Bevel-Based .30s

I had Erik Ohlen modify two NEI molds for me which had seen better days and needed new sprue plates because the Martin Hardcoat had worn off the original ones and I was having trouble getting good bases.

Erik made new steel sprue plates and installed new sprue plate pivots and studs. My original NEI #63 7.62x39 bullet had begin to leave flashing on the bases, which required using an outside deburring tool to chamfer bases to press on gaschecks and had become a real pain to use.

Since I recently obtained several new replacement sets of blocks from JT at Heavy Metal Molds for GC bullets of my design, I sent my old NEI mold to Erik for “salvage” and we decided to reface the old blocks and convert it to plainbase as a dedicated “subsonic gallery” bullet. Instead of simply reaming the GC heel to make a wide base band, I asked Erik to blend the rear band into the GC heel, making a bevel base with 8 degree angle. He took another NEI #82 mold with botched, oversized GC heel and salvaged it the same way.

With 6 grains of Bullseye in the .30-'06 the 160-grain bullet gives 1087 fps. and shoots well in initial trials. The 130-grain NEI #82 always shot well without the GC, and to be completely honest, I never in the entire time I had the mold loaded any with the GC put on, so doing the bevel-base mod on this seemed the right thing to do. This is my “heavy” bullet for the .32 S&W Long Rook rifle, but has also done well in the .303 British, .30-40 Krag and '06 with 5 grains of Bullseye.

Next step to load a bunch of 160-grain NEI #63BB with 6 grains of Bullseye to try in a half dozen Springfields.

Stay tuned!