Joe said he was looking for a new idea. Others have expressed many opinions on why, what, and how. I have no answers, only more questions. Modern jacketed bullets are swaged. They have better uniformity than I can cast. I am told that sorting isn't the answer except for ferreting out the bad bullets.
So, anybody in our group shoot swaged alloy bullets? How far did bullet design progress for the corbin style set-up?
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Geargnasher said:" If you want to take a new tack with cast bullet performance, I would suggest changing only two things and exploring them carefully and thoroughly to the end that I am finding quite rewarding currently: Soft, gas-checked cast bullets at about 1/2 BHN per 100 fps velocity, and one coat of polyester TGIC thermoset paint."
My personal opinion is that this is some of the best advice I have seen in the forum in some time. I shoot unthroated factory rifles exclusively. Hard bullets have offered very little in my pursuit of better accuracy. By your formula, which gives a helpful way to think about hardness, my bullets are still too hard. I use 12 BHN at about 1800 fps. 15-16 BHN bullets did not shoot as well with all else the same load.
Someone is going to point out that it requires more than a BHN number to describe an alloy. I agree but it is an attribute than can be measured by most casters.
Jim
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Mark,
I truly believe it is the breech seating. BSing was discovered ~1880 and as you have discovered it it still realivent today.
It when out of favor for cast bullets because of jacketed bullets over taking the accuracy of cast.
Most modern shooters, don't understand it and some think it to be dangerous. The only reason that target class fixed ammo is competitive with BSing, is because they have learned that the neck fit and shallow lead angles, can come close to what BSing can do.
The advantage of BSing is, that you install the bullet, perfectly centered and undamaged (other than rifling engraving) in the barrel, very time. Not all BSing devices are equal though and the tolerances need to be optimal.
Hard bullets, such as lino, can't be BSed w/o damaging them but, you can get around that, by extending the freebore, to fit the bullet. Freebore needs to be .0005 - .001 smaller than the bullet and the length of it, just a little shorter that the driving bands, so that it is up against the rifling.
It also makes case prep much, much easier.
This all can be done in the UNR & UNP classes. It takes a little longer to load but, as you know, PBB shooters can do it in the time allotted.
If your interested, talk to Bev Pinney and heck out his BSer.
There are still many unknowns in cast bullets but, BSing might help discover some of them in the harder alloyed GC bullets.
Frank
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i am most hesitant to post here ..... what i used to think were facts ..,.. have turned out to be merely opinions .... sigh ....
so if i label the following as opinion ... should keep other opinion ... i mean FACT checkers from correcting me the very same day .... of course, a day or two later correction is perfectly acceptable ....
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i opine that the condition of the bullet as it exits the muzzle is what is important.
i opine that whether you start a perfect ( swaged perfect ? ) or a lumpy bent partly frosted casting ...... is not nearly as important as the horrible things that happen to it in the first 2 inches down the barrel . i think a perfect cast bullet in the case isn't very perfect 2 inches later ....
i opine that we won't make much more headway until we think up a way to catch and examine our cast bullets after they have been shot ..... mainly a method that is so very easy that we can do extensive testing to find out how we can get perfect cast bullets to exit the barrel . my farmermath tells me about 500 g's deceleration would do it in a 8 foot long pipe ....
opinions on bullet traps accepted, even the same day ... remember we need to examine thousands of bullets, not shoot into snow and wait till spring .... although i love that story .... is there an app on an iphone to recover bullets ?? ...
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for a data dot or 2, back in the 80's i made some full bullet swages for 7mm, 22, and 44 ..... used 12 bn alloy .... none shot as well as my molds .... 3 moa but not 1.5 moa .... but then i didn't groove the swagings ... mountain man said i need to do that ... i opine that when you get under 4 moa or so little things get important real fast ... i too would be interested in further developments with full swages .. ... oh, 22 or 6mm bullets are easier to swage than 44 cal ( g ) ...
ken
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Like Ken, I too have tried swaging. Very successful, useful and fun with jacks-not so much with naked lead. I was lucky to get 3 inches. Didn't groove mine either. That might be something to try. The bullets were very uniform and consistent, just didn't shoot worth spit.
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What about .22 rimfire? I understand that Ken can do amazing things with those. The Sharps experts are shooting pure lead over half a mile and hitting tiny targets. Jacketed bullet cores are as soft as .22s.
Maybe those who are trying to do better with ordinary cast bullets should think really hard about all that.
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i should mention that i did get improvement with my "" swages "" ... where i swaged the bases of molded bullets .... more square.... and probably a little fatter base while i was at it. i also got better groups by lathe turning the bases both square ... and also lathe beveling the bases . ...... so definitely a tease there ....
i suspect if it done right, fully swaged bullets would be as good as any .... heck, the 22 rf bullets are swaged .... but why isn't there any reports here of amazing accuracy with 6mm or 35 cal .. full swaged .... maybe it is OUR job to make those work ... ?
ken
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PP bullets are not as accurate as lubed grooved bullets. PP bullets are better hunting/killing bullets if made with BHn <10. I possess one of Col. Harrison's original experimental PP .30 cal. moulds. I could never find a method to make it shoot better than lubed grooved bullets. I would gladly paper patch for 1/10" group reduction even if it took 5 minutes each. Yes I am anal and competitive.
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The first 20 years I shot CBA matches, I did not worry much about when or if I cleaned. The notable exception was when I utilized Lee Alox and IMR 4759 together. Never cared for the buildup in the barrel from that combination. In retrospect I was likely using way too much lube.
Subsequent to these early years, I now pay more attention. As long as I was shooting a 30 caliber rifle of any sort, I did not worry about cleaning until the match was over. The last two years I have been shooting 243s exclusively. I now clean after every 25 shots with these little beasts. FWIW I have grown more fussy about the lube I use with the 243, also.
I have saved no data what so ever (sorry Joe and John) to support my opinion but I do believe that cleaning and lube both matter in the smaller bore in match conditions. John I assume you will have data on the 223. In retrospect I have been so busy trying to keep these slender bullets stable that I have not tested different primers in the 243 either. I also have a preference for a particular brand of primer from my IMR 4759 days. I am not sure if that preference will prove valid with my current choice of powder.
There will be a test and an article for TFS but it probably won't happen until after hunting season this fall.
Great threads have grown from these lists.
Jim
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Regarding bullet alloy, tin will not hurt accuracy and helps castibilty. It's always a + to add it to a alloy. At least in velocity's below 2200 fps and 2200, seems to be about the upper end on match winning accuracy.
At under 1600 fps, ISSA, ASSRA and CBA PB shooters use 25-20/1 (3.8 - 4.8%) lead/tin. Our scores are on par with the Heavy and UR, CBA scores that are mostly Linotype and lino is 4% tin.
Tin is your friend 
Frank
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Jacketed bullets typically shoot better than cast bullets for several reasons. Two of the main ones are hard, resilient skins and soft core material.
The hard skins allow the bullets to be very close to groove dimension, meaning less deformation when engraved, without getting wahed out by gas as badly as cast bullets the same size would. The hard skin also tolerates banging about in the throat to find the center of the bore where a cast bullet will just get crushed, smeared, and mangled if not fitted correctly.
The soft core is another subject for another time.
It isn't usually small defects in our cast bullets that makes them not group as we as jacketed (the groups and velocities myself and others have been able to consistently achieve with ordinary cast bullets wrapped in paper is evidence enough if that), it is a dynamic fit problem, and a bore condition problem.
If you want to take a new tack with cast bullet performance, I would suggest changing only two things and exploring them carefully and thoroughly to the end that I am finding quite rewarding currently: Soft, gas-checked cast bullets at about 1/2 BHN per 100 fps velocity, and one coat of polyester TGIC thermoset paint.
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Fear of venturing opinions or considering input outside the same old pedantic norm is why we get what we got these days.
It is obvious that a true and balanced bullet is needed if it is to fly straight and impact close to its brethren, the trick is how to get it through the rifle without ruining it.
A bullet gets mangled, or not, in a lot less than two inches. I built a very successful bullet trap and it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know from secondary indicators, except the relationship between peak pressure, pressure curve, alloy makeup, toughness, and dynamic change to the bullet. That was valuable, but finding a test set of recovered bullets with longer, deeper engraves on one side than the other, indicating a lateral deflection during the first part of the launch, only confirmed what the target had shown...crooked launch. The trap won't always tell you what to fix (and never tells you how), for sometimes I have recovered bullets that wouldn't group well but had no indication of any launch defect.....so there's something to keep the puzzler going, and it's all the other factors which affect the way a rifle groups with any projectile type.
We have to look at the whole picture, that means launching a good bullet straight, but also ensuring consistent bore condition, load balanced to the harmonics of the rifle system, and a powder choice which promotes all those things.
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Thanks both. I started thinking about swaging with the thread about taper bumping. A lot of us swage when we size bulllets down. I have one high priced mold that ain't quite round so I swage them the size they are cast just to improve uniformity. I suspect the paper patch slugs we can buy are swaged. I really don't have 1000 bucks to get a walnut hill press and swages for 32 cal pp bullets. Mostly just floating an idea here.
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I think Ken and Dbarron pretty much nailed it by indicating that the bigger challenge than MAKING a perfect bullet is not screwing it up with the shooting.
I cast my pp cores, and have patched a lot of .30 an .270 caliber to good effect, so swaging isn't necessarily the whole answer in itself.
So, doesn't it seem intuitive that focusing on methods of not screwing up the bullet in the the shooting is the first place to research accuracy?
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Also, speaking of mangling, Muzzle loaders with tight patches and soft lead balls are anything but round balls. The same is true of tight fitting slugs. they all seem to fly where we point them. If I can claim experience and knowledge , it's with muzzle loaders. I've only been shooting suppository guns for 3 years. In muzzle loaders we want obturation, how about center fire? I find the hard bullet-soft bullet question interesting. Both have their advocates.
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In the 60's and 70's we did a lot of experimenting with CH dies and the Swage-o-Matic. 30, 38, 44 both rifles and pistols. We did half jacket, full jacket, gas check, and swaged cast. There is no need to groove swaged bullets, if you swage a lubricated cast bullet the lubricant supports the core and the grooves and lube are still there. Gas checks come out perfectly square and completely supported by the core. Any voids are collapsed. We thought they should be GREAT, they certainly looked perfect.
Our soft core 3/4 and full jacket swaged hollow points in 38 and 44 were very good, excellent expansion and accuracy. They were far better than the commercial pistol bullets available at that time. I shot quite a few of them hunting.
Partially jacketed rifle bullets leaded the bore and were inaccurate at any reasonable velocity, completely useless. Making them with a cast lubricated bullet as a core gave a partly jacketed bullet with lube grooves. Less leading, better accuracy but velocity was limited. Full 30.06 velocity gave groups over twice the size of factory jacketed.
Testing cast lubricated then swaged - Accuracy in pistols was as good as top quality cast but not better and was a lot more work. Gas check or plain base, it made no difference. Our rifles were production not custom and accuracy was just OK. The un-swaged cast gas check bullets shot better. This was probably because we could not do two diameter or taper swaged with the tools we had. Bore ride bullets like 311291 came out straight sided. Also we could not use hard alloys, attempts to use anything more than a few % tin resulted in broken equipment.
Modern tools have more power and better dies are now available. It is possible to make pure copper bullets so linotype alloy should be no problem. However the press and dies to do this are expensive. Many bench rest shooters partly swage cast bullets to match the throat. This wins CBA matches, just look at the match results.
There are still some areas to experiment, have fun.
Steve
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I have enjoyed reading this thread and hope it continues. I agree with a lot of what has been said and a lot of interesting questions have been raised. Not so many answers which is OK.
Geargnasher has brought up some issues we should think about,
1, We are not going to get them by getting rid of smaller and smaller defects. We have been at it for a 100 years and have peaked out years ago. Throw away the magnifying glass.
2. Bore condition. Why are some of our best competitors bore cleaning after every relay? Think about it.
3. More of us, including me, should be looking into coatings.
An observation and question. We have been farting around with paper coated bullets for a long time and great results have been reported repeatedly. But in forty years of CBA matches, I don't know of a single match won with such bullets (Please correct me if I am wrong.) Why? Is it only because it is a PITA? As anal as some of CB shooters are that is hard to believe.
John
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I like that Ric. It's about the same for me. I considered it a win when I was finally good enough at pp
get consistent hits on target, never mind group.But the glow in the dark claims are there. pp also falls into the area of coatings though, just sayin'.
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I remember swaging 1/2 & 3/4 pistol bullets when I was a kid, my Dad & Uncle swore a lot at the reloading bench & shooting bench in those days.
My family apparently got rid of all that equipment while I was away in the service.
Factory jacketed for Handgun Hunting from then on. CA State Law. The Old Man even switched to swaged factory HBWC.
He still enjoyed casting for plinking ammo. Lot's of .30cal rifle stuff, If it would hit a soda pop can at 100yds from off hand. That was good enough.
I sure wish I could get to a CBA match.
Long time Caster/Reloader, Getting back into it after almost 10yrs. Life Member NRA 40+yrs, Life S.A.S.S. #375. Does this mean a description of me as a fumble-fingered knuckle-draggin' baboon. I also drool in my sleep. I firmly believe that true happiness is a warm gun. Did I mention how much I HATE auto-correct on this blasted tablet.
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Jim,
Your experience with the need for cleaning somewhat matches my history. I shot a competitive combination in the 1980s that didn't require bore cleaning (22 bore). A couple of times I went the whole season without cleaning (if it ain't broke------) At end of season I cleaned to bright metal and shot more groups -- no improvement. So I know it can be done but don't seem to be able to do it recently (Several other activities fall into that category.) Part of reason may have been the original 5744 I was using at the time.
Now strings of four -- 5 shot groups of my current "best" load almost always show the first two groups are best and most of the time the first one is best. I assume some others see the same thing since lots of good competitive shooters clean often and I don't think the're dumb. We should be finding those "no cleaning needed" combinations. Some have already found them and their loads should be looked at.
Fess up you guys. If you have a factory rifle that will AVERAGE 1.5" for five shot groups for 100 rounds without cleaning what powder - lube (formula and amount) - bullet - velocity - etc. are you using?
John
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Aaron
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Tom Acheson
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jeff houck
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Wilderness
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John Carlson
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sghart3578
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MarkinEllensburg
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sluggo
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linoww
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Spindrift
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