Waht did you cast today?

[oscarflytyer]

I use the Lee 429-200 in my 44-40s. Mine cast fat and heavy (217ish grn). Uberti SA revolver/Uberti 1873 and now an original Win '92 from 1916. Not done much with it in the Win yet. IIRC, pushing it with 8 gr of Unique

 

[Glaciers]

Yeah my mold drops about 215 @ close to .431. The HP comes out at 206 grains which is about perfect.
I figured to load for the weaker Colt action for both guns. If I have to do different diameter I’ll powder coat for the Colt and possibly bump up the loads for the 92 with BLL. That way I can tell them apart. If not I will stick with the weaker loadings.
But until I do some testing…?

 

[L Ross]

I have found the best way, for me, to load for weaker actions, yet get full power as God, Colt, and Winchester, intended is to dump about 35 grains of 3 fg black powder under a well greased 200 grain bullet cast of about 40 to 1. I do not hate BP clean up in guns nor brass. Just one of life's little inconveniences, like shaving or bathing.

 

[oscarflytyer]

... so what if I don't shave or bathe?!? (JK - but only a little bit!). Personally I HATE cleaning guns. You will never get a gun from me that I wore the bore out of (cleaning)! And my real issue with BP cleaning up is not that it is so hard - just that it HAS to be done right after shooting and every time...

 

[Glaciers]

^^^^ What he said ^^^^

 

[oscarflytyer]

Great Minds, Glacier!!!! lol!

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

I cast about a pots worth..

RCBS 45-300-SWC
RCBS 44-250-KT

 

[Glaciers]

Well in preparation for getting the 38’s going for some fun shooting with Karyn I cast up right at 300 LEE 358-125’s and about 175 LEE 358-105’s, both will be mildly loaded with RD or Bullseye with target shooting in mind.
I asked Karyn about doing some shooting and she said that she isn’t really interested in shooting her 44 Bulldog because it just wasn’t pleasant. She is very good with it but a little to much on the recoil for it to be pleasant.
So I suggest the 38 Special in the K14’s with 6” barrels and the 4” model 10. Got them out so she could handle them, wanted to see what she thought of the grips. She kinda surprised me but asking about the 4” Ruger Security Six house gun. I forgot about it as it was on “duty” hidden over there. But Karyn has shot it a fair amount in the past and she liked it. Well now we will have 4 pistols to practice with.

Anyway to the heading of this thread, I cast up the above mentioned LEE and just took them out of the oven. The 125’s with clear coat and the 105’s with copper coating. Hopefully I will get them loaded up this weekend but Karyn is currently working and it will probably be the weekend after this before we can do some shooting.

 

[Glaciers]

Oh I wanted to ask, I came up with a Lyman 358-091 WC 4 cavity mold which is in great condition and I was thinking of casting up a batch for use in the 38’s. I’m unfamiliar with WC in general so tell me about loading them. Any tricks?

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

I prepped thee new 7mm Soup can mold.
No inspector band and no Shirley sticker!! So its a new made mold!! (Special production mold)

Mold was pretty good, little rough but no where that would have effected bullet. Sprue plate was nearly dead flat too.

Probably Friday for first cast. Gotta finish a project I started Tuesday.

CW

I heat cycled once.

 

[MW65]

I picked up a lee 6 cav 312-155gr mold during the birthday pricing from Midway, since it's one design I really like across a buncha toys. Did the toothpaste scrub, and then started to run some test casts... worked pretty well, they popped out really easily, and got her smoking off the oils. A little bit of my oregon green lube to lube up the hinge spots... she got casting pretty well towards the tail end... only did this during my lunch hour. Will smoke the cavities with some matches next time and see how she does on this next round.

 

[MW65]

Oh I wanted to ask, I came up with a Lyman 358-091 WC 4 cavity mold which is in great condition and I was thinking of casting up a batch for use in the 38’s. I’m unfamiliar with WC in general so tell me about loading them. Any tricks?

Haven't used that particular one, but have used the Lee, rcbs, and 358432s. Most have a crimp groove close to the end... I like using a light chg of unique/be/rd... will test out 231 or AmSelect soon... and just a light taper type crimp... enough so I don't catch my finger nail. OAL is important... but as long as ya stick to the low side, and follow a good recipe which is close to your OAL/bullet type, you'll be fine.

 

[Spindrift]

I cast some plinkers for the .35 Whelen.

The MP 358-165-RF is a favourite for target practice. It would probably work for some hunting applications as well.

The Lyman 358242 is new to me, a barely used mould that was available at a price I would consider reasonable for the handles alone. It remains to be seen how it works in the might .35 Whelen (which is always fun!). 128 grs in my alloy, .360 base band and .358 middle and front.

These will be coated, and used to harass steel plates and such, at moderate ranges.

 

[Glaciers]

Haven't used that particular one, but have used the Lee, rcbs, and 358432s. Most have a crimp groove close to the end... I like using a light chg of unique/be/rd... will test out 231 or AmSelect soon... and just a light taper type crimp... enough so I don't catch my finger nail. OAL is important... but as long as ya stick to the low side, and follow a good recipe which is close to your OAL/bullet type, you'll be fine.

Yeah I’m looking forward to casting up a couple hundred with this Lyman 35891, hopefully this weekend. Yeah RD, BE, unique, and 231 are in the works. Just need to size the LEE bullets and probably the WC as well not sure what size the Lyman will drop.

 

[JWinAZ]

A trial batch of 311291 from a new to me Ideal mold. Ladled 20-1 at 685F. 173 gr, .300 nose, .313 shank. Looks promising for the .30-30 No. 1. I gave the mold the Dawn scrub down and lightly lapped the faces. A few shallow wrinkles on some. Any idea how old it is?

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

I prepped thst LEE Soupcan ghen heat cycled twice on hot plate.

I think I had 6-10 culls!! I cast about fifty and pitched them back just cause. But they did really look great!!


Slight hard WW alloy with lil extra tin. Was my alloy.

Ill cast some today for real.

The NOE mold is droping perflet bullets as well.

CW

 

[Snakeoil]

Used all my custom dimension .32-40 bullets for the last match. So had to drag out the pot and cast a few. Ended up making about 15 lbs of bullets. That translates to around 580 slugs. Should keep me in bullets thru the winter.

 

[dannyd]

Starting to get cool here in Florida, so started my winter casting.

 

[Glaciers]

You were busy! That’s a pile.
Looks like the Lyman 358429 and the LEE 358158

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

My NOE HTC 310–247 – FN mold came in!



I heat cycled it three times, and it still took a little bit before it dropped good bullets, eventually it was working pretty well. I only cast up maybe 150 or so.
Something odd happened with the Alloy. I wanted it a little bit harder. I wasn't really worried about exactly what it came out to., but when I weighed the first bullet, it was about 240g. So knowing it should be 247 I figured that it was a pretty hard alloy. Which is fine again I cast off about 100 150 or so. When I was done I threw a 5 pound chunk of pure lead because I didn't need that hard of an alloy for the 10 mm bullet, that I'll be casting next. Now just for SnG, I cast one more mold to weigh the bullet. Don't you know that bugger come out 238 g !!!
Whats up with that???

It's a 25 pound pot and it was about just over 1/2 full. So that 5 pound chunk was a good 25 to 30% of the volume of the lid that was in that pot and it dropped a bullet that was lighter which lead you to believe that it's harder still...

Anyhow, I'm really pleased with a boolits and powdercoated them in a green mix that I make that I know it's nice and thin and I was able to get about 1.5 to 1.75000s thickness which is awesome.



Well, here's the bullets.

It's a loong Bullet it's about the same as the case!!