I have made my own 405gr. flat based bullets out of wheel weights.I have sized and lubed them. The four out of the five shot groups,shoot in a 1.5 to2 inch group at 100yd,but always end up with a flier. I am shooting a Marlin 1895 cowboy made in 2004.Would anyone have some direction in load data.

I shoot a 457193 Lyman 420 grain flatnosed bullet in my Cowboy Marlin. My most accurate bullets are cast 30-1 lead to tin. I do shoot a lot of wheelweight bullets, but find that the accuracy on them is not as good as the 30-1 alloy.

I feel the reason for this is that the wheelweights do not give as consistently high quality bullets as the 30-1. The fill out is not as good, and the weights of the wheelweight bullets have more variation than the bullets from 30-1.

This is due to three things--the lack of perfect fill out from bullet to bullet, internal voids that you can't see, and the torn, inconsistent sprue that you get with wheelweights as compared to 30-1 lead to tin. Careful weighing will help find the voids, and relentless visual inspection will take care of the mold fill out and torn sprue issues.

The cold, hard truth is that you don't shoot any better than the quality of the bullet that comes out of your barrel. I strongly suspect that your flyers are directly related to the quality of the bullets you are casting. One flyer in five shots is fairly common.

My 45-70 Cowboy Marlin will pour them into one ragged hole if I can see the target well enough to get the right sight picture. It does it with 70 grains of 2f or 70 grains of 3f black powder, or 37.5 grains of 3031. It is a great rifle. Good luck.

What velocity are you looking for? With plain based cast bullets, you want to keep the velocity @ 1200-1300 fps. With a gas-checked bullet, you can go considerably higher, up 1800 fps or so.

I use GC bullets, and run a 425 grain flat point @ approximately 1600 fps, using RL7. Somewhere in the 40-44 grain range you should find a good load.

One last tip, if you have ever shot jacketed bullets in the rifle , be SURE that you clean all the copper out of the bore before shooting lead bullets.

Ditto all of the above. Or just don't shoot the round with the "flier" bullet loaded in it .

I get clover leafs at 50 metres with irons on my Buffalo Classic, and use wheel weights quenched in water, tumble lubed and shot as cast from a Lee mould. But I've always been rather lucky with wheel weights and gun powder.

thanks for all the info. surely appreciated!!

Which shot is the flier? Is it always the same one? If it's the last one, it could be from the barrel heating up. Are you feeding every shot through the magazine, or just dropping the last one in the open chamber? It could be a technique issue.

I also use the little orphan Lee Mould and the lowly WW lead. I lube the 405 with SPG. I have not baptised the bullets but do size to.458 they shoot great in my old Mdl. 86' SRC.