brass and all. Now I've just got to get some other things taken care of, and enough sleep so that when I'm done with those I'm not too tired to mess with powder and primers and so forth.
Few days ago was able to get out and fire some stuff to try, which produced a mix of "This load shows promise, this I should test again, and these are crap." 'Bout what you'd expect. Which gives me the 'try again/refine' list. Have plenty of bullets cast, though I'd like to get a bunch more done so they can sit a while before sizing and lubing.
Which brings up another thing: weights. In all the reading I've done, the people who go for real precision in things like .45-70 tend to not just weigh the bullets, but the cases, and have very tight tolerances they'll accept for their serious loads. Which works well for them. Problem is I don't have so many cases that I can set aside half (or more) of them because they're not within1/2 grain. Also, I don't think I'm good enough that variation above that is going to kill my groups(I can do that well enough on my own). Bullets, I can cast a bunch and weigh them and have a fair number within 1/2 to 3/4 grain, some a little above or below that span, and the occasional "What the hell?" with one a 2-5 grains or so above or below. Which gives me a fair number within about 3/4 grain, while I'm wondering if that extra bit would actually make a difference? Which gets me to wondering if it'd be a good idea to go to Steve Brooks' website and order one of his moulds. I don't know if it'd help me, but from all I've read I wouldn't be able to blame the bullet for any problems.
Which reminds me: Lee makes this one, I had one, and despite a lot of yelling about Lee I got some very good groups with this bullet(before I started weighing and being overly picky). I've got several Lee moulds, and the early ones are fine. The more recent have a couple of problems:
They used to have a pin to lock the sprue pivot screw in place. They got rid of that, and the two I have will loosen up as you're casting, so every second or third bullet you have to tighten the damn thing.
The second, with this bullet, is there's very little material between the tip of the bullet and the bottom of the block. Which I didn't worry about until I finished some casting, set the mould down to give my hand a rest, and the next time I poured lead in it ran out the bottom. For whatever reason, a tiny area, maybe 1/8" long, at the tip of each cavity had warped. Nothing you can do about that. This led to a Lyman mold for their Postell bullet, and later I bought used one for the old round-nose 500 grain. They both work well, though I think the Postell cavity is just a fraction out of round. Which makes me consider scraping enough up to order from Brooks.
At the moment I'm going to finish this and try for a longer sleep tonight.
2 comments:
Casing weight shouldn't count for anything if bullet weight and powder weight are the same across all cartridges.
I mean, you can get all radical and weigh primers and casings and powder loads and bullet loads and bullet grease and shoe size and... But that shouldn't matter as long as bullet and powder load are the same.
Idea is 'If the case is heavier, it has thicker walls and that'll give higher pressure and different POI at long range', which may be true. Ranges I'm likely to shoot at I don't know if it'd make any difference.
And there's an experiment: "These cases are within 'X' of each other, these were picked at random, any difference?"
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