Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Epiphanies

As some of you may recall, some time ago I started fiddling with a project that lead to the .30 Sneezer being developed. It has been interesting and quite rewarding. A couple of pigs have found that lead is not a good dietary supplement as a result. That said, when I started out with this wildcat my initial cast bullets were 30:1 alloy and shot like this. May be difficult to read the data, but they were trotting along at 1050 fps +/-.



Following this I took a moment to reflect and harden up the alloy to something in the 10-11 BHN range. It got a lot better to say the least, but in the process I had discarded a number of powders deemed of little use. I settled on the standard load of 5.2 grains of Blue Dot with an ALOX lubed 180 grain'ish bullet from a mould by Steve Brooks. That said, I had tried another bullets, the Lyman 311041 w/o gas check and seen some improvement, but at the high end of hardness (BHN13-14) they were leading the barrel a fair bit.



On a bit of a lark I recently decided to revisit the discarded powders with the "new" lead just for the sake of curiosity and with both bullets. It was something that made me smile a bit to say the least. Apparently the only powder that makes the gun puke is 800X when coupled with the Brooks bullet. Only problem now is deciding which load I prefer. Or maybe just quit worrying about it and go kill pigs.

Shot today in order:


The first target was comprised of culls that needed disposal. These were my "junk" loads. The "4X" or "5X" means the number of shots for each round.

Second target with the loads I was curious about.


It's all about the details, hey?

Dan-O,
Tis all about stuff that doesnt matter until it does.

The hardness deal varies as much as the gun itself at times, that and the shotgun powder too!

Did you just add more tin to get the hardness up there?

Naw, just added wheel weight to some 30:1. About 1:2 ratio.

You sizing for the Sneezer?

All them variables..

Have one mould that throws "under" with wheelweights. Its groove diameter, but wont shoot worth a hoot from the rifle in question unless its lino.

Size to .309" for both bullets, barrel groove is .308". The Lyman mould is an old one made back with men were steel and ships were wood. I've never cast a bullet from straight wheel weights, dunno how that would work out. A fired and unsized case accepts a bullet with light resistance. Using a taper crimp for both....very light.

I ran some of the 311-041 version thru this Winchester a few years back, alloy of the harder version mentioned above. Groove is .308 also.


50 yard line, elbow rest. Looks good enough to smack a pig or deer maybe.


I haven't been casting all that long, maybe 15 years. Started out feeding an ancient BP target rifle that required pure lead bullets, and I'll tell you that casting and use of a hammer swage right out of the gate is educational. One of the things I think influences success or failure with alloy choice/sizing goes to the matter of pressure required to obturate the bullet. I think that's what happened with the harder alloy 311041 that leaded the Sneezer so thoroughly. Same bullets didn't leave a trace in the .30-30. If you haven't seen it take a look at the linked site and peruse the section where they have the table on minimum PSI to obturate different alloys versus the max pressure they can withstand. I've used the site for reference in several undertakings and while I don't agree with everything they say 100% I find the site a very good guide map.

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

The perps.....

Not very many new casters want to experiment very much with sussing out the correct alloy to use for a specific bullet at a specific velocity in a specific gun. Intuitively a "one size fits all" approach using a hard-as-woodpecker lips alloy for everything should suffice for all one's needs. 'Tain't so, McGee.

I might have to chamber my next single shot project (Martini Cadet) for that .30 Sneezer. Dan's arguments for same are very compelling.

Truth.

Matching the alloy hardness to the peak cartridge pressure goes a long way toward good results. Some guys argue pure lead is best, others argue hard as you can get is best, but really it comes down to what it's being used in, and the right answer is at either end or usually somewhere in between.

Dan - for that Sneezer, if you're shooting it suppressed try Green Dot. Accuracy should be similar to the others you showed, but you'll be pleasantly surprised by the lower sound signature.

Thanks for that suggestion, Green Dot is one of the only powders I don't have.

FWIW, and perhaps it's the can, but "Sneezer" is a perfect name for the round. It isn't loud at all.

Well if you don't have any, that's a great excuse to get some!

I've found Green Dot to be one of the quietest powders for suppressed use with my cast bullet loads in a wide variety of cartridges, from 9mm up to at least 35 Remington and 35 Whelen. 3.3gr of it under my 180gr 9mm bullet in FC 9mm brass is a very quiet load.

American Select is a good choice too; both of those are significantly quieter than most other pistol and shotgun powders I've tried.

I have mild concerns that if I made it any quieter it would almost be Hollywood quiet and people might think I'm a liberal queer.

As it is, a reliable and calibrated sound meter laying on the bench reports peak sound volume hovering around 80-85 dba with each shot using current loads in the 1025-1050 fps range. There are times when bean powered that I can almost fart that loud.

I found this on the inna-net, so you know it must be true!

Noise Levels dBA / Decibels Home dBA

refrigerator 50 ­ 60
electric toothbrush 50 ­ 75
washing machine 50 ­ 75
air conditioner 50 ­ 80
electric shaver 55
coffee percolator 55 ­ 70
dishwasher 60
sewing machine 60 ­ 85
vacuum cleaner 60 ­ 95
hair dryer 65 ­ 80
alarm clock 70
TV audio 70 ­ 80
coffee grinder 70 ­ 95
garbage disposal 75 ­ 85
flush toilet 80
pop­up toaster 80
doorbell 80
ringing telephone 80
whistling kettle 80 ­ 90
food mixer or processor 80 ­ 90
average male sneeze 90
blender 80 ­ 95
garbage disposal 110
baby crying 110
squeaky toy held close to the ear 135

On point of discussing alloy hardness and other fine minutiae I'll toss this in as well. The LASC website discusses the fine points about bullet casting and it would be a mistake to imply their guidance as applicable to all lead bullets. Quite the contrary. One might assume that pure lead would work in the upper 30 KPSI envelope, but it will, if wrapped in paper. Who would have thought a little piece of paper could make that much difference? Well, it does, and when coupled with proper bullet form it works quite well. There's a reason Paul Matthews named his book "The Paper Jacket".





Dead Deer.....with a hair over 280 grains retained weight.

No offense intended, but the only reason you're getting 80-85 dB readings is because your sound meter isn't adequate for measuring gunshot sounds. It takes a fairly expensive and specific meter to measure gunshots, suppressed or not, and most anything else will just read 80-90 dB. Your suppressed shots are definitely not only 80-85 dB; even a "hollywood quiet" suppressed long barrel 22 rifle is around 110-112 dB, and that is a VERY quiet shot sound. It's a fast peak that causes the decibel level to be higher than you'd expect, but from a few feet sounds a lot like shooting a spitwad out of a straw. Even if your Sneezer is magically a little quieter than that (which I seriously doubt), it's not several orders of magnitude lower to be in the 80 dB range.

Also - a lot of the dB readings you'll find on the internet are recorded with similar devices to yours, and are similarly flawed data.

OK.

It still sounds about like a healthy sneeze to my ears, albeit a lower frequency.

I'm not a sound tech. The meter gives me the option of "peak" or continuous . Get about the same numbers either way. I've been measuring this from about where the gun receiver is, not at the muzzle.

Doesn't really matter where you measure from with a meter like that; side of the gun, muzzle, etc. The simple fact is, most common sound meters are not capable of measuring gunshots, suppressed or not. If you got any reading in the 80-90 dB range and were anywhere close to the gun, it's a bad reading. It would be analogous to strain gauging your barrel but having inadequate measuring equipment that clips the peak, and then reporting that your cartridge only runs at 5,000 psi.

This is especially common with smartphone "sound measuring" apps, but they neglect to tell you that the microphone isn't even capable of registering anything higher than ~90 dB or so. Some software attempts to predict where the clipped peak would have been, but I've yet to hear of anything that works right.

BTW stop by the NFAtalk forum if you're interested in suppressors and sound measurements and stuff like that. It's a small group of like-minded people that is pretty squared away, unlike most larger forums.

OK.

No point in great debate on this. It still sounds like a sneeze. Neighbors haven't a clue what I'm doing. I can hit 130+ dba in the meter with my version of a dog bark imitation. Easy.

It isn't a cell phone app.

Sounding like a sneeze is in the right ballpark for mid-110-120 dB suppressed shots. Much like a good suppressed .22 bolt action, or certain centerfires tuned to be really quiet. I'm not saying your rifle isn't quiet - I'm sure it is, and believe your description of the sound since that matches a couple of mine as well. Just saying don't claim 85 dB to anyone who knows what realistic numbers are for this stuff. Also saying that you might be able to get it even quieter yet with Green Dot. Nothing wrong with making it even better if you can.

I'm not trying to debate with you, just offering some info since I have experience with this stuff. On the meter numbers - there's a huge difference between very fast impulse sounds like gunshots, and longer duration sounds like most anything else you've compared it to. The difference shows up bigtime on the meter relative to what we perceive with our ears. A 125 dB sustained noise seems pretty loud, but a 125 dB suppressed 9mm seems pretty quiet, with stuff like a dog bark or slamming car door somewhere in between. Tone makes a big difference too, and that's part of where a powder like Green Dot is better; some powders make a sharper higher tone, while others sound dull and flat which seems quieter to our ears even if the meter numbers are the same. I've found that WSF powder, for example, usually is much less pleasant sounding when suppressed, and I don't use it for suppressed loads for that reason.

"He dazzled me with science!" LOL. It's all good, as long as the neighbors don't hear it I'm satisfied.

Well, OK. Science wins, pigs lose. About a year back I had occasion to plink a pair of hoglets out of a herd of about 30. They were is a wee clear area in the woods, distance ranging from 20 to 30 yards. Shot the first and there was a very brief scurry by about half of them and by the time I reloaded they were back to rooting around in the leaves. Shot the second and the rest scurried off into the brush. They didn't go far at all and based on how they left the clearing it was obvious they did not know where the annoying sound was coming from. Big ears, small brains I guess.

Thinking about a movie concept as a result of the dialog here. "The Fat, Bad and the Dead". What ya think?

Only if you get Eastwood to star in it.