Cast some 245498's

[KHornet]

Hauled out this old single cav mold yesterday and cast about 150 of them. This was probably the first time I have cast with this mold in years, because I never could get it to shoot worth a hoot in many years now past. That was probably close to or the better part of 30 years ago. Am surprised that I didn't sell it on ebay.

Now that Jim has found that some of the longer bullets would shoot in his 243, and some others have commented on the fact that they need to be driven pretty fast, like well over 2000 fps. To the best of my knowledge, the fastest I ever shot 498's in any of the three 243's that I owned back then was probably 1800 if that . I did however shoot 245496's above 2000 and got respectable accuracy.

So------I have checked, sized to .245, and lubed this batch with Ben's Red, and they are now sitting on wax paper with an over coat off Bll drying. This is a good looking bullet, and in single cav it is a dream to cast.
The alloy I used will harden out after a week or so at about 26-27BH. I will start loading to 2000 as a start, and work up to 2200-2300 and see what I can get. Am in hope that my lack of patients, and willingness to test this bullet at higher velocities in the past will now go to show that old dogs can in fact learn new tricks.
Will be at least 2 weeks before I load and test these, but look forward to doing just that.

 

[JWFilips]

Paul, What will be your choice of powders? If It were me I would be on RX-7 and 2400 16 gr in 2400 19 gr in Rx7 You got 2 weeks to think about it!
I have not shot that one what does it weigh?
Jim

 

[KHornet]

Most likely will go with your thoughts and recommendations Jim.
Paul

 

[Stonecrusher]

KHornet, There was an article many years ago in handloader by Jim Carmichael and he got poor results with that bullet until he deep seated the bullets. I think the whole bearing surface was in the case neck. I am curious if your testing would give the same result. His best load was 15gr RL-7. Not sure how pushing them over 2000fps would affect this.

Good luck and please keep us posted. I too am curious about his mold.

 

[KHornet]

Will see if I can find that Carmichael article Stonecrusher. Will try seating some deep as well. That is interesting considering the short neck of the 243.

 

[Maven]

Carmichael (also?) tested Ly. 245496, the ~87gr. version of -498 and seated it to ~2.29" OAL v. seating it longer, i.e., ~2.52". Accuracy was unchanged, thus suggesting the bullet base below the case neck negatively affecting accuracy hypothesis was questionable. The article was in "Handloader" magazine, btw. I tried Carmichael's suggestion with -496 and found substantially the same thing, but with ~100 fps increase in velocity using the same powder charge; IMR 4198 in my test.

 

[KHornet]

Appreciate the data Maven! Thanks!

 

[Stonecrusher]

Good to know that Maven had essentially the same results with the deep seated bullets. Will definitely try that with the NOE 245105FN.

KHornet, I scanned the article and included it below. Had to do each page separately, the file was too big to upload.

 

[frnkeore]

I used to have that mold (245498), 25 years ago. I never shot it though. The reason I traded it off was because on mine the bore riding nose was .002 under the bore diameter so, I didn't think it would work very well.

It's a beautiful bullet though and I would have kept it, if not for that.

What size do you get for the bore riding nose?

Frank

 

[KHornet]

Get .233 as cast. Bullets hardening now for another week or so before I load and shoot them.
This will be the first batch of bullets that I have lubed with Ben's Red, and Overcoated with Bll.
It will be interesting to see the results, as if I remember right, the last time I shot any of these
was at least 30 years ago, and probably longer. Hope to learn from this.
Paul