This "Speaking Frankly" article written by Frank Marshall, Jr., first appeared in Fouling Shot #161, Jan/Feb of 2003.
Target shooters are preoccupied in their quest for sub-m.o.a. cast bullet accuracy, and this misleads the average shooter into thinking that getting “adequate” accuracy from cast loads requires sophisticated techniques. This just isn’t so. Elaborate refinement of loads and techniques is essential to the ultimate accuracy, but very satisfactory results for most hunting and target shooting can be had by use of very ordinary methods and equipment.
Adequate accuracy and ultimate accuracy in cast loads are about as far removed as are ordinary hunting loads, and benchrest loads with jacketed bullets, both in the equipment used, the complexity of technique and the accuracy level attained.
There is nothing complicated about cast bullet shooting. Despite emphasis on target shooting, the typical shooter simply desires reasonably consistent performance from his rifle. Group sizes around 2” at 100 yards are entirely adequate for informal shooting and are quite easily obtained with cast bullet loads in ordinary rifles.
The difference between ordinary hunting perfor-mance at 2 m.o.a. and benchrest cast bullet performance at 1 m.o.a. or less is what brings all the skullduggery and witchcraft out in match shooting. But the factors needed to bridge that gap rarely are significant in ordinary rifles and are of no particular concern to the average shooter looking for an “adequate” 2 m.o.a. cast bullet hunting or plinking load.
While there is no hard and fast formula which can guarantee your plunking 10 consecutive shots into 1” at 100 yards, it is entirely possible to establish procedures which will permit reasonably good accuracy from most hunting rifles.
The general-purpose/adequate accuracy load requires only minimal considerations for loading tools, and the basics are equally applicable to any modern center-fire cartridge. Start with a bullet which is among the heaviest that is common for that caliber, 170 grains or more for a .30-30, 180 grains or more for a .30-40 or 30-’06 and 200 grains or more for a .35 Rem., etc. The bullet must be suited for the twist and velocity of course.
Most .30-’06s will have 10” twists, which handle bullets up to 220 grains well even in light loads. Most .30-30 and .308 Win. rifles have 12” twists and may not handle very heavy bullets well at low velocities, but you can expect very good results if you don’t go over 200 grains, velocity is kept over 1400 f.p.s., and you don’t shoot past 100 yards. For 200-yard shooting, you’ll need to keep the velocity up around 1700 f.p.s. in a 12” twist for bullets over 180-grains to remain stable.
High velocity (above 1800 f.p.s.) is not conductive to best cast-bullet accuracy with simple techniques. High velocity loads require considerable refinement for consistent results. If you want good results easily, keep your velocity down. This has many advantages. Besides being more economical of powder, it lets you use softer, less expensive bullet metals. Moderately soft alloys have the further advantage of giving best expansion on game, and optimum accuracy, through their better obturation, at low velocities. A good, inexpensive basic alloy which gives fine results for rifle hunting or plinking loads not exceeding 1800 f.p.s., or for handgun loads is 1/2 lb. of 50-50 (lead/tin) bar solder to 10 lbs. of wheel weights. This is strong enough for the velocities we are talking about, but still soft enough for good action on game.
Before you cast a bullet, boil your new mold in water with some laundry detergent for about 20 minutes. This will remove the cutting oil from the metal pores, reducing “break-in” time. From then on, lubricate the sprue plate pivot and dowel pins with graphite from a pencil to prevent galling; never use any oils or waxes which can get into the mold cavity.
The electric bottom pour pot is the easiest to use,but you must be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the pot frequently to dislodge dirt and impurities for skimming. You must also develop a rhythm to your casting so as to keep a constant casting temperature. The easiest way to do this is to alternate between two molds. Adequate heat of the mold and metal is essential to get good castings, but don’t use any more heat than necessary to get good bullets. When using gang molds for pistol bullets, or for rifle bullets in plinking quantity, a somewhat higher pot temperature is required to keep the mold up to good casting heat; perhaps 700 degrees with gang molds vs. 650 degrees with single or double-cavity blocks.
With reasonable care in casting, good shooting results should be easy. Weighing or finicky bullet selection need not apply. Simple refinement of concentricity can provide real gains, and the procedure is so simple there’s no reason not to apply it to the general-purpose load. Let your dies float in the threads of your press, so your bullet seating and case sizing operations will tend to be self-centering. Keep your dies oriented to you by a mark from a felt-tip marker, and orient your cases as you size and seat bullets in each one. Simply grasp the case with the headstamp reading 12:00 held between your forefinger or thumb, and naturally insert it into the shell holder without turning it. You will instinctively do it the same way each time. Do the same when grasping your bullet with a mold mark next to your thumb, or when grasping a cartridge by the case rim to load, and you will always do it the same way each time. This easily applied trick takes little effort, costs nothing extra, and soon becomes automatic.
Target shooters are preoccupied in their quest for sub-m.o.a. cast bullet accuracy, and this misleads the average shooter into thinking that getting “adequate” accuracy from cast loads requires sophisticated techniques. This just isn’t so. Elaborate refinement of loads and techniques is essential to the ultimate accuracy, but very satisfactory results for most hunting and target shooting can be had by use of very ordinary methods and equipment.
Adequate accuracy and ultimate accuracy in cast loads are about as far removed as are ordinary hunting loads, and benchrest loads with jacketed bullets, both in the equipment used, the complexity of technique and the accuracy level attained.
There is nothing complicated about cast bullet shooting. Despite emphasis on target shooting, the typical shooter simply desires reasonably consistent performance from his rifle. Group sizes around 2” at 100 yards are entirely adequate for informal shooting and are quite easily obtained with cast bullet loads in ordinary rifles.
The difference between ordinary hunting perfor-mance at 2 m.o.a. and benchrest cast bullet performance at 1 m.o.a. or less is what brings all the skullduggery and witchcraft out in match shooting. But the factors needed to bridge that gap rarely are significant in ordinary rifles and are of no particular concern to the average shooter looking for an “adequate” 2 m.o.a. cast bullet hunting or plinking load.
While there is no hard and fast formula which can guarantee your plunking 10 consecutive shots into 1” at 100 yards, it is entirely possible to establish procedures which will permit reasonably good accuracy from most hunting rifles.
The general-purpose/adequate accuracy load requires only minimal considerations for loading tools, and the basics are equally applicable to any modern center-fire cartridge. Start with a bullet which is among the heaviest that is common for that caliber, 170 grains or more for a .30-30, 180 grains or more for a .30-40 or 30-’06 and 200 grains or more for a .35 Rem., etc. The bullet must be suited for the twist and velocity of course.
Most .30-’06s will have 10” twists, which handle bullets up to 220 grains well even in light loads. Most .30-30 and .308 Win. rifles have 12” twists and may not handle very heavy bullets well at low velocities, but you can expect very good results if you don’t go over 200 grains, velocity is kept over 1400 f.p.s., and you don’t shoot past 100 yards. For 200-yard shooting, you’ll need to keep the velocity up around 1700 f.p.s. in a 12” twist for bullets over 180-grains to remain stable.
High velocity (above 1800 f.p.s.) is not conductive to best cast-bullet accuracy with simple techniques. High velocity loads require considerable refinement for consistent results. If you want good results easily, keep your velocity down. This has many advantages. Besides being more economical of powder, it lets you use softer, less expensive bullet metals. Moderately soft alloys have the further advantage of giving best expansion on game, and optimum accuracy, through their better obturation, at low velocities. A good, inexpensive basic alloy which gives fine results for rifle hunting or plinking loads not exceeding 1800 f.p.s., or for handgun loads is 1/2 lb. of 50-50 (lead/tin) bar solder to 10 lbs. of wheel weights. This is strong enough for the velocities we are talking about, but still soft enough for good action on game.
Before you cast a bullet, boil your new mold in water with some laundry detergent for about 20 minutes. This will remove the cutting oil from the metal pores, reducing “break-in” time. From then on, lubricate the sprue plate pivot and dowel pins with graphite from a pencil to prevent galling; never use any oils or waxes which can get into the mold cavity.
The electric bottom pour pot is the easiest to use,but you must be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the pot frequently to dislodge dirt and impurities for skimming. You must also develop a rhythm to your casting so as to keep a constant casting temperature. The easiest way to do this is to alternate between two molds. Adequate heat of the mold and metal is essential to get good castings, but don’t use any more heat than necessary to get good bullets. When using gang molds for pistol bullets, or for rifle bullets in plinking quantity, a somewhat higher pot temperature is required to keep the mold up to good casting heat; perhaps 700 degrees with gang molds vs. 650 degrees with single or double-cavity blocks.
With reasonable care in casting, good shooting results should be easy. Weighing or finicky bullet selection need not apply. Simple refinement of concentricity can provide real gains, and the procedure is so simple there’s no reason not to apply it to the general-purpose load. Let your dies float in the threads of your press, so your bullet seating and case sizing operations will tend to be self-centering. Keep your dies oriented to you by a mark from a felt-tip marker, and orient your cases as you size and seat bullets in each one. Simply grasp the case with the headstamp reading 12:00 held between your forefinger or thumb, and naturally insert it into the shell holder without turning it. You will instinctively do it the same way each time. Do the same when grasping your bullet with a mold mark next to your thumb, or when grasping a cartridge by the case rim to load, and you will always do it the same way each time. This easily applied trick takes little effort, costs nothing extra, and soon becomes automatic.
The key to cast load accuracy is the fit of the bullet in the chamber throat. Correct bullet diameter is found easily by pushing a pure lead ball or slug into the throat, ahead of a case for a snug fit. After measuring this dimension, you should be sure your bullet is sized .0005” under this to eliminate forcing cone interference. For match loads, some shooters make the bullet the same size as the throat, but this works only if your bullet, case, chamber, etc., are all perfectly concentric with one another. Forget the groove diameter of your barrel.
For light loads with fast-burning powders, a positive gas seal in the throat is more important, and with-soft alloys and light loads a somewhat oversized bullet does not hurt, and is often a plus. A bullet even .001” smaller than the throat, if cast of wheel-weight metal or softer alloy, will give a positive gas seal with correct charges, using either a gascheck or a plain base.
For best results, cases which have been fired in a particular rifle should be neck-sized only. The Ideal tong tool or Lee Loader are entirely adequate for this. For these low-pressure loads, full-length sizing is almost never required. The sized-case neck diameter is critical, however, to provide a correct fit of the bullet. For field use and magazine utility, adequate neck tension is required. The I.D. of the sized neck should be .001” less than the bullet, or somewhat tighter if the bullet can be seated in a chamfered case without shaving lead and damaging it. Most hand dies size necks to fit jacketed bullets, but can be polished out to size to give a correct fit with lead loads, without shaving the bullet when seating it in a lightly-chamfered case. With conventional loading tools, it may be necessary to use a stepped expander plug to permit seating cast bullets. An expedient is simply to change to a somewhat larger expander button in your sizer die. In my Lyman tong tool, a .303 British expander gives a .309” I.D. in the neck, which is a correct fit for a .310” bullet.
Once you have a bullet which fits the throat with .0005” to .0010” clearance, mated to a case neck giving proper fit, you have a condition which creates good alignment of the loaded round, since the bullet does the guiding, and creates a positive gas seal. This is the optimum condition for cast bullet accuracy in common chambers.
Cast bullets which have given consistent performance in a variety of .30 cal. cartridges are best to start with. If choosing only one mold, I’d recommend a gas-check design, since they can be used successfully with-out the gascheck for light loads, and with gascheck for heavier loads. Best .30 cal. gascheck designs to start with are the 140-gr. #311440, the 170-gr. #311291, the 173-gr. #31141, the 202-gr. #311299, or the 214-gr. #311284. Bullets of similar designs by other makers such as the Lee C309170F or RCBS 30-180 FN are also good. The most important consideration is that the bullet must have an effective bearing length at least twice its diameter. This means that if the rear band portion of the bullet is short, its nose must be of adequate diameter to engage the rifling to provide some guidance. If you can insert the nose of the bullet into your barrel up to the first driving band without noticeable resistance, it’s no good, unless you have two calibers of bearing length otherwise.
For best results, cases which have been fired in a particular rifle should be neck-sized only. The Ideal tong tool or Lee Loader are entirely adequate for this. For these low-pressure loads, full-length sizing is almost never required. The sized-case neck diameter is critical, however, to provide a correct fit of the bullet. For field use and magazine utility, adequate neck tension is required. The I.D. of the sized neck should be .001” less than the bullet, or somewhat tighter if the bullet can be seated in a chamfered case without shaving lead and damaging it. Most hand dies size necks to fit jacketed bullets, but can be polished out to size to give a correct fit with lead loads, without shaving the bullet when seating it in a lightly-chamfered case. With conventional loading tools, it may be necessary to use a stepped expander plug to permit seating cast bullets. An expedient is simply to change to a somewhat larger expander button in your sizer die. In my Lyman tong tool, a .303 British expander gives a .309” I.D. in the neck, which is a correct fit for a .310” bullet.
Once you have a bullet which fits the throat with .0005” to .0010” clearance, mated to a case neck giving proper fit, you have a condition which creates good alignment of the loaded round, since the bullet does the guiding, and creates a positive gas seal. This is the optimum condition for cast bullet accuracy in common chambers.
Cast bullets which have given consistent performance in a variety of .30 cal. cartridges are best to start with. If choosing only one mold, I’d recommend a gas-check design, since they can be used successfully with-out the gascheck for light loads, and with gascheck for heavier loads. Best .30 cal. gascheck designs to start with are the 140-gr. #311440, the 170-gr. #311291, the 173-gr. #31141, the 202-gr. #311299, or the 214-gr. #311284. Bullets of similar designs by other makers such as the Lee C309170F or RCBS 30-180 FN are also good. The most important consideration is that the bullet must have an effective bearing length at least twice its diameter. This means that if the rear band portion of the bullet is short, its nose must be of adequate diameter to engage the rifling to provide some guidance. If you can insert the nose of the bullet into your barrel up to the first driving band without noticeable resistance, it’s no good, unless you have two calibers of bearing length otherwise.
Powders used for the “adequate load” vary, depending on the case capacity and velocity, to give good accuracy with plain based bullets up to 1400 f.p.s. or with gas-checked bullets up to about 1800 f.p.s. Disregard any load with a listed velocity over 1800 f.p.s. Higher velocities are beyond the scope of this article and get into the realm of cast bullet skullduggery and witchcraft.
Some basic load data is in order, and a review of successful loads shows the same basic powder charges and bullets are often used repeatedly by different shooters with good results. In these suggested “standard” loads, powder charges are correct for the heaviest bullet normally used in that caliber: 220 gr. in .30-’06, 200 grains in .308 Win., 180 grains in .30-30, etc. Lighter bullets can be satisfactorily substituted.
The best reduced load powders for use with cast bullets are DuPont SR-4759 and Hercules RL-7. Also good are Du Pont IMR 4198, 4227 and Hodgdon equivalents. For light, small game and plinking loads with plain based bullets, Hercules Unique has been a standby for many years and still gives good service. A relatively new powder which gives good results with light cast bullet loads is W-W 630. It appears to be the best of the Ball powders for use with reduced loads, and is the only one Olin suggests for the purpose.
In any case of .30-’06 size or larger, SR-4759 is the powder of choice, since it bulks up well and is ignited easily. In the .30-’06, I’d suggest 21 grains as a starting load, giving about 1600 f.p.s. with 220-grain bullets like the #311284, and not more than 25 grains for about 1800 f.p.s. as a hunting load. RL-7 makes a fair substitute, correct charges being 24-28 grains to give about the same range of velocities. In the .308 Winchester, 20-21 grains of RL-7 is the standard load for target shooters with 160-180-gr. bullets, giving about 1600 f.p.s. For hunting loads, you can use up to 24 grains with bullets as heavy as 200 grains for about 1800 f.p.s. in 22”-24” barrels. Approximate .308 Win. charges of SR-4759 for 1600-1800 f.p.s. with 180-200-grain cast bullets are 16-22 grains. In the .30-30 Winchester, excellent results can be had with light loads approximating the .32-40 with 160-170-grain bullets, using 12-13 grains of W-W 630 or 13-1/2 to 14-1/2 grains of SR-4759, IMR-4227 or H4227. Nearly identical results can be had with 15-18 grains of RL-7, IMR-4198 or H4198. For heavier 1800 f.p.s. hunting loads in .30-30 rifles, you can use up to 21 grs. of RL-7 or 4198 with bullets up to 190 grains.
The best reduced load powders for use with cast bullets are DuPont SR-4759 and Hercules RL-7. Also good are Du Pont IMR 4198, 4227 and Hodgdon equivalents. For light, small game and plinking loads with plain based bullets, Hercules Unique has been a standby for many years and still gives good service. A relatively new powder which gives good results with light cast bullet loads is W-W 630. It appears to be the best of the Ball powders for use with reduced loads, and is the only one Olin suggests for the purpose.
In any case of .30-’06 size or larger, SR-4759 is the powder of choice, since it bulks up well and is ignited easily. In the .30-’06, I’d suggest 21 grains as a starting load, giving about 1600 f.p.s. with 220-grain bullets like the #311284, and not more than 25 grains for about 1800 f.p.s. as a hunting load. RL-7 makes a fair substitute, correct charges being 24-28 grains to give about the same range of velocities. In the .308 Winchester, 20-21 grains of RL-7 is the standard load for target shooters with 160-180-gr. bullets, giving about 1600 f.p.s. For hunting loads, you can use up to 24 grains with bullets as heavy as 200 grains for about 1800 f.p.s. in 22”-24” barrels. Approximate .308 Win. charges of SR-4759 for 1600-1800 f.p.s. with 180-200-grain cast bullets are 16-22 grains. In the .30-30 Winchester, excellent results can be had with light loads approximating the .32-40 with 160-170-grain bullets, using 12-13 grains of W-W 630 or 13-1/2 to 14-1/2 grains of SR-4759, IMR-4227 or H4227. Nearly identical results can be had with 15-18 grains of RL-7, IMR-4198 or H4198. For heavier 1800 f.p.s. hunting loads in .30-30 rifles, you can use up to 21 grs. of RL-7 or 4198 with bullets up to 190 grains.
If you are like many shooters, you’ll find these modest, simple loads entirely adequate for most of your shooting, just as we did 30 and more years ago. Some of the grand old powders like Sharpshooter, No. 80 and Lightning are gone forever, but they make some newer and better ones which serve the same purposes. The concept of the light, adequate load with soft alloy is as sound now as it ever was. There’s no better way to get more satisfying, fun shooting for less trouble or money.