Line Up For Weds. Testing

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Last Post 14 August 2025

CBA Member

pat i posted this 11 August 2025

I was digging through my molds the other day and dug three to try along with the two Ive been using. The four I haven't shot before are all LBT. The smooth sided bullet was cut with one cavity plain base and the other checked for a moly coating experiment I tried years ago which is how three molds produce four bullets. It was a dismal failure. Maybe PCing it will change that, who knows. All the bullets have had a trip through a die to add some taper and range from 175 to 230 grains.

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Premod70 posted this 11 August 2025

My monies on the bullet furtherest to the right, good luck on your test.

Dale Flinchum

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Aaron posted this 11 August 2025

Good looking bullets.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Idahocaster posted this 11 August 2025

It will be interesting to see how the smooth sided ones fare. In theory they should do as well as the ones with lube groves. Jacketed bullets are just smooth sided cores with really tough coatings!

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pat i posted this 11 August 2025

It will be interesting to see how the smooth sided ones fare.

Me too. Hope they shoot better than when they were moly coated.

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Aaron posted this 11 August 2025

My money is on 2 and 6. They just look the best so they will shoot the best?

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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CBA Member

Aaron posted this 11 August 2025

What caliber?

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Match Director

linoww posted this 12 August 2025

I too am waiting for the results with the smoothies

"if it was easy we'd let women do it" don't tell my wife I said that!

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pat i posted this 12 August 2025

What caliber?

The same 06 that's been beating me up by for a while. And I'm kinda leaning towards the third from the left.

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Aaron posted this 12 August 2025

You have us all awaiting the results like show episodes on Netflix.....appropriately getting done on Wednesday like the show series.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Standard Member

OU812 posted this 12 August 2025

Did you size and taper bump before or after powder coat? Also try adding a little lube. Lubed vs no lube would be good experiment. I've experimented with taper bumping many different 30 cal bullets with longer bearing surface and they all shot more accurately afterwards.

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pat i posted this 12 August 2025

They're all sized with a Lee sizer and tapered, no bumping, after coating. If there's any residual lube on the bullet it's because I smear a little LBT Blue on about every fifth one to make extraction from the taper die easier. Maybe someday I'll try coating and lubing some but to my thinking that'd negate the whole purpose of powder coating . If I'm not getting leading I don't know what I'd gain by adding lube to the mix.

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Standard Member

Spindrift posted this 12 August 2025

Nice line-up of bullets!

I'll put my money on the 3rd from the left, the SIL- type bullet.

My best load with the powder coated Lee .309-230-5r in the .30-06 was with 40 grs Norma N-4 (4350 ballpark).

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CBA Member

pat i posted this 13 August 2025

What kind of velocity were you getting with that load? I want to keep this thing under 1600 with whatever bullet I'm using. Economy and having a pleasant gun to shoot are my main reasons for going to a plain base bullet. Of course there's the challenge of trying to get it to shoot semiconsistant sub moa aggs too which I haven't accomplished yet but I'll keep trying.

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Standard Member

OU812 posted this 13 August 2025

IMO it's the hard powder fouling that builds up first 4"-8" of bore that degrades accuracy the most. If fouling is bad, you will feel it during cleaning. It's kind of like hard dry black powder fouling that builds up behind bullet when fired.

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Standard Member

Spindrift posted this 13 August 2025

Pat, I didn't have a functional chronograph when I worked up the load, so I don't know. My best guess would be around 1900fps. My 309-230- project dried out as I rediscovered how annoying the 2-cavity Lee molds can be.

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pat i posted this 13 August 2025

Pic heavy. The great bullet shoot off is over after 174 rounds. Didn't learn much besides a gas check mold minus the check will do half way decent. The two smooth sided bullets held there own against the rest. I think having a check shank helps but nothing but my impression to go on. I used the same load across the board. Velocities ran from 1375 for the 230 grain Lee to 1575 for for the NOE bullet with the rest a mixed bag in the middle. I think I see the heavy Lee has a slight advantage accuracy wise. I didn't want to make this a lifetime job so shot four 5 shot groups to simulate a CBA group match. The last group of the day when I was using up what was left over I used the pb smooth sided bullet and got some leading and a pretty bad group. The barrel was pretty hot by this time which might explain it since I had no.problem when I was doing the actual test.