Casting Session, NOE 310-165-FN (30 XCB)

[Ian]

I love the fact that you don't mince words Ian. I'll bet you're a hoot in person. I picked up 500 rounds of once fired Federal brass from left over police sniper training. How does that rate on the Ian glarbageometer?

Life's too short and complicated to be mealy-mouthed. You may disagree with me, you may not like me, but you will always know exactly where I stand.

I really like Federal rifle brass, to the point of preferring it over most (but not all) others. They have a unique alloy spec for rifle and a different one for pistol which is very malleable and more resistant to hardening than any other brand I've worked with except PPU and Lapua. That probably puts me in the minority but I can only speak from my own results. What you have is likely GMM brass, I'm not sure there's anything special about the brass itself except for the headstamp; "GMM" likely means precision powder measuring and bullet selection, maybe primer upgrade too.

 

[popper]

I suspect lube goobering also on the flyers but have you trimmed the mouth? Not for length per se but even release. Turn a few necks to see how uniform? I use mostly H4895 and LC brass, just sized - still have 1500 pcs never touched -lifetime supply. For target long range I'd cut the tin down to 1% - you really aren't interested in expansion. I push 2700 fps from 24" AR10 with accuracy equal to 2400 in the 16" carbine. Alloy (I add Cu) and case prep are important. My neck tension is more than yours.

 

[Bret4207]

I want to see what happens after 25 or 50 rounds. I've seen a few people luck into a happy combination first time out, but not at 2500fps. That's really unusual IME.

 

[Ian]

This is more like doing things right rather than luck, unless you define "luck" as "the intersection of opportunity and preparedness". This means ignoring pretty much anything the CBA has to say about how to load an accurate cartridge, conventional "wisdom", and especially a certain Know-It-All who has done his best daily and for nearly two decades on a forum that shall remain nameless to make people believe that what a few people do now and have been doing for even longer is impossible.

Alloy and lube adjustments will take care of any bore fouling he may experience. The main problem people have is not getting the dynamic fit right at launch or choosing not to use an alloy suitably tough and yet malleable so it can work with the bullet shape to help align itself in the throat and also be able to handle the torsional stress from the lands later without abrading. Balancing the tin with the antimony in not necessarily even proportions is a good way to get there, but for some reason the weaker alloys are typically ignored at HV, to accuracy's peril. The XCB bullet seems to like anything between #2 alloy and Taracorp Magnum (6/4) alloy. I've had good luck with the 6/4 mix and that bullet, plus it casts a little smaller (.311) than #2 does. I sized those to .310" with 1.5 thousandths neck tension and run them at about 2400 fps from a 24" barrel with only one groove and the space in front of the gas check filled with appropriate lube.

 

[Bret4207]

I never got that far I guess. I can hit 2200 with some stuff, but I'm not shooting enough anymore to try to get into anything to serious since I'm about blind anyway. Oh, to be young and full of energy again!

 

[waco]

Lewis. I think your loads show real promise for your first attempt. A little tweaking here and there and I'm sure you will be able to have good repeatable long range cast loads. Keep up the good work.

 

[Idaholewis]

Fact is, I owe where i am to ALL of you Guy’s, Being a Muzzleloader Guy with Cast Bullets, I knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about Shooting Cast in Centerfire? I asked Questions and you Guy’s gave AWESOME Advice! I went to Waco Through PM and he was kind enough to Share links to EVERYTHING i needed, I got off here and placed an Order for everything he advised, plus a Few things. I got LUCKY and Was able to Purchase the NOE 30 XCB Mold here from a Member. I am GRATEFUL, And Thankful for ALL of your guy’s Help, This place is a WEALTH Of Knowledge that’s for sure!! If something interests me i will spend a LOT of time on the Subject, I go back through these Forums and Read, Ian and Fiver have taught me a TON without me asking them a Question, Just reading their Posts. Thank you Guy’s, ALL OF YOU!!

I stil have a lot of Learning to do, This is a VERY Different Hobby than My Muzzleloader Stuff. I love a Challenge and this is DEFINITELY that! As for Reloading, and Shooting, I had a Good Jump start there, i have Been Doing that AVIDLY all of my life, I started Reloading at 14-15 years old, i am nearly 50 Now (Time SURE FLY’S doesn’t it?) I started Shooting Longer Ranges (out to 800 Yards) Back Before it was nearly as popular as Now Days. My ability to Shoot well has Come from YEARS of Dedication to it.

I am a Hard headed guy with Certain things (Aluminum Molds Being a good example ) I might have came off as sounding Arrogant, like a know it all? I can ASSURE you I didn’t mean it that way!!! I know what i like, and it’s HARD to Change my mind on Certain things. I love this Little 30 XCB Bullet, But MAN O MAN I wish it was a Single Cavity Steel Mold

 

[462]

It is not easy for the conversational written word to convey its intended meaning and tone, to those who read it. Despite that, it seems this forum's feathers don't get ruffled.

I look at what the mould produces, not what it's made of, however we are all individuals and have our foibles and oddities, likes and dislikes.

 

[fiver]

let me redact the horizontal comment.
those weren't horizontal groups, having shot over snow more than I care to, I can for sure say you were getting some heat wave parallax.
the shots were staying in the group but at a bit more random distribution not in a horizontal group.
if you shot 50 rounds you would have probably chewed a hole in the paper right there.

for long range shooting you have a conundrum with cast.
keep a mehish 1" group at 24-2500 and have the BC numbers to reach 5-600yds.
or get the groups down to the 1/2" range someway or another at 2300 fps and deal with the lower BC and associated buffeting somewhere a little closer to the muzzle.

 

[Bret4207]

Lewis, I don't think you came off as arrogant at all. You had some, obviously, outstanding help getting started. I wish we'd had the ability to share info like we do now back in the 70's when I started. We've come a long, long ways from the days of "Shooters" and the "CB-List"!!!

 

[Idaholewis]

Life's too short and complicated to be mealy-mouthed. You may disagree with me, you may not like me, but you will always know exactly where I stand.

I FULLY respect this!!

 

[Idaholewis]

Lewis, I don't think you came off as arrogant at all. You had some, obviously, outstanding help getting started. I wish we'd had the ability to share info like we do now back in the 70's when I started. We've come a long, long ways from the days of "Shooters" and the "CB-List"!!!

Excellent Post Bret4207!! Back in your beginning (70s) if you didn’t know someone with Knowledge of the Subject at hand that you could speak with? You had to actually LEARN this Stuff by Trial & Error. The Wheel was Re-invented OVER N OVER Back then. This Day n Age, all a person has to do is Read, Jump on the Internet and Search, Somebody has likely done it, and Posted their Results, No matter the Hobby? You can pretty much Bet There is a Forum on the Web for it, With Knowledgeable Folks that have “Been there, Done that”

Without sounding mean/harsh, It’s easy to Read Through These Forums and Find the Folks that KNOW what they are Doing, VS the Ones that Talk a LOT, But don’t have much to Say

I was able to put a Shopping list together here with just a Few posts, and PMs, Look at the Time, and Corners i was able to Cut With the Help I recieved here, it saved me a TON of time!! I am now WELL On my way with this, No doubt My Rifle is gonna Shoot this 30 XCB Bullet well (it’s Doing it now) I stil have a little more Tinkering i want to do “just Because”, But i am CONFIDENT i could Take this Load i have RIGHT NOW and Ding Steel with it at 500 Yards, I have NO DOUBT i can do it! But FACT is I didn’t Come up with this, NONE OF IT, I got the info i needed HERE from You Guy’s, And I am Thankful for that

I have always been a person to Give Credit where it is Due, it’s simply the Right thing to Do. I have helped a TON of people in the Muzzleloading World, I get Emails/messages pretty much Daily with Questions, Etc. LOTS of them with a 0 Post Count, They literally Joined the Forum to Ask me a Question/Questions (PRETTY DARN COOL, and why I continue on with it) I have seen MY material Taken to other Forums and “Claimed” By others MANY times, In fact that happens Quite Regularly, I use to get STEAMING Mad over it, But i made myself STOP and think about it? I FREELY put the info out there for Folks to use, To help people learn it. Most of the time it comes back to me in Positive Ways, and other times not. Welcome to the WWW

 

[L Ross]

I type and delete all the time. Some times because I feel that my comments could be misconstrued, sometimes because I am just feeling confrontational and belligerent. I rarely find that to be the case here, but on that other forum, the anti law enforcement bias used to get me so wound up that I just bowed out. A year or so later I signed back up, but have now stopped going there again as it can be too much like FB.
Having the occupation so many of us did helps one to be circumspect, or your career doesn't go very smoothly. My job in my later years of my first agency entailed a lot of public speaking, so again having a fully functional conversation editor was valuable.
That little thrill you get from being a jerk is short lived, but the after effects on your audience can linger forever.

 

[Ian]

I have always been a person to Give Credit where it is Due, it’s simply the Right thing to Do. I have helped a TON of people in the Muzzleloading World, I get Emails/messages pretty much Daily with Questions, Etc. LOTS of them with a 0 Post Count, They literally Joined the Forum to Ask me a Question/Questions (PRETTY DARN COOL, and why I continue on with it) I have seen MY material Taken to other Forums and “Claimed” By others MANY times, In fact that happens Quite Regularly, I use to get STEAMING Mad over it, But i made myself STOP and think about it? I FREELY put the info out there for Folks to use, To help people learn it. Most of the time it comes back to me in Positive Ways, and other times not. Welcome to the WWW

(Laughing) People who are sour on you for what you know take what you share, make it their own, and take the credit. Been there and done that and so have a LOT of us here. But like you said, the point of sharing is so people get the good information that can save them decades of time and effort and as long as the learning continues, I really don't care how or from who they learn it. I owe a lifetime debt of gratitude to those on these boards who have helped me so much over the years (either directly or indirectly) and allowed me to jump ahead from 10 grains of Unique in the .30-30 to where I am now, though in many ways I was frustrated by "secret" information hinted by those who were hesitant to share for fear their rivals would learn something too. It isn't like most of us have money riding on trade secrets here, just explain it! So that frustration has motivated me to come here and talk about things as I figure them out, who knows it might be the little nugget some unknown person out there has been desperately searching for. Reading about someone else's success with the methods we discuss here is reward enough to me.

Just for fun and edification, why don't you load up ten of those Lyman bullets and go shoot a 2500 fps group with them?

 

[fiver]

i think you mean a what the hell?education.
it is kind of fun to go to the shelf and grab some random samples and put them on top of your pet load just to see what happens.
sometimes it works out pretty good, mostly your left looking for holes in the spotting scope.

 

[Ian]

Lots to be learned and understood from the intense curiosity following a "HOLY CRAP, that sucked!" moment. However, sometimes things that don't work out actually do. Like "someone" said, it's all an educated guess until the trigger is pulled. One of the biggest obstacles to learning (for me at least) is becoming entrenched in certain understandings which solidify into beliefs and sometimes in to mantras. It's human nature to try and fit a knowledge set neatly into a box, but with cast bullets it's never that simple in reality and trying to do so leaves a lot on the table.

 

[fiver]

chuckle.
yeah,, I thought that maybe I could just make a check list to follow.
you kind of can in a way, if you make it more a set of rules, I almost said boundary's but that definitely isn't the right word.
I could probably write up a good list of what not to do though.

 

[Bill]

In 1972 I bought my first mold, a 405 lee for my 1895 Marlin, when I got home in 1 hr I had perfect looking bullets, then I spent the next 5 pre internet years trying to get the darn things to shoot round holes into a group, then I read an article that said Marlins wouldn't shoot cast bullets, thanks to people like you guys and this net thingy I now know they will

Bill

 

[popper]

Somewhere about 2010 I told her I was going to buy a gun. Got a 336 30/30. Still have some of the 11$ boxes of ammo. Showed it to SIL, he went out and got a 336 ME. Then came XDm 40. Yikes, decided to cast. LLA and Recluse - then discovered PC. AR10. couple decent moulds. Where did time go? Somewhere along the line, shotguns and sporting clays. More FUN. Learned a lot from HIghRoad, CBA and here. I tinker a lot. Mom grew up Quaker, Dad didn't llike guns. Shot a nylon 66 some with a GS friend, M1 in boot. Shot a H.S bull barrel a bit in school - bro had a rough rider 22.

 

[Idaholewis]

Just for fun and edification, why don't you load up ten of those Lyman bullets and go shoot a 2500 fps group with them?

I was gonna Post this above, But Figured I had enough going on, but now that you mention it, I CONFESS!! I ALREADY Tried it, and it sucked BAD

The FUNNIEST part is what I thought to myself? You told me in the thread i started on the Lyman 311299 Mold, “That Bullet will be good to 1800-1900 Fps”, I thought to myself why would it not Work Faster? Makes NO SENSE?? I bet it will Work!? I’m gonna Show Ian He’s WRONG on this! I shot a 6 Shot Group of the 200 Grain Lyman Bullet ON VIDEO to Show YOU that you were Wrong I did this JUST BEFORE the 30 XCB Above, Velocity with the 200 Grain Bullet was 2,340 fps Average (That’s scootin along pretty good for a 200 Grain Cast Bullet in .308 Win) Accuracy was NO GOOD!! I would say Pie Plate Group, But i HAD to Try! Needless to say, I didn’t Bother Uploading that Video