LBT, 30 cal., 180 gr.

Ian

Notorious member
I'd skip the powder coating, cast some more with as little tin as you can, and size to scuff-fit the sized part and put as much of the nose as possible into the throat without modifying the nose.
 

Ole_270

Well-Known Member
The nose was .312 as cast , .3115 after PC and sizing. I'll get the pot drained down and loaded without adding tin. I've got two base alloys to work with. #1- 1.43% Sn, 2.92% Sb. #2- 1.3%Sn, 2.1%Sb. These bullets were the first with a little tin added. I've got a piece of pipe and a few pucks of what I think is left over plumbers lead and quite a bit of Linotype. One of these days I've got to get some of the large Isotope containers melted down and into smaller sizes.

a little side thought.
I think your gonna find some of that lost velocity with the way you have it fit now.

That was a thought I had, might drop back to the 28-29 H4895 and low 40s on H4831sc area for the first test loads.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
keep the 4831 up at the 45 gr level.
28-29 of the 4895 is just gonna get you to around 1900 fps again. [not too bad an area just to see what the bullet can do though]
if your gonna chase speed your gonna have to open that varget/4064/rl-15 can and get up to the 38-39-40gr area to gain some confidence and then start finding a direction.
 

L Ross

Well-Known Member
Good thing Ben only had that mould for a day. Any longer and he would have plain based it.
 

Ole_270

Well-Known Member
Just with some preliminary testing, I'm having to seat the bullet at 2.490" oal to keep from pulling it when extracting the dummy. That places the base slightly below the shoulder, let alone the neck. I'll wait another week or so and give the PC/water dropped samples a try.
Probably try the 45-H4831SC and 34 Varget again. That varget load with the #315 gave me 2047fps last go round, had 4 in 1.5" and a wild 5th opened it up a ways.
 

5shot

Active Member
I tried one of Veral's molds for my 35 Whelen, and this issue is why I didn't end up buying one. I ended up going with a bore ride design so that I could get the bolt to close.
 

Ben

Moderator
Staff member
I bought a 6.5 mould of Verals.
Guess what , I couldn't get the bolt to close.
?????????

Ben
 

5shot

Active Member
Yeah...that's a bummer. Wasn't an aficionado of the bore rider until it came to trying longer bullets in my rifles. Now, as long as the nose engraves in the given gun, I am happy to use them.
 

Ben

Moderator
Staff member
Guess I've just bought the " wrong ones" that have been floating around used.
My $ definitely seems to be better spent with Tom at Accurate Moulds.
No surprises with Tom.

Lee doesn't care what alloy you'll be using, TOM does care.
Lee doesn't ask what diameter you want the bullet to drop from the mould, TOM does.
Ben
 
Last edited:

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Maybe you and the wrong rifles?

Never got around to buying a mould from Veral.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Don't blame Veral for cutting a mould for someone else's rifle. Buy his book and get a little better understanding of how he intended that bullet to work.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
it's the commercial thing, you make the bullets hard enough, small enough to fit most everything, and the lube hard enough to look good coming from the box or you get a bad rap.

someone else comes along to start making molds and hears nothing but how molds are too small and swings the other direction going too big to be fit properly without having to re-shape both halves of the thing.

then you have a small percentage of casters that look at things differently and take another tact of not having things come from the mold so big they change the shape of the bullets drive bands when sizing/checking/chambering, they don't use long bore ride nose shapes, and they have good results running the speeds up to start-mid jacketed velocity's.
their outlook becomes one of mimicking the shape of the rifles throat they are dealing with.
moving the bullet from point A to point B by allowing the bullet to move and flow in concert with the rest of the loads details.
planning for movements of parts of the bullets shape and displacement of the alloy by the rifling.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ian

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
And, Veral feels the same way about bore riding bullets that Elmer Keith felt about gas checks. A friend of mine just received an LBT 30 cal. mould that he and Veral talked long and hard about for awhile. After getting all the current bore & throat dimensions communicated back & forth, Tom will be throating the barrel to match his new mould. Tom asked, Veral explained, they talked, and the barrel will be getting fit to the bullet. I can hardly wait for this one, I've always wanted to do this myself. There really are no "stock" LBT moulds, especially for rifles. Each one is specifically set up for a specific set of unique specifications. You can order moulds to fit your stock throating, but it really does require a throat slug to get proper fit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ian

fiver

Well-Known Member
it's also damn hard to design a bullet that will work well in various rifles.
you can get close enough to work quite well in most of them and even then one designed for rifle A still works better in rifle B in another caliber, but works great in rifle C in the original chambering.

I remember seeing an article one time titled 'why grown men cry'
I immediately thought I know why, they are trying to please everybody with their [insert caliber here] bullet design.
you just can't do it,,, even a good one [a real damn good one] just won't work 'somewhere', but it will work in enough of them to get a good reputation.
 

Ben

Moderator
Staff member
Don't blame Veral for cutting a mould for someone else's rifle. Buy his book and get a little better understanding of how he intended that bullet to work.

I'm simply stating that buying used LBT moulds has not worked out well for me and I plan to stop doing that.

I'm not blaming anyone for making anything.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I think now you know why they will either work out real well or maybe not at all.
we all get caught out with this stuff.