Good start with the NOE 180 gr. Hunter

[35 shooter]

I've used nothing but al. checks for the last 3 or 4 years with my 35 whelen. When i got my .308, i didn't have a 30 cal. check maker, so just bought some copper hornady for now.
Eventually i will go to al. on my 30 cals. too as i do have a check making tool now.
The al. checks on the 188 gr. bullets were given to me along with the bullets.

Yes, i'll probably have to tweak the loads with my 299s when i switch to al. checks. I actually prefer the al. checks and have been able to get them to shoot just as accurately as copper checks and even more so.
Also at the same speeds or even faster with al. vs. copper.

With certain types of al., i've found ht'ing, or annealing to get the springback out of them to be a tremendous aid in accuracy also.

 

[Rally Hess]

Finally got to cast with my new NOE -311- 188 yesterday afternoon. I got the 4 cavity Brass. Man is it a sweet mould. I boiled and brushed it clean with dishsoap and a couple rinses in hot water. Cleaned up the edges of the sprue plate. Lubed the alignment pins and sprue plate screw.Preheated on a hotplate for about 10 minutes, tossed the first 20 bullets back in the melt, until it got to temp. Could have actually shot 10 of those, but I just don't like blemishes or rounded edges. Got in a groove and was having a blast. Good break-in session. Wife may have to hide this one from me!! LOL

 

[35 shooter]

Rally,

Those look great. Nice pile of them for 1 casting session.

I still haven't chroned anything on the 188 hunters yet, but i did find a report on imr 4350 with a 311299 bullet that i had forgotten about. A member on another site ran this test.

41 gr. 2282fps. 5 shots in 2.515" @ 200 yds.
42 gr. 2340 fps. 5 shots in 2.4" @ 200 yds.
These loads had a 1/4 gr. dacron filler in them.

According to this i may have started out a bit faster with my loads for the 188 gr. hunter than i thought, even though i didn't use a filler.
I think i'll load some hunters in the 40 to 42 gr. range with and without the filler and chrono and check for accuracy with both.

I also left the flare on the case mouth on my original loads which may make a difference also.
I have a good load of 40.5 gr. of imr 4350 with my 311 202 NOEs(311299 clone) that i want to chrono along with the 188 hunters too....hopefully this weekend.

 

[JWFilips]

Rally,
Looks like you will have a long day on the range shooting those!
That a great casting session!
Jim

 

[Rally Hess]

35shooter,
Not sure where I'm going to start with the 4350, but intend to try 4198 and Reloder7 also. Lyman manual in that weight bullets points to reloder7. I'm looking for around 2100 fps maybe 2200, depends on where accuracy is. This is my slash rifle so I am looking at a little speed but mainly accuracy.

Jim,
I don't think my shoulder could handle that whole box in a day, but I'd be willing to try if you'll trim all the brass first! My calculater says that is a little over 1100 bullets.

It was such a nice day here the wife gave me the afternoon off. I opened the shop door and got to casting with my other new mould, A Noe 452-230-RG4. I cast all HP versions for my .45 acp colt. Already had things set-up from casting the 188's the other day. Decided to use up some ingots I got from a buddy of mine that has a small shop, and he had taken in on an estate deal. He just gave me the metal box with about 35 pounds in ingots of unknown alloy. This is the only alloy I had that I didn't know what it was for sure, but the "drop test" sounded soft. I was wanting a soft alloy for the HP's this first run and figured I could add some coww or Mono if needed. You know that one about never looking a gift horse in the mouth!! Well I fill my two 20 lb Lee's with the ingots and melt down. Put the mould on the hotplate and go make a few snares I have half built laying on the bench while I'm waiting. About 15 minutes later I go check the progress of the pots. NOTHING BUT OATMEAL!!! Well an hour later, after cleaning and draining the pots, I start another melt with know alloy. Ended up with about 790 HP's. Got a buddy looking for some lead, for some downrigger weights, and will be happy to take the oatmeal home.
Took alot of heat to keep this mould running right. I took the heat clear up to 750 to get good bullets. Took a little while to figure out what was going on. Kept getting wrinkles in random locations, at random cavities. I cleaned it real well and cycled it three times, but still looked like oil in the mould. Cast about 60 bullets and the inside cavities started dropping fairly decent bullets, but not consistant. Jacked the heat up some and the problem went away fast. Seems like the large caliber Rg4's like some heat, especially with the aluminum versions.

 

[35 shooter]

Nice Rally! Looks like your set for some serious testing for sure. Hope you hit some great loads right off the bat!

 

[gman]

They do like a little hotter alloy temp and cast faster than normal. That is a very accurate bullet.

 

[fiver]

zinc never sounds soft.
it clinks and clanks worse than heat treated 7mm's.
if you get some free time try cleaning that zinc'ed alloy with some sulpher.
turn the pot up to get everything good and hot.
then turn the heat down to about 725 and stir the pot so you have a good swirl in the center.
this will concentrate the oatmeal and you can scoop out the majority out.
then take a spoonful of sulpher and scatter it on top of the alloy then start stirring it all in and under the alloy.
and stirring it vigorously up and down then swirl it again.
you'll see even more oatmeal form in the center of the swirl scoop that out.
if no more forms try casting with the alloy, if you see a little more lumpiness stir in another spoonful of sulpher working it under the surface again.

that should clean the alloy and give it a tight grain matrix.
be aware you will be removing most of the tin with the zinc.

 

[Missionary]

That NOE 311-180 looks a lot like the RCBS 180 grain GC RNFP. Been shooting that one for years. Have not yet found a caliber 30 that would not shoot it well. That includes the Garand, M1A and FAL and bunches of bolt rifles.
4350 is a good powder for the bullet. Nice "gentle push" down a long tube.

 

[35 shooter]

Learned a lesson today. Don't ever ht your bullets after checks have been sized on.
The 188 gr, hunter bullets were not ht'd when i recieved them and had been sized and checked. I ht'd them 2 weeks ago and the checks were still on good and tight and shot just fine in my last tests from 40 t0 41 gr. of imr 4350.

I always ht first and then seat checks and size...never a problem in 4 years of doing so.
Anyway, as i said the checks were already on these when i ht'd them, and something definitely changed in 2 weeks.
I loaded in 6 shot groups from 40, 40.5, to 41 gr. again today and shot the read out screen on the chrony with a loose check on the 5th shot.

I moved the chrony out of the way and continued shooting 4 and 5" groups with all 3 loads. All loads showed SLIGHT tipping of some of the bullet on the targets.
This was with the LAST 18 188 hunters i had on hand...gggrrrrr!

At 465* there sure wasn't enough heat to anneal the checks, but it definitely did something that loosened them over the last 2 weeks.
This had nothing to do with how accurate the 188 hunter bullet is, but rather my own fault for trying something i had'nt tried before in the middle of load developement.

The only good news today came with my NOE 311202 bullets and 40.5 gr. of imr 4350. These had been ht'd and THEN sized and checked.

I fired the first 5 shots, then adjusted the scope to the left and fired the last three.
All shots at 108 yds.
Ok, for some reason the target posted at the top of this post.
The 5 shot group on the right is 1.221" and the 3 shot group on the left(center) is .926"

Sorry about botching the 188 hunter tests guys....TOTALLY MY OWN FAULT!!
I should have re sized those checks after ht'ing the bullets.

 

[35 shooter]

The first 4 shots from the 40 gr. load with the 188 hunter chronied...
2132 fps.
2136 "
2137 "
2149 "

 

[35 shooter]

Well...semi good news from the chrony folks. They said send in my chrony and if it can't be fixed, or not worth the cost, i still get a discount toward a new one...probably a chrony master with the read out on the bench with me instead of on the chrony itself.

I'm going to order the 188 hunter mould from NOE as it seems to be a very accurate bullet and one of the few that has a meplat small enough with the right shoulder angle to feed in my mauser.

Can't wait to get going with this bullet again.

 

[Rally Hess]

35 shooter,
Good luck with the Chrony repair.
If your going to order the 188, you might want to order the check flaring set-up also, if your making your own checks. I've got the Free checks 2, and making checks out of .014 Aluminum flashing. The checks come out too small to seat without shaving lead. The tool Brad designed really makes the checks fit well and squares the base. When seated there is just a tiny space between the check and first band. Just got finished doing about 700 checks on the flaring tool, and sized(.310) and lubed about 100 bullets with Bens Red. Lymans CB manual listings for the .30-06 with IMR 4350 anywhere from 35-50 grs. Think I'll start at about 42 grs. and work up.

 

[Ian]

Funny thing about copper vs aluminum gas checks. Over the years I have had a few guys that would try aluminum checks and then report that they are not doing as well as copper. Most times a .1-.2 gr lower charge brings the group right back to former glory.

Guess my point is, if you do go aluminum on the 299, you may need to wiggle the charge a hair to get back in the node.

Exact thing happens with some lube formulations. Soap lube has a little more bore friction and boosts pressure and velocity a little bit, just enough to throw a pet load off a bit...and the lube gets blamed rather than thinking the situation through and re-balancing the system with a powder charge reduction. Also why some lubes work great at 50-95 degrees and fall apart at 105, the bore friction changes and throws off the load.

Well...semi good news from the chrony folks. They said send in my chrony and if it can't be fixed, or not worth the cost, i still get a discount toward a new one...probably a chrony master with the read out on the bench with me instead of on the chrony itself.

I had a bum Chrony and sent it back, twice. They were out of the sensors (part they said mine needed) and it wouldn't hold calibration. Second time they said they repaired it but in fact just sent me a brand-new one off the shelf. Their customer service is pretty good, easy folks to talk with, I'm sure they'll get you fixed up. IIRC the replacement cost deal is a lifetime thing.

35 shooter,
Good luck with the Chrony repair.
If your going to order the 188, you might want to order the check flaring set-up also, if your making your own checks. I've got the Free checks 2, and making checks out of .014 Aluminum flashing. The checks come out too small to seat without shaving lead. The tool Brad designed really makes the checks fit well and squares the base. When seated there is just a tiny space between the check and first band. Just got finished doing about 700 checks on the flaring tool, and sized(.310) and lubed about 100 bullets with Bens Red. Lymans CB manual listings for the .30-06 with IMR 4350 anywhere from 35-50 grs. Think I'll start at about 42 grs. and work up.

After skimming the thread, it looks like 41.5 grains might be the magic number? Depends on the rifle, of course.

 

[35 shooter]

Rally, thanks for the heads up on flairing the checks. Let us know how this bullet works out for you in your 06.

Ian, I hope the chrony folks treat me as we'll as they did you.

 

[35 shooter]

Rally Hess,

This is just a guess on my part from looking at the LYMAN CB manual and a 187 gr. cast bullet for the 30/06, but.....looks like 42 gr. of imr 4350 "should" be about 2083 fps., with 44 gr. being around 2165 fps.

You may well hit a good load in that area right off the bat. If you have a chrono, i'd be real interested in how close it works out on velocity to my "guess".

 

[Rally Hess]

35shooter,
We have the same 3rd edition I think. I'm hoping for north of 2100 but will see what the rifle says.
Ian,
I think your probably right. I usually find best accuracy in the middle somewhere.

 

[35 shooter]

Rally,

You'll probably get there. I saw some reports on another site of 2150 fps. in 10 twist .308 win. and that was with faster powders than 4350.

 

[Rally Hess]

zinc never sounds soft.
it clinks and clanks worse than heat treated 7mm's.
if you get some free time try cleaning that zinc'ed alloy with some sulpher.
turn the pot up to get everything good and hot.
then turn the heat down to about 725 and stir the pot so you have a good swirl in the center.
this will concentrate the oatmeal and you can scoop out the majority out.
then take a spoonful of sulpher and scatter it on top of the alloy then start stirring it all in and under the alloy.
and stirring it vigorously up and down then swirl it again.
you'll see even more oatmeal form in the center of the swirl scoop that out.
if no more forms try casting with the alloy, if you see a little more lumpiness stir in another spoonful of sulpher working it under the surface again.

that should clean the alloy and give it a tight grain matrix.
be aware you will be removing most of the tin with the zinc.

Fiver,
The ingots sounded "soft" because the metal box had what I believe is powdered graphite in it. I threww acouple of the ingots into the box and they sounded like pure. Me being as "frugal" as I am thought I could use this alloy. Not gonna happen. Isn't worth messing with it to me. I've got alot of alloy and more coming. Doesn't make any difference for his use in a downrigger weight and a plumbers pot. If I keep it around it will end up in my range and back in the pot sooner or later. This way it goes away from me. LOL

 

[quicksylver]

Any thoughts of using 4831...looks pretty good with slightly heavier bullets..maybe use mag primers?