.30 Cal 61.4gr HP Bullets Home Casting Bullet Photos

I have been doing some process development ( cycle time, mold temp control, and melt temp). These are off of one of NOE molds designed for airguns. Off the shelf the mold produces a bullet just a little to long for my FX magazine, so I have been slowly taking material off the top of the mold to get the bullets to feeding well in my magazines and working on casting process parameters too for consistent bullets. Getting real close and having fun too.

http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product_info.php?cPath=30_528&products_id=3302

Just a little bit from a bit of a casting session this evening.


















 
Diameters have been running true with not much variance.



I ran an Accurate Mold today in 30cal. A 5 cavity mold. Easy to run 800-1000 round/per hours with a large lead pot.

They are running 47.4gr with pure lead.







Compared to a 51gr JSB









Shooting in my .30cal FX. They are shooting at 875fps and grouping well and feed great in the FX magazine Raining today so stuck indoors for shooting.T


 
It is a FX Impact X with 700mm barrel.

Using a Lyman Mag25 bottom pour lead furnace.

Casting pure lead, at 750 temp.

Preheat the mold to 400 on a hot plate.

Running a pretty quick cadence with a pour about every 15 seconds.

I run a fan blowing over the mold once pour to chill the sprues and help keep mold temp down.

I cut sprues in a wire basket on the left and drop bullets on the right onto leather laying on top of a piece of foam in a wire basket set on a little bit of a slope. They have a soft drop and then roll to the back of the leather/basket.
 
In pursuit of cast bullets and some accuracy and function in the darn FX impact rifle.

Bob Sterne on GTA ask a question about the bolt probe got me to looking closer at it....heck I just assumed it was solid....never looked at it. Well it is a tube and it does not like the BBT rear shape. The tube causes the BBT to cant when loading and then the nose hangs on the breach sometimes. I figured it was due to a sharp breach entry.

Ok, so I took my 69gr BBT HP mold and milled the top down to the rear of the rear driving band, so the rear of the bullet is .30 with no BT.

I then did some quick casting....was burning daylight. Bullets look good, are weighing in at 51gr...they load from the FX magazine smooth as butter, and I think this is going to work out. Night is rushing in, wind is blowing 12-15 across my range, and the rifle NOT sighted in for these....I was tickled!!!

50yards, a full magazine of 24 shots. Quick shooting in the dark and wind! seriously!!



Recovered from my rubber mate back stop












 
At this point I don't know. I was running out of daylight this evening and was just trying to get the mold reworked and a few bullets cast and then try them out before it got dark. I need to set up the chronograph and see what the FPS is and see if the rifle needs a little adjustment for these. Hopefully I will have time this weekend to do some more casting, and do some shooting too and get the rifle dialed in for these.