accuracy with cast up to about 2000 fps and change, but once you get to 2200 or beyond it's graduate level work.

I'd suggest scrubbing the bore to be squeeky clean i.e. not jacket fouling, take a cast of the chamber throat to get dimensions and have a mold build to match your chamber. WW's should be fine if you heat treat them. Dropping the bullets from the mold into a 5 gal bucket of water works fine. I'd start with LBT blue lube.

PS, if you're barrel has a fast twist 1-10 or faster then you might find your goal very difficult to reach. I find barrels with a 1-14 or slower twist much more friendly for higher speed endevours.

Powder coating crowd make claims of much higher velocities that the OP is looking for. Search for powder coating cast bullets.

Thanks for the information guys, this is starting to look pretty complex. I was actually planning on making softnoses for hunting using Ross Seyfried's method. I'd like to stay away from linotype if possible since I don't like how much lighter it is. My rifle is a JES rebore and is 1/14 if I remember correctly.

NOE has some neat mold options for this diameter. What mold material do you prefer, iron, brass or aluminum?

Ok, I'll bite. I don't read everything ever printed on the subject and that one got past me. What is Ross Seyfried's method?

Mould material I prefer? Whatever it happens to be. I'm not particular. All my moulds are either iron or aluminum. Been meaning to try a brass one some time. I will say it is easier to damage an aluminum mould, but one should be handling one's moulds carefully, no?

I have my 7x57 runin at 2415fps with 1 1/4 at 100yds accuracy and have killed animals to 185 yds with a softnosed bullet

I cast up a batch of 160gn bullets in 50/50 (ww/Pb) and cut a 65gn portion from the nose


I put a soft nose into the mould and heat it for about 30 sec in the pot which takes the nose to an almost liquid state and then fill it with lino.

They work very well for hunting

and are quite accurate with 2209 being the same powder as H4350
This was adjusting the scope


I ran my 404 Jeffery to over 2400fps as well with 87gn of the same powder under a 370gn cast heat treated bullet so annealing the nose would make it suitable for hunting as well.

That is all good stuff - for the traditional lube and bare lead bullets. However, you can throw most of that out the window with powdercoating. Softer alloys are possible, and it's easier to get decent accuracy, with no concerns about bore leading. To be fair, I haven't achieved the tack-driving accuracy of some jacketed bullets, but hunting accuracy is easy with minimal load development.

The bullets at 11:00 and 3:00 in this pic are 168gr 30 cals that I shoot in my semi-auto 308, with a full charge of 4895. These are cast from air cooled wheel weights, and deliver 2-2.5 moa. The bullet at 1:00 is the same thing, but fired at 1,000 fps into firewood, and recovered.


The bullet on the far left, and second on the left, of this pic is the 245gr Saeco 352, pushed from my 35 Remington short barrel pump gun at 2150 fps, cast from air cooled wheel weights. This is lower velocity than you are after, but about the same or higher pressure (I'm dealing with a small case and short barrel.)

Just noticed I missed your reply about powder coating in the other casting thread. I'll try to post some info later tonight.

I'm standing by for your info Yondering, the powder coating is news to me.

VonGruff, do you mean to say you put pure lead in the mold first, and then top it off with linotype?

Here's a link to the Seyfried article:

https://www.riflemagazine.com/magazine/article.cfm?tocid=974&magid=71

The gentleman that runs Mountain Molds runs full rifle pressure loads in his 30-06 with various bullet designs using heat-treated clip-on ww. He has pressure testing equipment and uses full charges of powder. Bullet fit in the throat/lands is the biggest factor for accuracy, according to him. He anneals the noses after heat-treating for hunting bullets. He has many write-ups of his own experiments on his site.

No. the nose is 50/50 ww/Pb and that is soft enough to expand but I do give them a tumble lube with thinned L L A after standard sizing and gaschecking althought my lube is a simple 60/40 bees wax/Vaseline
All very simple but very effective.

On the topic of soft-nose cast bullets - using pure lead for the nose is tricky to get a good joint, but adding just a little tin makes the process pretty easy.

I think the 50/50 ww/Pb nose is the way to go though if you are heat treating (or water dropping) the bullets, it remains soft enough, but not too soft. Pure lead is way too soft for rifle velocity, if you're going to hunt anything other than varmints.

If you can get away with straight air cooled wheel weights though, no soft point is necessary. Depending on meplat size and velocity, you might even want to harden them a little.

Just started a new thread on the topic, here: Dry tumble powder coating

pabucktail

If you want the simple easy version.

Here is how I do it.

I shoot a 35 whelen 210gr cast bullet to 2500fps. No leading and consistent accuracy.

How do I do it you say?

I take my WW alloy and water drop them. Let them age for a week or so, load and shoot. Make sure you have a bit more tin in the alloy, tin will make the alloy "tougher" or hold together upon impact and not 'fragment' or 'splatter'.

Note, tougher is not HARDER.
A hard bullet will shatter upon impact.

Tin makes the lead tougher for impact.
Arsenic when water quenching makes the bullet harder for shooting. Plus it only hardens the outside, once in the middle of the bullet after initial impact the 'tougher' takes over. At least that is my belief.

You do not need to go to (in my opinion) the extreme method of powder coating, or a two part bullet or heat treating them in an oven.

Oh yea, I get very good expansion and penetration with my WQWW's. (water quenched wheel weights)

I use a combo of several lubes that happen to be in my sizer. One of which is speed green, some red stuff and some yellow stuff. Felix lube is the one in there now as I recall.

I size mine to about one thousandth over bore dia, load and shoot.

Nothing special about my powder primer or case.

NOE (Al) is a good friend and I would recommend you try one of his aluminum moulds, they are not the LEE Alum, it is better stuff! heavier, nicer quality, and he stand behind his stuff. Make sure you get some GC's from him when you order. When you need more GC's , check out blammersboard.com

Not sure why you'd want such high velocity, perhaps for practice? same POI as your regular ammo?

If you want the cast to do the same work as your jacketed, you may get the same results but at a slower velocity if hunting game. Target shooting you'll want the velocity for distance.

Just remember, you may not get the same accuracy at the same speed of your jacketed ammo.

here is a pic of my target, load, and distance.

yea, got excited on the last shot...

LOL! I've blown many a 5-shot group too!! I try not to pay attention to where and how the bullets are landing when I can anymore! I too have had great performance with water-dropping COWW with 1-2% tin added. I haven't been able to get to 2500fps though. 2200 has been my top end so far. Trying the powder coating, when I can get to it.

Good info Blammer. I'm a Whelen shooter as well. How much tin are you talking, 2% or something more?

FWIW, re. powder coating being an "extreme measure", doing it my way is about the same effort as Lee tumble lube, less work than a traditional luber-sizer. Unconventional yes, but not what I'd call "extreme" by any stretch.

It sounds just like another good way to skin a cat; the only thing the powder coating would make me leery about (or I would at least caution) is that using a softer alloy is still going to obturate to a greater degree than a heat treated or jacketed bullet, theoretically increasing pressures.

I have no doubt that coating can get great jacketed speed, or at least get there without leading, but I'd be cautious about using any jacketed data. Of course, the same applies for cast loads in general.

The left two holes were from a 375gr. LFN .416 (sized to .413) and the right were fired before, a Barnes TSX 300gr. .411. The Barnes clock 2,485, the cast ones right at 2,250. Plain jane water dropped wheelweights.



Here's 5 shots softnosed/heat treated base 46 grainers from a 22 Hornet. The load was 13 grs. Lil' Gun and clocked 2,900 fps. We shot the cast/jacketed stuff alternately like the 400 Whelen loads; pretty much have done speeds anywhere from 2,400-2,900 with 222 Magnum, 308 Win., 35 Whelen and 375 HH.



The softnosed concept, I think, allows a bit more weight retention, if that's desired. WW's will do a good job creating a wound channel, but tend to powder down as they shed weight at higher jacketed speed.

I usually use at least 1-20 nose if impact speeds are above 2,200 or so. I've never collected one from the critters yet and even dug a few feet in the dirt to no avail.
A flatnose 35 Whelen 250 grainer at 2,500 literally leaves entrances and a wound channel the diameter of a beer can!

I have some dental lead that registers 17 BHN, but it is extremely ductile and has little (if any) antimony in it. I think its a lead/tin/silver alloy.

I'd like to poke a critter with that ductile 17 nose and a shank of 28-30. I'd bet retention would be impressive. Don't think I could get a big enough critter to collect it though!

Yondering, 2% is about right to do the job.

Blammer, you mentioned arsenic but I don't understand what you mean. I would want to keep away from that stuff.

My goal in all this is to basically do what partitions do with my 9.3x62 with 286 grainers, which have a velocity of 2400 in my 20.5' barrel. I thought it would be fun to make my own high performance bullets on the cheap. I also need a load with that bullet for grouse loads with a target velocity of 1500-1800.

HawkI, that hornet bullet looks perfect. What alloy do you use and how do you heat treat?

Pabuck, trace amounts of arsenic in Wheel Weights (~1/4%) will not harm you if you cast as normal temps and do so in a ventilated area. The temp required to vaporize it is quite a bit higher than most use when casting.

Take a look here; much discussion about hardening lead alloys.

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

pa,

I use mostly heat treated WW alloy (with slightly more tin and antimony) to cast the base and used to use an alloy of 1-20 for rifle noses and pure lead for handguns/shotguns/muzzleloaders.

A good rifle alloy without heat treating would be air cooled linotype shank and a WW nose.

Going "arsenic free" isn't necessary and would make the inexpensive part of casting go out the window; it also limits the flexibility that WW alloy provides.

Digitaldan has the arsenic answer.

it's in the WW alloy already so no worries.

it's also present in magnum shot for shotguns or the hardened lead shot for shotguns, you can spoon in a few oz's of magnum lead shot to get the same effect.

Blammer,
Will your gas checks work on a Lyman #358009 286 gr?
whelennut

Pabucktail
I remember a Handloader magazine that had an article
about cast bullets in a 300 win mag.
I believe they wrapped the bullets in teflon tape. I will look for it.

yes they will

One of the things not mentioned so far is the use of paper patch. I know, it sounds almost like black magic and chitt. It ain't. I can patch 50 bullets in an hour, assuming the patch strips are already cut. 30 minutes with the paper cutter and you got yourself a 5 year supply of the damn things.

Anyway, I mention this only because one can run very soft alloys at absurd velocities with this approach. Here's the general rule of thumb for paper patching with SMOKELESS powder. Do not use these specs for BP.

Bullets may be cast for paper patch with or without grease grooves. I prefer smooth sided bullets intended for the application.

-Diameter should equal BORE dimensions.
-Patch to GROOVE dimension.
-Use a flat base bullet design if you expect peak pressures to exceed 35KPSI and are using pure lead. If using a straight wall case you can get some wiggle room with use of a card wad under the bullet. Disregard this if using harder alloy.
-For typical barrel geometry the following dims will work:
The difference between groove and bore in modern guns is typically in the range of .008". Ergo, for a .308 caliber, your bullet should be cast, swagged or sized to .300". Use 9# onionskin paper with at least 25% cotton fiber, long enough to make two complete wraps around the bullet, extending from the transition between ogive and shank to a point long enough to allow you to twist the tail, or just long enough to fold the patch over the base as you prefer. The strip should be damp to wet when applied. It will shrink and result if a very tight "jacket" that is likewise very tough. Load as you would a jacketed bullet, albeit that you must put a slight flare in the case mouth. Lube the patch with 60/40 beeswax and Vaseline applied by finger wipe. Do not roll crimp the case mouth. Taper crimp or just enough with the standard crimp to flatten the flare. You did use a very subtle touch to flare the case mouth, right? Heal the discrepancy in the same spirit. Harshly crimped patches will lead with amazing enthusiasm.

Pure lead bullets so patched can reach about 2,000 fps effectively. Alloyed bullets, such as 50/50 wheel weights and lead are capable of something around 3,000 fps. If you cast and water quench the bullets I'm not sure there is a limit.

I shoot sub MOA with such stuff in two guns. What's in your wallet?



Something died, many bones broken, organs pureed etc...

I've shot quite a few paper patched loads as well, through my 35 Whelen. They do work really well, and can give equal accuracy and higher velocity than jacketed bullets of the same weight. My best load was a 250gr flat nose from Mountain Molds (traditional lube groove & gas check bullet) at 2800 fps, that shot under 3/4" @ 100.

I found results to be just as good using traditional lube groove bullets, you don't have to use a straight sided paper patch bullet. I also found the best results when the paper got compressed by sizing; I wrap as-cast bullets (.360") in plain white printer paper, then push them through a .360" polished Lee sizer die after they dry. This compresses the paper into a hard almost plastic-like shell.

One caveat is don't bother with paper patched bullets through a muzzle brake; the accuracy is terrible.

what's really funny about this thread, there is a guy i have known for years that says he has three different loading manuals that state you should not use lead in excess of 1000fps or you will get leading. I sent him a link to this thread, he saw it and ignored it, which i think is funny as i have been casting for years and know it isn't true, regardles of what the three loading manuals say.
Like the 250grain jobbers in .375winchester i am looking at right now, at a rather sedate 1800fps. No problems.

Paper patching is interesting and definitely has merits, but I live in the rain forest. I doubt such ammo would be happy at the end of a normal day here. The teflon tape idea is interesting, I've never heard of it.

Pabuck, teflon is a transient fad for those who just heard of it. They recover without help from meetings.

Prudently assembled, paper patch bullets aren't weather sissies. No sir, they hold up just dandy. That mangled wad of lead posted above was launched towards the end of a solid afternoon rain that was dropping about 1/2"/hr up in Mississippi. I sat there for near 3 hours wondering just where it was I'd lost my mind.

Ya see, it's the target shooters that as often as not load with dry patch. I don't know they are lazy or think there's an advantage to tell the truth. My own loads have about 1/32" of paper exposed forward of the case mouth and after the patch dries it gets lubed with 50/50 Beeswax and Vaseline. I'm reasonably confident I could leave them in a glass of water for a day or two and they'd still fire when needed. My bullets are tapered...

Whiskey might be another story.

Nothing to add here. Just marking "My Stuff" so I can Learn something here. I want to know about this paper patch stuff. It is very cool indeed!

Somewhere around I have a pic of a target shot sometime back with the patched .77/44. Only 50 yards, but three shots in .6" ain't terrible offhand. It takes a wee bit of time to learn the craft and just a bit more to work up a load. I've yet to have a significant problem in developing loads for anything tried to date. Wrap up good bullets with the right load and it's pretty much a slam dunk.

Having learned the process and such, it takes about 5 minutes to cut enough patches to last a decade. About another hour to patch 50 bullets. Go have some whiskey while they dry, 10 minutes to lube and the rest of your time allocation goes to conventional loading mechanics. I run about 1600 fps out the muzzle with the .44 and a 300 grain bullet. The .45-70 uses 510 grains and gets close enough to 1800 fps to call it. It ain't a load you want to put in a Trapdoor Springfield.

Gibs, check your PM.