C'mon, Lee!!!

Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Tried a newish 309-230-5R mould tonight. It cast beautiful, round bullets and didn't need ANY prep other than wipe out the cavities with alcohol, swipe on some sprue plate lube, and put it to work.

Straight WW alloy at 725F, the base band comes out .3095".....perfect. the microbsnds about .3075"....can live with that.

But:

20181116_222400.jpg

And the nose makes .2950" at the largest. Dammit.
 
Brad

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
What load Walter? I use lots of 4227 with that one. I think my load is 10.5 gr? Maybe just 10?
Shoots well and is definitely subsonic.
 
waco

waco

Springfield, Oregon
I’m using 10.8gr of the CFE BLK
It gave me close to one ☝️ Mach groups st like 80 yards last year. Gonna go test them at 100 tomorrow.
 
F

freebullet

Guest
I'm surprised you ain't made your own mold for that one, Ian. I'm fairly certain your first try would be more dimensionally true to spec than Lee. There are a few youtoobs on cherry grinding for lathe bored molds. Otherwise....accurate....
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
I'm all over it, FB, this was a last-ditch try to improve on the pretty decent version of this one I have already. NOE has been trying to put togbether a PC design for some time, but not a single person involved understands what's needed to fit the BLK properly, and my suggestions have either been bypassed or have been largely misinterpreted. Even if they got the drawing right, I'm not convinced it would actually cast the right size anyway so I kinda lost interest.

So, I made a bunch of small but critical modifications to the basic Lee design and almost have a drawing finalized. Accurate can't do the nose that's needed for an AR, so I'm on the fence of having him do it up to .180" and me finish the points, or me take this 2C Lee .22 mould I got, grind a nose D-reamer and body reamer, and make it myself.
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
waco said:
I’m using 10.8gr of the CFE BLK
It gave me close to one ☝️ Mach groups st like 80 yards last year. Gonna go test them at 100 tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Please chrono those, I'm very interested in that powder.
 
waco

waco

Springfield, Oregon
I'm headed out in a few minutes. Will do. I bet I'll have a little room for more powder. I'm shooting for 1050fps or so.
 
Brad

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
More important is how clean does it burn? Lots of left over powder crumbs?
 
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P

popper

Well-Known Member
CFE blk likes to be full fill for best results, 80% isn't too dirty. I'm testing 185gr GC so far so good. No chrony data yet. Range isn't open yet after the flooding.
 
fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
I think part of the problem with getting people to agree on an good AAC bullet is that none of the manufacturers can agree on a throat shape.
I got 20 molds that will fit and shoot well in the wifes Ruger.
I have like 2 that will even chamber in my AAC made rifle. [the LEE and the RCBS silhouette]
it really likes the 110gr Varmageddon bullet by nosler and the other brands like it though.
I'm surprised about the rcbs, because it will not chamber in any of the AR rifles I have tried it in.
it feeds,, it just won't chamber the nose all the way into the rifling.
 
Will

Will

Well-Known Member
Anybody shooting the lee 309-230-5R have problems with the bolt carrier digging into the round below it in the magazine?

My cheap 300 BO AR shoots that Bullet pretty good but really digs into that round in the magazine. Sometimes it will even cause a jam.
 
Kevin Stenberg

Kevin Stenberg

Well-Known Member
Ian what dia. did you hope to get?
Waco I find the picture of your bullet next to the case very comical. The bullet as long as the case it fits in.
I do not shoot the 300 BO. Is the killing power of either a subsonic or supersonic enough to be used efficiently on deer? Yes i understand that handguns take many deer at the velocities that are the same as the BO.
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Will, once in a while I get that, but usually not even a scratch. I use mostly pmags that I've modified my filing the nubs off of the top of the front guide rails, which I thought had eliminated that gouging problem but it happened again to me last weekend on a sight-in run, so I guess not.

Kevin, I was hoping for at least .308" all the way to the front band, and .298" on the nose. The problem is the bullet is tapered too much from the rear band forward. I could add tin and cast with cooler alloy, but that would only add .001" at most. I need to add .007" to the front band and .003" to the nose, not gonna work. I wouldn't go after deer with subsonic BLK rounds, it would be like using an arrow with a target point. It would kill no problem, but not humane. Supers, within reasonable distance, not a problem if you can place the bullet well and use a good hunting bullet.
 
Will

Will

Well-Known Member
I haven’t modified any of mine that must be the problem. Looks like I’m gonna have to dedicate a 10 and 30rd pmag to 300blk.

Thanks for the tip.
 
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Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Up up some pictures of the mod on Brad's blackout thread a couple years ago, might still be here somewhere.
 
fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
with the sierra 130, or the Nosler black tip 120 the 300 will nip right at the heels of the 30-30.
and is plenty for Deer hunting out to about cast bullet distances.
there has been once or twice the 300 would have done as well as anything I own, and more that it would have left me sitting there getting a good look at things through the scope knowing,,, just knowing.
 
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