Arsenal 225- 45 RF

[Spindrift]

Many interesting points to ponder, thank you all for your contributions!

I haven't been able to find a thorough test of slick PC bullets anywhere, only way to find out is to give them a shot- literarily. I'll keep you posted.

I have, however, shot a fair bit with the Arsenal .30- cal HVTH1 bullet. This is quite close to a slick GC bullet. Only a minimal groove, with a long, unrelieved bearing surface. It is an excellent, adaptive design that seems to shoot well in anything. This was the bullet that insired me to test an actual slick.

 

[Jeff H]

Many interesting points to ponder, thank you all for your contributions!

I haven't been able to find a thorough test of slick PC bullets anywhere, only way to find out is to give them a shot- literarily. I'll keep you posted.

I have, however, shot a fair bit with the Arsenal .30- cal HVTH1 bullet. This is quite close to a slick GC bullet. Only a minimal groove, with a long, unrelieved bearing surface. It is an excellent, adaptive design that seems to shoot well in anything. This was the bullet that insired me to test an actual slick.

I certainly appreciate that you are taking the time to share what you learn. I'm pretty stuck on my air-cooled wheel-weight, tumble-lubed bullets, but this is an interesting pursuit. I am not known for jumping onto bandwagons, but I also don't live in the past at the cost of something new or "better," as long as it qualifies on BOTH counts, and this seems to have so me potential to do so.

If not, it's at least fun and we'd at least learn something which did not work - eliminate an impossibility.

 

[JWFilips]

Like this?

 

[Jeff H]

Like this?
View attachment 25372

WOW! Talk about engraving...

I've never seen one of those in real-life.

 

[Glaciers]

Yes, absolutely. Barnes bullets were originally slicks and they fouled TERRIBLY. Frank Barnes figured out that displacement grooves were essential because the copper doesn't draw like a lead/antimony wire core does. Coatings are also used on some models to cope with copper fouling. Same thing should apply to PC monoliths, and I believe this is what Bama was experiencing with his high-velocity rifle bullets.

Having had various calibers in the early Barnes slick copper bullets and shelving them. That is a good point Ian now that you bring up, it adds to the cautionary concerns of using slicks..
again I wonder about HT vs PC
But adding in the old Barnes problems to the mix, and the fact that I’m not a serious bench shooter, well PC and lube grooves are what I will dabble with till you brain surgeons get this figured out. Or some additional testing.
I’m thinking I might wander over to the other site and check in with the HT guys.
I followed the HT stuff for quite a while and even laid in a stock of powders. Never used that process yet. But it seems that is where I first heard about slicks.

 

[Ian]

From what I remember, HT was originally a handgun caliber powder and the SASS/CAC folks were the main market. Others did a lot more with it, Dan of Mountain Molds in particular. The cowboy action crowd decided they weren't using lube so no lube groove necessary (or something like that) and so it was. Nobody had much trouble with slicks, but most people using HT and slicks weren't pushing 3K fps, either. Same story with PC.

Until someone can show me a failure point with displacement grooves which is cured by slicks without side effects, I'm going to continue using (and designing and machining) conventional "lube" style and micro-band bullets.

 

[Spindrift]

I’ve never used HT either. From what I’ve heard, it makes a thinner and apparently more vulnerable coat. Less added girth might be useful, depending on what you’re starting with.

I have, however, tried wet coating with regular PC and various solvents. The first powder I got was not particularily cooperative, and gave me some frustration. I found out that wet coating was messy, smelly and maybe not a healty undertaking in my poorly ventilated basement.

Just sized the fruits of my cold weather casting session; 60 good bullets.....

The powder is a mix I made, to make use of some colors that weren’t working on their own:
3 parts Ford, light blue (which is excellent)
1 part white, gloss and
1 part Chrysler orange (both the former have inferior coating characteristics).

The mix works great.

You may notice how some of the bases have a little skirt of excess coating. The front angle of the bevel however, where the bearing surface ends.... sharp and even!

 

[Jeff H]

.....
You may notice how some of the bases have a little skirt of excess coating. The front angle of the bevel however, where the bearing surface ends.... sharp and even!

Hmmmmm,...

I've noticed the bases of my PC bullets have some tiny, gnarly, inconsistent looking surface to them. I push them through the LEE die backwards to wipe that "fin" or "flange" off, but the bases (bottoms) still are not super flat and smooth - like a micro-lunar landscape. I think I'm getting the edge cleaned up OK though.

The leading edge of your bevel IS a nice, clean, consistent edge.

 

[fiver]

i remember some basic tube shaped bullets with a gas check at the base similar to those.
they didn't seem to last long on the market, i'm assuming they just didn't have any down range applications.

those grooves in the copper bullets weren't just for fouling relief.
they also lowered peak pressures.
I'm assuming this also applies to P/C bullets, there has to be somewhere for the metal to go.
traditional bullet types [cup and core] will take the rifling and press into the core as well as elongate the bullet some.
i went with a 5R rifling in my 7X ICL simply to avoid damaging the bullet as much as possible.
marlin uses their metford rifling for the same reason, then they went and put that big stupid cavern in front of the case.

 

[Ian]

Or the opposite, with the chamber reamer ending with a 45 degree bevel right in front of the case mouth. I got two JMs, one of each style.

I think there's a bunch to be learned from shooting cup/core jaxketed and understanding a little of it (I don't really because I never made them from scratch or tested results) that applies to cast, paper jax, PC, Sabots, or anything else we can cram down a pipe with burning gas. The hard, thick, round nose military "ball" bullets had open bases and the core could extrude out the back as the bullet engraved. We have to think about this stuff if we're going to keep moving forward.

Spindrift and Jeff, those bevel bases are what I like for plain-based pistol, and gas check shanks for PB rifle when powder coating. I have a couple of flat-base rifle moulds and they don't shoot as well as similar bullets having a check shank. That base parting edge at the muzzle crown is critical to accuracy, and if it's sitting on crumpled aluminum foil and getting flashing from being sized, it isn't going to shoot as well as it could. Remember the tool that used to be available to shave a slight bevel on bullets to "uniform" the bases? Yup, it matters, at least to the last 1.5 MOA or so.

 

[fiver]

the gas pressure would expand that metal base to keep a good seal too.

i've never been able to crack the code on why the accuracy suffers on a FMJ so much.
i have even gone so far as to make some up with J-4 and Sierra match jackets from the exact same batch of jackets and cores i was making some soft point bullets with.

they shoot okay.
but 1-1/2" to 2" groups from a rifle shooting high speed cast bullets under 1-1/2"s consistently, and the pointed soft points well under an inch is a huge puzzle.
i even thought about trying to figure out how to put a gas check on the base of the open base FMJ's.

just too much crap to learn and explore for one guy.

 

[RBHarter]

Now we've introduced grip vs drive length and how it relates alloy strength , displacement , and net construction . ......

The typical artillery projectile is an iron bore rider with a brass drive band about .65 dia long . It's eyeball about 3" on a 155 mm and about 5" on an 8" . It's been a long time since I eyeballed a 12 or 16" but overall it seems like they were even shorter 8-9" maybe on the 16" . In application in spite of fractional tolerance at ranges of miles they shoot little bitty groups . A 100 yd square at 50 miles may as well be a dime at 100 yd .

Yeah tomatoes and peaches .....

How much of that X bullet is actually engraved and how much is just along for the ride . The grooves do allow for displacement but look at how long that shank is from where it makes first contact to last . Half of the drive length is cut out . Well in the pictures I've seen of 30 cal anyway .

I'd bet that load for load a cup and core with the grip area reduced via extra crimp grooves by 1/3 would be faster or lower pressure . It's been a long time since I not picked jacketed but it seems like BT had an edge over FB bullets where it was listed separately .

I can't think of a cast bullet that doesn't have a full dia drive length . Most get longer as they get smaller but hover around 2 dia for rifles , where noses fit properly of course .
Loverne designs have a really long drive length but not much grip length . The only success I've had with them is paper patched and that was a pleasant surprise to be sure . But that also changes the whole dynamic of the bullet .

150 minor changes for that last .01 that mean zip to 90% of the trigger operators .

 

[Spindrift]

A little range trip today. By scraping the bottom of the bullet jar, I was able to scrounge up 5 good bullets. I wanted to test them with Vihtavuori N110. My gut feeling was, this powder is probably just to slow to achieve consistant internal ballistics while staying within the tolerance of the bullet.

I also had some rejects with small defects or flow lines, to shoot over the magnetospeed. I even loaded some rejects with Vectan Ba because, well, I felt like it.

But mostly, I shot the NOW 225-57 plain base, or MX-2 bullet. This is the bullet I’ve shot the most in this rifle so far. It is also the diametric opposite of the Arsenal 225-45 with respect to design philosophy. As such, it could be considered a sort of reference.




The MX-2 in the photo is not yet sized. After taking the photo and zooming in, I saw the remnants of vent-line whiskers that I hadn’t noticed before. This illustrates the point that slick bullets are much more revealing as to imperfections in general.

The arsenal 225-45 with 10 grs N110 clocked in at 1980 fps. Interestingly, the 60 grs MX-2 with the same powder load, produced excactly the same velocity. This indicates ineffective burn with the light bullet (as anticipated). Accuracy with this load was also dissapointing



Once I have good bullets of mature age, I might try to increase the load a little; or add a crimp, or increase size to .226.


The 225-45 rejects with 7,2grs Ba9 left the muzzle at 2020fps. I don’t think the group was too bad, considering the bullets. 3 bullets cloverleafing, 2 fliers. Looking forward to testing this load with good bullets!




For reference, I shot a group with the MX-2 bullet and 7,5grs Ba9. This is neither the best or the worst group I’ve shot with this bullet. It’s pretty representative of how this design is working out for me in this rifle.



Little proper data so far, but the emerging pattern is.... the 225- 45 slick BB seems to be a shooter!

 

[popper]

From a while back, with this 'slick, 2k fps @ 100 and IIRC they were HiTeked. And a decent u alloy.

The design was 1) a small alloy displacement groove, 2) an approximation of a bevel base that made a good sharp cast base(easy to cull and load)
The base also gives a displacement area for any 'tail' due to lands. I had recovered some 40sw and saw a large 'tail' and broken off areas of displace alloy in the lube grooves of the TC design. The target bullets were an experiment of sprue cutting, wait till it gets really hard and cut. But the plate tilts so the base obviously isn't 'square' to centerline. Experiment still worked and the bullets were some 30ish BHN. I still shoot this through the AR carbine but mostly HV use a modified GC version, no groove at all. HV PB messes up the gas system. Had to get a new gas block as the adjustable one got plugged and couldn't be cleaned. Actually was soldered to the barrel and I cut it off. Changed to a different type that I can get off and use the 'solution' to clean it. Oh AR BO 18" 6x24 nikon on pebr mount. Timney 4# trigger. Mcgown 1:10 barrel with really tight neck. My only 'custom' rifle.

 

[popper]

The GC version, PC same load and alloy. Shows what a square base can do. Oh, shank is a tad longer so there is a 'groove' in front of Hornady GC. I get a redo of the 308W mould so it is also essentially grooveless. Did the same for my new 30/30 moulds.

Off group IIRC was 30/30.

 

[Spindrift]

Did a little weighing excercise with my 225-45 bullets. Casting in cold and windy weather is challenging, I often have to resort to pressure casting to get good fill-out at the base. During this casting session, I discovered I could cast good bullets without pressure casting by shielding the spout with a ceramic tile. So, the casting technique was not consistant throughout.
I’m not about to start weight sorting my bullets, but I wanted to get an idea how consistent they were, with respect to weight. So I weighed 30 bullets, and sorted by 0,1 grs increments. For reference, I did the same with 30 Nosler BT 50 grs bullets. I’m pretty happy with the results, the plots look quite similar. Maybe I can tighten things up a bit, as the casting requirements of this particular mould is emerging to me.



PS more actual shooting results expected in a week

 

[Ian]

So you're having winter too, I take it?

 

[Spindrift]

It has been a pretty mild winter, with less snow than usual. But yes, winter it is!

 

[fiver]

those outliers are what your looking for.
the middle ground biggest piles will be your shooters.

yeah it sucks to try and weigh those little things, but the results are worth the time.
it may not make the groups smaller but it keeps the holes all in the same place.

 

[Spindrift]

It was a cold, crisp winter morning at the range. No wind, around 20˚F. I had various rifles and loads with me, but had planned to shoot the CZ .222rem with the Arsenal 225-45 early, while I could still feel my fingers

I shot groups with Vectan Ba9, 7,2- 7,5- 7,8 grs. I had anticipated 7,5 grs would be the sweet spot and 7,8grs the failure point.

As it turned out, 7,2grs shot the best, with the system clearly failing at 7,5grs.

Results were OK, nothing really special. Ba9/ 7,2 produced one 1,3 MOA and one 1,5MOA 5-shot group at 100m.

At least, things are moving along in the right direction.