All right, JOSH, we need to figure out an equitable price on this mould because you aren't getting it back.
Whatever you were getting for them originally plus freight, how's that?
I cast up a pile of the ACE heavy .22s this morning and went straight to working up a load. Settled on 2.7 grains of TG and a CCI small PISTOL primer. Seated the bullets so that if they were any longer they would bind in the magazine. I was getting around 1" groups at 25 yards and 3-4" groups at 50 yards without gas checks, then I tried WITH checks and three things happened: The load got a lot more quiet, the FPS dropped off by about 60 fps down to low 900s, and 50-yard groups of ten started coming in under an inch. I had recovered a few shot without checks and found that gas was washing up the base band about halfway, on each side of each groove cut by the lands. I think the checks pushed the burn curve way back into the case and used up the powder sooner, both dropping velocity some and knocking quite a few dBs off the suppressed report, meaning it's back to movie-quiet now with these heavier bullets.
OK, so 918 fps average groups for gas-checked bullets turning in 1.75 MOA at 50 yards isn't impressive. I get it. BUT, this is a 5.56 NATO chamber and tumble-lube, mixed GI brass, and bullets still warm from being cast. And they were fed from the magazine by racking the charging handle, which if you don't know is murder on bullet noses. Also, the rounds can't engrave the throat or fit tightly due to the weak camming force of the AR system, so I don't have the crutch of engraving the nose to lean on. I'm very pleased.
I'm also going to have to come up with a better back stop for shooting out of the front door, these heavy .22s plow right through the 15" cedar stump I have set up across my driveway. In fact, some of the initial testing this morning split it in two.
Also, at 50 yards, after passing through a self-healing polymer "gong" swinger target to which I pin my paper targets, the bullets turn completely sideways within 8" and do murder to a plastic bucket full of sand.
My only complaint is the lube, still don't have it dialed in to eliminate the first shot flyer, which is actually bad enough to be a show-stopper, like 3" high at 25 yards after a 20 minute cooldown.
I may try some real lube on these and see what gives.