Powder coated 7.62x39 cast bullets

About to take the plunge. With some 155 gr. Lee cast bullets. The questions I have are if powder coated do you still use a gas check? If you did use gc' s where did you buy them? If you didn't use gc's what was your experience? I'm going to try to push these at about 1800 to 1900 fps. Using accurate 2460 or imr 4895. I thinking about trying to hunt with whatever load I can up with and general range plinking.

 

No need for the gas check, guess it couldn't hurt but then I've seen groups change with powder coat vs pc and gc bullets. That bullets a bit pointy if I remember it right so I'd use a softer lead if hunting with it, that's what's nice with powder coating tho you can get away with softer lead and keep the speed up.

 

Thanks for the reply. I was going to try both water quench and regular quench. This is bullet I'm going to use.

 

Back in the days before the net I used the phone and ordered them from Midway USA. You could google it now I bet. 2K gas checks for my 30-30 bullets take a long time to use up BTW.

 

If you're pc is good you don't need the check most likely. But if you don't have the projectile a thou or two larger than bore diameter it'll help having the check. Have you slugged the bore? And Troyfairweather is on it, run em soft if hunting with them. Lots of guys run 185 grn cast in the x39 with success.

 

Your better off with the tl version of that bullet for pc'd bullets. The tl version is a lot stronger design and is more efficient getting more fps out of the same load vs the traditional design.

Typically I like to use fast burning powders with plain based bullets, 4227 or faster. I'm getting +/- 1700fps with these type loads/powders & don't use a filler.

When using sick powders with plain based bullets you should use a filler to protest the bullet's base. I use dacron quilt batting for a filler in all my high power/hv rifle loads that are less then 85% load density with the slower burning rifle powders.
A bullet base that had the dacron filler


Same bullet base with no filler to protect it.


Most reloaders don't realize it but the filler does 2 things, both of them are a win/win.

What you really need is some gc's and do some head to head testing with gc'd bullets VS non gc'd bullets.

Good luck & please keep us posted

 

I had a hard time finding gas checks. But was finally able to order some from a place called sage's outdoors. They only had aluminum so I'll give them a try. And post back.

 

I haven't slugged the bore yet. But now I have both soft and water quenched varieties to tryout. Waiting also for gas checks to come in. So this should be an interesting journey.

 

I've been using my PC bullets in my CZ 527 for a few years now. I've found keeping them unchecked and around 1600fps gives best accuracy, and I've used RL7, 4227 and 4198.

 

I've found that gas checks help my accuracy quite a bit.

If you're going to use the 155 Lee bullets for deer, I'd suggest a fairly soft alloy, something like air cooled 50/50 clip on WW's and pure lead.