To Wes, Gary and others that may have been posting on on the old thread on 22 cast bullets in the last few days:
I screwed up. In an effort to update the post I sent last night I stupidly deleted the whole thread.
Let's start over again. I think a discussion on shooting small bore cast bullets would be of interest to several of our members.
Wes: Would you start by reposting your questions about your efforts with the 22 Hornet?
I am sorry to have fouled things up.
John
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I just cast some 55 gr. 22 cal. GC bullets last weekend for the 22 hornet. Lubing and sizing them this weekend. Never cast a bullet this small. Using pure linotype so the mould is working beautifully. I kinda like getting 10 22 cal bullets from 1 Hoch 550 gr creedmoor bullet. Hope to shoot some of these next weekend.
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I don't load cast for the hornet but I do for the 218 Bee. Pretty close cousin I'm thinking. My last effort was to cast pure lead from a ladle at just under 800 degrees. I got good fill out and very few rejects. I'm tumble lubing them with liquid carnauba wax for guitars and dusting them with motor mica while they are wet. They look sugar coated. I'm using small rifle primers and 3.4g of accurate arms no. 2 powder. No gas check on the Lyman 225415 45g bullet. I'm sizing the cases with a modified Lee collet die for the hornet. Mods consist of back boring with a 3/8” inch drill from the top and bottom on the collet to make room for the longer case and leave a flare at the top of the case to facilitate loading cast bullets. I would love to tell you that this confab shoots great but it don't. I'm going to cut back the charge as I get fliers off of the paper at 150 yards. Most 10 shot groups can be covered with my hand at this distance. I don't own a chronograph as I keep blowing my money on bills and groceries, along with powder and primers when I can find them. The rifle is a Ruger No.1 and I like it a lot! I get walnut sized groups at 100 to 150 yards using Hornady 50g spire points and H-110. The scope is a Weaver K6. When I got it it strung up and down about 6". I fixed that by shimming the space between the for-end hanger and barrel with sheet lead and relieving the for-end from the receiver. A friend of mine got good shooting out of his hornet with about 2.5g of bullseye and 45 to 50g plain based bullets. I've has 3 hornets and the best was an NEF single shot. For giggles I put 22 air rifle pellets in with a stick and loaded primed brass behind them. This made minute of beer can at 50 feet.
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4570sharps'
Let us know how they shoot, what rifle, twist, bullet design, and powder.
If they don't do what you want you might want to try a softer alloy.
John
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delmarskid1'
I was interested in your modification of a collet die for the hornet to work for the Bee. I have both a Bee and a 25-20 I would like to have collet dies for and of course Lee doesn't offer them in those calibers. Did you have to do something else to compensate for the hornet case being longer?
Have you tried putting a gas check on the 415 bullet?
I once murdered several starlings with 22 air rifle pellets pushed out of a 222 with only the primer.
John
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The 415 is a wonderful little bullet that shoots well and tips over bunnies really well.
Cheers from New Zealand
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I've been playing with a pre-War German single shot stalking rifle*, in 5.6x35R. Despite some claims that the cartridge is a bit different from the Hornet, I use Hornet dies for perfect functioning. Bore is .221” groove diameter, 1-8½” twist, with an ever so slight taper to it- near .220” at the muzzle, near as I can tell.
I have tried a plethora of cast bullets, all sized to .2225” using a home made brass push-through die and an antique miniature arbor press. (The die works so well that I'm dragging my feet over making a permanent steel one.) So far: 225438 (old and new designs), 225415 (50 and 55 gr.), 225450, and .22 Bator. Several PB designs waiting in the wings for trial. Alloys of mostly WW+tin, BHN12±. Javelina 50/50 lube used throughout.
The 225438's gave initial great accuracy (5/8-3/4 @ 50yds.), in the 15-1700 fps range using Bullseye and Unique. The 225415 old style 50 grains was an eye opener with 3.5 gr. Unique and 3.8gr. Universal Clays- 1/2” and less at 50 yds. I had high hopes for its fast twist + heavier bullets, and wasn't disappointed there either. The 55gr. 225415 and the .22Bator turned in nearly the same results. That Bator bullet is the one I'm going to concentrate on a bit more- the blunt short-for-weight design catches my fancy.
On a whim, I sized some 60gr. 228467's for my .22 Savage HiPower the whole way down from .230” as-cast to .2225". Darn near closed up the lube grooves. That long spire point design was well stabilized at low (1400fps) velocity in my fast twist, with accuracy that holds a lot of promise beyond the one load I tried.
Not wanting to un-balance this svelte little antique rifle with a 'modern' scope, I stuck a minty old Weaver B6 6x 3/4” scope on it, which works fine in decent light but is admittedly at a disadvantage in low light situations. I'm content to live with it for aesthetic reasons. Testing is done at 50 yds. with bullet drop confirmed at 75 and 100 yds for hunting purposes. 100 yd. 10 shot groups average in the 1 1/4- 1 1/2” size. As I don't expect/want to take shots at small game even that far away, I'm not going to lose sleep over it or strive for better accuracy. Or not. You know how it goes!
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Keep 'em coming guys. I have two Hornets to figure out, one from each end of the spectrum. A Winchester M54, and a Ruger 77/22. Any and all ideas will be welcome and appreciated as nothing has worked so far, cast or jacketed.
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unca russ : re the r77h ... i bot one about 1995 ...soon discovered the factory bedding was not any better than the ruger 10-22 ...everything just flops around in the wood handle. i pillar bedded the bolts, then sunk a small recoil button into the bottom of the barrel just ahead of the front ring, and devcon fitted that into the stock .. 1 moa with jakitted . several of us played with these ... ruger service advised that 6 moa was within specs ...
my borescope says the r77 barrel is pretty good ... hope this helps. ken
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John:
This is a kind of a late “start” but here goes: About a year ago a friend (?) gave me a Savage Mod. 340 Ser. E Hornet with a 4X Weaver scope and several hundred cast, gas checked (with Lyman checks that keep falling off) not sized or lubed bullets that I THINK are Lyman 228367. I bought a 225438 mold. Loads I have tried out of Lyman's Cast Bullet Handbook for the 225438 won't stay on paper at 50 yds. I did get a 10 rd. 50 yd. group at 1.3 in. out of the “gift” bullets sized .225 and pushed by 10 gr. IMR 4227. When I cut back to 9 gr. I couldn't tell where they were hitting. Maybe I didn't have a big enough piece of paper.
Going back to square 1, and asking for help. First, how closely are you mini-bullet guys weight grading your bullets? I try to keep my .30 cal. bullets +/- 0.2 gr., but they run around 4 times the weight of these tweezer size lead drops. Second, how close do you keep your powder charges to nominal weight? Again, my .30 cal. loads are kept to +/- 0.1 gr. (I weigh every charge on a PACT BBKII) but Hornet loads are only a quarter to a third as heavy.
If I can ever get this thing to give me some respectable groups, then I'll tackle the problem of how to handle these teeny little things with 86 year old fingers that milked cows through most of their teen years, and still find XL size gloves a little tight.
Wes
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Wes,
I doubt that the uniformity of your powder charges or the uniformity of the weight of your bullets are problems for you. I would quit worrying about that.
Last year the load I shot in competition in a 223 was nominally 6.0 grains of Blue Dot which propelled an 85-grain bullet at about 1,400 fps. When loading for a match if my Pact balance said either 6.0 or 6.1 I called it good if the Pact had been perfect, which no balances are, that would have given a range in power charge of 0.2 grains or about 3 percent.
I believe that if bullets are cast at a steady pace they don't need to be sorted by weight. I have run a lot of tests and have never been able to tell that light bullets or heavy bullets or a mixture of light and heavy bullets shot any worse than the carefully selected uniform weight ones in the middle. As a result weighing seemed a waste of time and I haven't weighed bullets for probably twenty years.
The above load will average under an inch at 100 yards for a string of five shot groups from a six pound Tikka which is probably as well as I can shoot such a light rifle so the variations in power charge or bullet weight don't seem affect accuracy at the one MOA level.
I think bullet design, the right alloy hardness, bullet/throat fit, and a powder type and charge that suits the rifle are far more important than fussing over uniformity or small defects.
One problem with the Hornet is that the SAAMI calls for a twist is 1 in 16” which limits it to very short bullets. I envy gnoahhh with his fast twist Hornet. Are you getting round bullet holes?
What bullets have you tried? What hardness of alloy? What sizing diameter? I have never had too much luck with .224” bullets .225 or .226 are usually better for most rifles. Slugging the throat and first half inch of the bore will tell you about that important area.
Making sure the bullets aren't being distorted while seating is important. As you probably know most dies are made for jacketed bullets and leave the neck smaller than optimum for cast bullets. You may need to get a Lyman M die or lap out the neck of the sizing die.
John
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Interesting posts! I am shooting cast in .22 Hornet & .222 Rem. The Hornet is a full custom built on an original panneled action Sharps Borchardt with 26" tapered octagon, Shillen match-grade chrome-moly brl. 1-14” twist. Leupold 12X fixed. When I first started working with this rifle, I tried just about every jacketed bullet I could find, including match..to establish an accuracy benchmark. groups with some of these were in very low .300's at 100yds. Then on to cast..the real work began! I had good accuracy with the old single cavity 49gr Lyman 225415 (around 1/2” at 100yds. The newer heaver 225415 also shows promise and will be worked with in future. I had Fred Leeth of Pioneer Products make up two nose-pour copies of the old Ideal 22636 in both plain-base & g.c. design. These gave very good accuracy..but not consistant...until I turned up a tapered sizing die to match leade angle of throat..this fits my Lyman 45. In use, bullet is placed nose-first in die & threaded stop rod in sizer is used to limit travel, thus controling both dia. and length of taper on first driving band. This more than ever improved accuracy & consistancy..I was finally able to equal best match jacketed bullet accuracy. Last Sat., 9:00 A.M. conditions were perfect, heavy fog just burned off with deal calm. I have been working with the Leeth plain-base..Steriotype metal..diluted with pure lead..about Lyman #2..much softer than Lino. Loads all weighed to ..1gr. bullet weight +-0.0 Lyman Super Moly..doctored up by myself for a bit stiffer consistancy. Bullets sized .226”
All charges H4227..6.8 thru 7.2gr. the 7.0gr. prooved most accurate..two 5 shot groups gave 3-4 shots going into 3/8” cloverleafs. However, there were unexplaned fliers. Just a theory on how to eliminate them?..Next time, I will seperate those cases which gave fliers..and load “accurate” cases again to see if any improvement?...This isn't my idea..Harvey Donaldson wrote about it years ago.
I use Redding bushing dies to neck-size, & Wilson straight-line seater with Sinclair micrometer top. Bullets are tumble moly-coated & sized nose-first thru Corbin reloading press type bullet reducing dies. This rifle hasn't had a jacketed bullet thru it sing 1996..cast is so much more fun!
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After regrouping my shattered memory I can say that I am using the Lyman 225438 44g bullet. I've shot gas checked saeco 60 grainers and they were pretty acceptable. I'm trying to get a mild plain based load to shoot well enough to be interesting.
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My contribution to this thread is still coming. After much experimenting and mold buying I decided I needed a new rifle! Bingo, right? I picked it up this morning from the LGS, mounted a scope and went to the range. All jacketed ammo, break in time. The upside is it averaged right at 1” with several loads, some a little better and the worse was 1.07". So I'm going to work with it and see if I can get competitive in next year's little bore postal match. The idea is for it to be a CBA postal match gun and a varmint/predator rifle with jacks. It's a Remington 700 SPC .223 Varmint. 26” heavy 12” twist barrel. I'm hoping to be able to push heavy/long for twist cast bullets into MOA. We'll see.
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John, You mention an 85 gn bullet. is this the one ?
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Wayne S.
No the bullet I have been shooting is my own design and from a David Mos mold. It has been pictured in the Fouling Shot several times in the last couple of years.
It has only one lube groove which I never fill and is a spitzer. It is like a scaled down RCBS 308-200-sil except with a sharper point.
That LBT design looks good although it would probably take a 1 in 9” twist to stabilize.
John
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If anyone is wondering about the 'old' and 'new' versions of the 225415 see this:
Cheers from New Zealand
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.223 range report; I shot some cbs for the first time yesterday thru my new Rem 700 SPS Varmint. It has a 3 .lb trigger, 12” twist, and a 5x15 Bushnell 3200 scope. First up was the RCBS 55-SP over 16 gr. of RL 7. These babies were oven heat treated and hard as heck. Accuracy was poor. Next up was the NOE copy of an MX3 at about 65 grains using WW + 2% tin, or so. This is a tapered bullet. Using the same powder charge it put 5 shots into 1 1/8th inch at 100 yds. with bullets sized and lubed in my Lyman 450 at .225 and home made lube. The same load but dipped in LLA mix and Lee push thru .225 sized went about 3". Holes for both were just slightly egged out showing very slight tipping. The 700 is turning out to be a tack driver (by my standards) with jacketed handloads and is getting down around 3/4” now. Hopes are high for a postal match contender. Next up I will be gassing the overly long NOEs to see what happens. I will continue to work with the RCBS bullet. I just got the mold and am proud of it. Gotta make it shoot.
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My Savage 12 FV in .223 shot 5 shots 100 yards jacketed into .85” then .875", total 13 shots jacketed to date. Since 1/2013 the 225415 groups, lino, 5 shots 50 yards got down to under 1” for 5 group averages-Lyman super moly, sized jus barely to .2254” or so, about 7/IMR4227. Then to 100 yards. After groups bigger than a softball, yesterday's triumph was 8 carefully shot, slowly shot, no hot barrel, little wind, average 5 shot group size of 2.884375"
This morning NOE has no .22 mold I want, looking for a .22 311299. Ordered a 225646, it's ugly enough to maybe shoot.
This is as agonizing as the 2003 get-a-.22-to-shoot 18 month BVSS failure fiasco.
I was primed to buy a Shilen prefit barrel in 5.7 X 28, but came to my senses.
Maybe John A. could bless my gun.
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Thanks for your support of the 225646 “ugly bullet".
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sluggo
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