I would like to load for a 30-06 with a plain base bullet. My Rem 40XB shoots well with Lee 200gr gas checked bullets with 15 gr 4759 at about 1500 fps. Most of the time I can get under 1 in. groups. I have an NEI 180 gr. plain base mold but I am not sure where to start. Can anyone recommend a powder and a velocity that I can start with for plain base bullets.
Thank You Glenn
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You said that was years ago, I really hope you have learned there is no reason for what you went through with that old experience and practically any firearm can be made to shoot well with lead if you are conscientious and knowledgeable. I'd bet the metal you had was low temperature bearing metal for mill equipment bearings and even that can be made to shoot well and not metal foul a bore with good fitting bullets and a suitable charge.
Gary
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YEARS ago I got some “LEAD” from the mill. I cast a few dozen bullets with it in .44 cal. I shot them at 100 yards at the steel pig sillywet targets. I was surprised that I hit TWO pigs on the 3rd shot! I checked the bore and had a sewer pipe! I smelted that “lead” with some pure stuff till I got a BHN of 16(checked at the company lab). I had cast a few dozen .30 170 gr Lee mold bullets. I got similar accuracy,meaning NONE, with these. The bore took a week to clean all the lead out. At 25 yards, 5 shots gave me 8 holes in the 2'x 3' target paper. I never did find out WHAT that “lead” really was. Some kind of foundry metal as near as I can guess.Much lighter than straight lino or WW.
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Agree on the Garand!
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
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Do not use pistol primers in the Garand. The firing pin floats in the bolt and you can get slam fires when the bolt slams home. It happened to me. I got lucky and the bolt was in a fully closed position and didn't fly back and do things to my head. Getting two for one when I pulled the trigger was kind of cool though.
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Ed,
Are you using large pistol or large rifle primers with the bullseye/W231 loads. Or did it make any difference
These days I am using ordinary Remington 9-1/2 large rifle, because that's what I have the most of, I scored 5M!
With mild plainbased loads and easily ignited powders large pistol primers could be used safely, but they offer no real advantage unless you have lots of them and want to save your “rifle” primers for full loads, which I have been known to do....
For what it's worth, Frank Marshall used large pistol primers as a visual pressure check, his logic being that if the pistol primers in his rifle loads aren't flattening, the load is safe, but if they start mashing out flat, that would CERTAINLY be a clue!
Visual inspection of Rifle primers is not a safe indicator, because by the time you get noticeable flattening, you are already way beyond where you really should be, and you've only been lucky.
Frank said that pistol primers had softer cups more like primers in the blackpowder era his Uncle Will taught him about.
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
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Ed, Are you using large pistol or large rifle primers with the bullseye/W231 loads. Or did it make any difference
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BHN19 is fine for your application. Straight Lino hardens to BHN30+, That is the brittle garbage I'm talking about.
If you use your same alloy and hardening method with bullets cast from the Lee 300 AAC mold your hardness should be the same as you have been getting at BHN19.
BHN22+ is where the brittleness from the hardened high Antimony in bullet alloys is beyond sensible to me.
The new Lee bullet still has the gas check option on the boat tail and maybe at a later date you could try that also.
Gary
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I've had particularly poor results heat treating anything harder than Linotype. Lino is brittle as it is and harder is worse for me. The problems even include bullets fragmenting in the barrel, rifling shaving bullets to gas jet. The high tin in Lino maintains less than marginal ductility in bullets and hardening an alloy with less tin makes it even more brittle. For me, hardening higher than Lino has always equaled garbo. (yes , garbage)
Lyman figured this out over 100 years ago so it really is old news.
Gary
Perhaps I was unclear in my question or, most likely, left out sufficient information as to my question, Gary.
On a limited budget, I've had to turn to heat treating bullets from time to time to obtain sufficient hardness to push 30 cal bullets out to 2500 FPS or so. My Lyman 314299, at this velocity, is doing well on the MR 63 holding at least the 9 ring from my poor-man's M1903 match rifle. My typical alloy is wheel weights with 1% tin. As-cast hardness runs about 12 BHN on the Cabin Tree hardness gage. Water-dropped, they measure 19 after a week, a little softer than linotype.
I was just wondering about your thoughts on heat treating the Lee bullet mentioned as it might be a good performer at the ranges I shoot.
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Pat i.
"Linotype does best in highly polished bores."
"The problems even include bullets fragmenting in the barrel"
What are you basing your findings on?
Pat, I noticed the difference with polished bores when close range chrono shots with hardened Linotype exhibited bullet frag holes in targets at 10 yards with a poor bore and no bullet frag holes with a polished good quality bore at the same load levels using unhardened Lino.
I presume the rough pitted bore tore chunks of hardened Lino off the bullets that made the frag holes in targets at close range.
These are my results Pat and may not be applicable for anyone else, but I call them as I see them and I won't use cast bullets more brittle than air cooled Linotype. That is where I personally draw the garbage line.
Gary
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I've shot lots of the '06 gallery loads over the reduced course and they work fine without leading in my 2-groove issue barrel if well lubed. It helps to pre-condition the bore with a wet patch of LLA, giving it several passes to coat well, then one wet patch of ER to remove excess, then two dry patches, dry chamber and shoot. You don't want to shoot foulers in a clean, dry bore, you want one slightly slick. Thenjust treat like a .22 match rifle, one wet patch when done for the day. Put away wet. Next trip to the range one wet patch, two dry patches, dry chamber, shoot, repeat. No need to brush unless you mess up and lead barrel.
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
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Sounds good, thank you both.
I suppose the rapid fire might be more an issue with individual rifles.
What I have read in the past is that a hot barrel will contribute greatly to leading. I'm thinking of 10 round strings and time to cool in between, like at a hi power match. The PB loads would be for 100 yard max distance.
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I picked up some backstop lead this winter and rendered it down and cast some up. Mine came out at 8 BHN using a Saeco tester which always seesm to come out a bit on the light side. Just for info I water dropped some and after 2 weeks they came out 10 BHN.
Richard
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.22 backstop lead is about 3% Sb and with 1% tin will be about 10 BHN, OK to about 1200 fps with bullets that fit. In my '03A3 7.2 grs. of Bullseye shoots fine at 200 yards using 600 yard sight dope for ball ammo.
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
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Ed. Please define “soft alloy” for me. I have very little experience with 30 cal plain base bulled, but would like to try it some day. I have some neat old molds hanging out here in the shop somewhere.
For plainbase bullets use 8-10 BHN, 1:25 tin/lead or 1 part linotype to four parts of plumber's lead. Hi Ed, I'm interested in this also. What do you think would be a good mix with 22 backstop lead?
Would these loads perform OK in a practice rapid fire session if overcoated in LLA? This would be in a boltgun, thanks.
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Embrittlement is unlikely to occur unless the antimony content substantially exceeds the tin content. As long as there is sufficient tin, it will form an intermetallic sb-sn which is stronger and more ductile than Pb-Sb which is not held in solution. It is not tin, but undissolved antimony which makes hard bullets ” crumble” - if you believe that folklore - but heat treating with proper quench keeps most of the Sb in solution, resulting in a much stronger bullet. The description in old Ideal manuals are mythology, not metallurgy.
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
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This is the first I've heard of these statements.
"Linotype does best in highly polished bores."
"The problems even include bullets fragmenting in the barrel"
What are you basing your findings on?
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I've had particularly poor results heat treating anything harder than Linotype. Lino is brittle as it is and harder is worse for me. The problems even include bullets fragmenting in the barrel, rifling shaving bullets to gas jet. The high tin in Lino maintains less than marginal ductility in bullets and hardening an alloy with less tin makes it even more brittle. For me, hardening higher than Lino has always equaled garbo. (yes , garbage)
Lyman figured this out over 100 years ago so it really is old news.
Gary
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You can get the velocity if you cast in straight Linotype, but bullet fit becomes more critical the harder the alloy is because you will not be able to count on any obturation with Linotype, but you will be able to take advantage of the higher B.C. with Linotype.. Your sweet spot of accuracy will be narrower with Linotype also and will require load laddering at long range to really find it...but that is fun.
It will be a fine line between the boat tail and linotype compared to a gas check and #2 alloy but you may surpass with Linotype depending on your bore condition. Linotype does best in highly polished bores.
However shooting long ogive Linotype bullets on game animals is like shooting FMJ's, they don't expand at all and just pierce. Not a good big game hunting bullet except for squirrels like I want!
Gary
Gary, rather than cast from straight lino, have you had any luck with heat treating?
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You can get the velocity if you cast in straight Linotype, but bullet fit becomes more critical the harder the alloy is because you will not be able to count on any obturation with Linotype, but you will be able to take advantage of the higher B.C. with Linotype.. Your sweet spot of accuracy will be narrower with Linotype also and will require load laddering at long range to really find it...but that is fun.
It will be a fine line between the boat tail and linotype compared to a gas check and #2 alloy but you may surpass with Linotype depending on your bore condition. Linotype does best in highly polished bores.
However shooting long ogive Linotype bullets on game animals is like shooting FMJ's, they don't expand at all and just pierce. Not a good big game hunting bullet except for squirrels like I want!
Gary
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I almost ordered one, but got to thinking...what will a boat tail do for me at these velocities? Now if we could really get it rolling the higher BC from the boat tail would matter at longer ranges or windy conditions. Still, it's a cool design. What is the point of the BT, other than it's sexy?
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