Well, over two years later, I'm bringing this back.
A brief story about Yours Truly. Back when I handloaded by the same kerosene lamp that illuminated my high school homework, all I had was a Marlin .30-30 and the use of my Dad's .38 revolver. I used loads out of the Speer #11 book that came with my RCBS loading kit, and snuck a copy of a friend's Lyman #2 handbook to school and copied the 30-30 cast bullet pages to take home (should have just memorized "10 grains of Unique"
). Fine and dandy for popping cans and turtles in the creek, but I wanted more. I asked myself "Why can't I use the jacketed bullet data with gas-checked, cast bullets?" So I set out to try. Soon I was loading 34.5 grains of WW748 under a 311407 and having a ball. Much later I learned that I wasn't s'posed to do that 'cuz the bullets would fly everywhere, including sideways and backwards. Well, it wasn't so for me. About that time a fine old gentleman who was losing his vision (probably WMD, before it was understood) took me under his wing and loaned me a 1950's Winchester model 70, .30-'06 and fed me match-prepped brass and sized, lubricated bullets. He encouraged me to enter some NRA Hunter class matches at a nearby town, and when I got my driver's license and an old pickup hacked together, I was off to the races. Not knowing any better, I used the loads he gave me to work up, and years later I figured out we had that 311299 chooching along at over 2500 fps. I never won anything in the few matches I shot, but had fun and did reasonably well for a kid with no shooting mentor and old pants legs full of sand stacked up for rests. When I went off to college, I returned his rifle and all the other things he'd loaned me, along with my score targets from the matches. Sadly, he passed not long after and I found out too late to even attend his funeral. Being a dumb kid, I never realized that what we had done was really pretty special, and didn't think to ask questions about the hows and whys of all the brass prep work, or even the alloy he used to cast the bullets. My .30-30 didn't need any special attention to shoot great at full-throttle with cast, so I had nothing to clue me in that this isn't necessarily an easy thing to do. So, many years later, I started out again with my own rifles and had many, many disappointments. I found the internet, found things called bulletin boards, and even one dedicated to bullet casting and shooting. I also found out a lot I didn't want to know about human nature, but that's another story. Eventually I discovered a few like-minded people who seemed to know all the tricks, but getting good information was like pulling teeth, so I just shot and shot and tried this and that and finally started to get a handle on things. Would have been a heck of a lot easier if there hadn't been so much noise and heat, and had been a little more light. Anyway, here we are, in the place I wish had been around ten years ago, with just the facts and an encouraging, laid-back, helpful atmosphere.
Today, we have some people trying out what they've heard can't be done, and finding out it can be. Lots of work going on, lots of learning, and it's a blast to watch. I'm still learning a lot too, and am going to jump back into it again as soon as I have one other project squared away, which will be soon.
Let's see, we have Bama shooting PC bullets at lightspeed with great groups, but that's cheating!
JK, I'm happy some people are giving HV, PC rifle bullets an objective, honest go and figuring out the capabilities and limitations (like fouling). Waco, Will, 35 Shooter, are all doing great with the .30-calibers, I'm impressed guys, keep it up!
