Lee 309-230–BTF

MW65

Wetside, Oregon
Yes, Lee liquid alox was used. I'm planning on casting more, maybe polish the mould to drop larger. It was too long to fit in the magazine, so I single loaded it only. I'll take more measurements for my records and see how I can improve on the results.

Thanks!
-Andy
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
heck,, one pesky flyer.
otherwise that would be a really good group.
i think I'd try bumping the load before I passed judgment on the next step.
 

Spindrift

Well-Known Member
I had only 15 bullets left that were ready for use. Powder coated. 9,5 grs N32c/ BTF gave approximately 2,5 MOA 5- shot group at 100m. At 9,8 grs N32c/BTF, the group opened up. I also tried 9 grs Universal, PEF; only two bullets hit the target at 100m!.
I think the nose is (even with one layer of PC) vastly undersized for this rifle, probably the reason for the poor results PEF.

Will try some testing with another rifle with better accuracy potential, the Schultz & Larsen 97DL, with the .30-06 barrel.
Regarding the Remington 700, I have had it with mediocre accuracy. It is scheduled for major surgery at my gunsmith (who has a backround as an international level BR shooter on the national team).
 

MW65

Wetside, Oregon
I'm down to a handful. Going to cast some tonight and verify dimensions. Will try titegroup and Am Select (if I can find some) to see if pushing it a little faster works better.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
am select, green-dot, international clays, they will all pretty much put you right in the same place.
 

MW65

Wetside, Oregon
Looking over my as cast Lee 309-230, I'm getting a solid .310 on the bands. This works for most of my .30-06 reloads. I must admit, it's a stubborn bullet to cast. I have the best success pressure casting once it's up to temp. My rcbs 180 fn is miles ahead easier to get quality casts once up to temp.
 

Spindrift

Well-Known Member
My mould responds well to pressure casting with a spouted ladle. I had a casting session the other day, almost no rejects. And no whiskers, either.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I run mine like a rented mule.
no breaks and no slowing down.
fill open dump pour fill, probably 5 pours a minute.
it touches 310 on the base band and tapers forward from there.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Mine's the same as Fiver's except one makes .308 on the base and the other makes .307.

MW65, the important thing for accuracy is how the NOSE fits the BORE. If the bullet plunks point-first into the muzzle all the way down to the front driving band and wobbles around, there's your problem.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
yeah?
holy cow.
I'm running ww's plus and have tried a few different methods of casting.
none of them done anything for me, which is unusual since I can generally get almost .001 through various methods, especially combined with water dropping and/or minor alloy manipulation.
 

Ian

Notorious member
I know if I don't have a certain minimum diameter on the nose and bands, even my 7" will make them slightly keyhole, but my 8" and 10" will shoot the same bullets true. Fatten them a little and they all shoot true.

I may have to redact his statement. After casting another round of bullets from my lapped Lee mould and coating them, they're still yawing at 100 yards from my 10 twist .308. Previously, when I had double-coated them and suzed them back to .3095", they seemed to fly straight.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
The 30-30 you were talking about in the other thread? What else changed? You shot them fresh, right? If you give them a week or 2 to harden (changes dynamic fit) would it make a diff?
 

ChestnutLouie

Active Member
I have out close to 5,000 of those downrange, but pointy-end first. Here's a witnessed two-shot group at 80 yards (to prove my load has no cold-barrel flyer) using a suppressed .308 Winchester bolt-action with 10" rate of twist. I wouldn't be concerned about stability in your rifle, either.

View attachment 9357

6.4 grains of Hodgdon Titegroup for about 950 fps muzzle velocity. Striker is louder than the report.
Ian,
where did you find load data for the Lee TL309-230-5R for a 308 rifle?
Thanks
Francis
 

Ian

Notorious member
I invented the data based on bullet weight, case capacity, and expansion ratio.
 
F

freebullet

Guest
Search load data extrapolation. Everyone has their own rules for doing it. Basically you use known safe data to make a safe starting point for similar but not with the same stuff.

Similar case capacity, bullet weights, oal, etc can be used to find correlations. Some also use computer load modeling. -quickload
 

Ian

Notorious member
Quickload is a very useful tool and I use it frequently. However, it is just one tool in the "box". Extrapolation, interpolation, and a chronograph are still the principal tools I use to sanity-check starting loads and verify Quickload predictions.

Thinking about it now, I'm not sure that ANY of my principal loads could be found in a manual except the .45 ACP and .30-30 loads. 300-grain .45 Colt standard pressure @ SAA length? Nope. 300 BLK subsonic 230-grain cast that will function an AR-15 carbine system? Nope. Reloder 7 in the .308 Winchester for jacketed velocity with cast? Nope. Subsonic 500-grain cast for .458 Socom that will function in an AR variant with 10.5" barrel? Nope. 125-grain cast .38 SPL with 473AA? Nope. .35 Remington with 200-grain cast....yes, but my load is over book max yet velocity and pressure predictions match for a much milder load. .223 Subsonic 77-grain cast? Good luck. .30-30 subsonic 120-grain cast? No such thing. We won't even talk about the duplex loads, buffered loads, or high-velocity smokeless paper jacket loads. Sometimes you just have to figure this stuff out from scratch.

The good news is I have written about a lot of this stuff and included data for it right here on this site.