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Originally Posted by HOLLiS
Gene: I still have about 50 lbs of linotype. I need to check my old supplier to see if it is even available. As I mention, I never played with the 300WM in a reduced load. I always had something more appropriate to shoot. The other thought was using a filler with a reduce load, But!! I am not sure how that would work out or how deadly to the shooter it would be. I have done that for my Trapdoor Springfield (45/70) and used a smokeless powder with reasonable accuracy. (Also for BP loads) Those 17 HMR are pretty interesting. I bought barrel for the Thompson Contender in 17 HMR. I had not had much time to play with it. Hollis
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Hollis:
I screwed around with cast bullets for the .308 and 30-06 for a couple of years. Used pistol powders through fast rifle through medium burning powders. I used kapoc for fillers for the pistol powders and light loads of 4198. Tried cream of wheat and oatmeal as well but the kapoc worked better. For the high pressure cartridges like the .308, I found a light load of 4895 without a filler was about the best. 4759 and 3031 worked very well in the straight walled and necked BP cartridges but didn't seem to do well in the modern bottleneck cartridges. Super slow powders like surplus .50 cal powder did a decent job but left partially burned powder in the barrel.
I have five or six molds for .30 caliber rifle. Gas checked of course. All the conventional wisdom said to use a flat tip bullet but I got the best luck with a spitzer tip cast bullet that was basically a bore rider. Still, it was almost impossible to shoot a minute of angle and no matter how well my QC, one of ten would really fly.
Might as well tell guys that it is no fun dealing with cast bullets and any modern bottleneck cartridge. One has to ream out the inside of the necks to take the larger diameter of a cast bullet. Cast bullets are always oversized to seal the bore.
Best alloy for the .30 caliber bullets for me was straight lineotype. Best alloy for the BP cartridge rifles was pure lead with a touch of tin added to fill out the mold. If I paper patched a BP bullet, I preferred a harder bullet like the Lyman #2 alloy. NEI made a 500 grain PP bullet for the Sharps that was very respectable.
Man, so many hours spent with so little to show for it.
Gene
Gene