Cleaning Up My Act!

[StrikeEagle]

I decided to take more care with the accuracy potential of my cast loads. Normally I just visually inspect them... but this time I'm weighing every bullet. The bullet I'm working with now is the .44 Lyman Keith 250 grainer. I want some really nice stuff in .44 Spl.

Ok... I'm doing this. Tossing any bullet of MORE than 249.9 or LESS than 247.0.

Does that seem reasonable? How would you folks do it?

Man... I shot up an old box of Reminton LRN and they... grouped like benchrest bullets!

I must beat those groups with my own stuff!

Advice wanted!

best,
StrikeEagle

 

[Paladin7]

StrikeEagle, I am interested in the work you are doing with the 44 Spl, please keep us posted on how things turns out.

I would suggest you take a look at this book... "The ABC's of Reloading" 6th edition, chapter 27 "How the benchresters do it"

Also, there is a good article on the subject in the current American Rifleman Sept 2004 issue on page 22, entitled "handloading for handguns, what makes 'em shoot."

Ultimately, its all about consistancy...

 

[Mikul]

If you toss any bullet "MORE than 249.9 or LESS than 247.0" you'll toss ALL of them.

I don't know what the breaking point for bullet weight should be, but I imagine your usage would have great impact on this. If you're doing silhouette shooting at 300 yards, a +/- a grain may make a difference while if you're shooting within 10 yards, I imagine that +/- 10 grains would make no difference.

From measuring bullets labelled as "match" quality, I have found that they vary in weight +/- 1 grain.

 

[halvey]

Also, there is a good article on the subject in the current American Rifleman Sept 2004 issue on page 22, entitled "handloading for handguns, what makes 'em shoot."

Excellent article. It's a great read if your into real accuracy, not the simple "one ragged hole at 7 yards".

I need to get a Ransom...

 

[StrikeEagle]

"If you toss any bullet "MORE than 249.9 or LESS than 247.0" you'll toss ALL of them."

LOL, it's not THAT bad!

Basically, I keep any bullets that weigh from 247.0 to 249.9 - about a 3 grain spread. I threw out maybe 15% of them. Had a few in the 244 range... they had to have massive voids. Had a few as heavy as 251 or a bit more. I have NO idea how that happens... perhaps I didn't really close the mold totally.

The bullet I use is the Lyman #429421 which they list as weighing 245 out of Linotype. My alloy has a LOT more lead and less antimony than theirs, so I'm running a lil heavier than their spec. My alloy is 6 bars of Wheel Weights with a yard of 95% Tin solder. That's pretty much my standard alloy. Perhaps it's a bit soft, but I keep my velocities in the 800 range, and I don't seem to get any leading.

Yeah, I read that American Rifleman article. Man, there are some seriously Hardcore Perfectionists out there!

I'm a LOT more careful with my .220 Swift or .17 Rem... but that kind of fussiness would drive me nuts when I want to crank out some blasting ammo for handguns. Still... I can make nicer stuff than I've been doing. That ancient box of Remington ammo really showed me up!

I'll keep you posted.

best,
StrikeEagle

 

[Sam]

Don't toss the bullets, first visually inspect and toss any rejects, then sort to the closest whole grain. You should end up with a box of 247, 248 248 250 251, 252. Then load these batches in lots. each lot will be consistant within itself and if you are doing big batches each will be plenty big.

Sam