Genius or BS Artiste...

[IdahoSharpshooter]

Anybody in Washington state know a gunsmith/competitor named Marley Parks? At a recent match in Burbank, WA,Tri-Cities area) he told a cast bullet shooting friend of mine that he was wasting his time with a 30 BR and 200+gr bullets. This gentleman says he has a 17" twist 6MM that shoots his special grooveless moly-coated cast bullets,80-10-10 alloy) over 3000fps and that his groups are 1/4" or a bit smaller at 100 yards.

I am thinking if this is true that there is a Top Twenty patch waiting for him at Super Shoot 2008. Anybody know this fellow?

Sign me, curious in Idaho

Rich

 

[AlNyhus]

I can't speak from any experience about cast bullet BR shooting, but I can tell you that Marlee Parks is a pretty well respected centerfire BR competitor and experimenter. -Al

 

[butchlambert]

Listen to Marlee Parks. He knows of what he speaks.
Butch

 

[Cheechako]

Rich

What you are saying is second hand information. Contact Marlee personally and ask him. He's a good shooter and a great guy and would probably be happy to talk to you.

Ray

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

Absolutely no disrespect intended, and I apologize if any was felt. Most of you know me from the AR forum or Precision Shooting Magazine; and know that I have some experience shooting various disciplines. I am not disparaging the gentleman in any way. Someone up in his neighborhood simply posted there that he had made this claim at a rifle match recently. I think you all understand what an awesome accomplishment this is, groups size and velocity. I live about three hundred miles from mr Parks and would hitchhike up there and back in our lovely 29-degree weather and snow if necessary, just to discuss this feat, if he would be willing to talk about it.

Mr Marlee Parks, please post here so I can chat with you.

regards,

Rich

 

[2644ever]

At first sight, this looks damn fast for a cast bullet, but at 2nd sight, we have a 17" twist,if it's a 2 or 3 groove barrel, with this rate, it is the closest we can get to a smooth bore!) the bullet is hard cast, grooveless, molyplated and probably gas checked, the barrel may be longer than usual... well, let's say I'm inclined to buy it.

 

[Cheechako]

Rich

check your PMs

Ray

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

Thanks for his Email address, I sent him one about an hour ago. I would really like to see this rifle shoot, not doubting the information; just want to see it at work. Obviously I would love to talk about it with Marlee on the phone or via Email. I probably shoot more cast bullets these days than jacketed, and my two current rifle projects are a wildcats on the 505 Gibbs case; a 550 and a belted 577.

The extreme level of velocity and accuracy he is claiming corresponds to agging in the zeroes with a 6PPC or shooting a 250-25X at 300 yards with an HBR. The current Cast Bullet Assn. Unrestricted Class Record for five shots at 100 yards is .344".

That's why I am so interested.

thanks for the assistance,

Rich

 

[harryone]

I was the guy who talked to Marlee at a gun club meeting in Pasco Wa. He was very helpful during the board meeting that night in helping me to hold a CBA military cast rifle match. I had issue with his approach while I was talking cast accuracy with one of the other members. He boldly stated 1/4" groups were the normal his 6BR with a cast pill at 3000fps. And he really sort of brushed me off when I was curious about the detailed info. I am 41 years old and it happens often with the older crowd thinking I am some young Rube. I don’t want to offend him because I know what the guy is capable of and I don’t disbelieve it so much to think it not possible. I have been shooting since I could carry a gun and casting for 20 of my 41 years and am not a beginner in any sense, just a continual learner. We cast guys with modern rifles don’t get alot of respect in the standard BR group. The long range BP guys get the glory in the standard gun-rags. I guess I am a bit sensitive<G>

If you read this Marlee I still want to see the “beef”, but am sorry if I came off brash.

Geo.

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

That was me, wondering how he accomplished this feat. He explained some of the basics, and asked me to ask more questions if I wanted to. HARD cast bullets may reach a Brinnell Hardness Number,Bhn) in the low to mid thirties. A jacketed bullet is going to test out about 100Hhn. We have to be very careful developing loads, since state of the art for us in say a 30BR is a 180-210gr bullet at 2000 to 2300fps. Smaller calibers are usually tilting at windmills, since they are soooooo much harder to cast. We sort by order cast, thinking to minimize alloy shifts in a pot as the lead oxidizes, we cast a hundred and flux, and segregate those bullets. Some cast 400 or more at a session, and segregate by weight, a few even by length or diameter. As a mould heats up the bullets get a couple 10ths "fatter". Jacketed bullets, comparatively speaking are a piece of cake. You buy a box from Bart and shoot twenty or thirty getting a seating depth worked out, fuss over a tenth or two grainwise, and go shoot quarter-moa aggs at 100 and 200.
By comparison, we're obsessive/compulsive in our search for just the right alloy, just the right mould, powder...then we can tinker with the same things you guys do. Oh, yeah, did I tell you cast bullets "soften" with age so their performance can change markedly over a two week period.

Can you feel our pain? Now you know why I so wanted to find out what marlee is doing so right??

Rich

 

[AlNyhus]

Rich, I've read your excellent articles through the years in the pages of Precision Shooting...nice to see you here on the forum.

Rich, I'm a hobbiest bullet maker myself. My 117 gr. tangent 7 ogive .30's work well enough to have helped me to my first IBS Two Gun win this season at the Wi. State Championships. As I stated before, I'm clueless about cast bullet BR..but I've often wondered as I've been squirting cores: can't the same 'swage up' method be used for lead bullets when working with a grooveless design? My .251 diameter lead/antimony mix wire goes to .253 after I run it through the squirt die and then to .2764 after I seat the cores in the jackets...every step after they come out of the squirt die the cores are dimensionally exact..to the .0001. They also remain dimensionally stable. Checks made by me over a 4 month period on cores indicate no dimensional change, at least not anything that I can measure with via hand held...but high end...measuring equipment.

It doesn't seem to be a big stretch to pointing up from this point,pun intended). My wire supplier is very accomodating and will provide me with any mix of materials to achieve whatever 'hardness' we wish to have in the cores. There has been quite a few people in BR messing with the lead/antimony mix of late..with some surprising results. The days of 'pure lead' for core material are pretty well gone for the savvy jacketed bullet maker.

Maybe the future of cast bullet BR lies in bullet dies..not bullet molds? Maybe that's what Marlee is working with? It wouldn't be too hard to come up with an ejection punch that has the shape of the bullets point coorespondingly lapped into it...point damage would be a non issue, I believe, as leads inherent lubricity would be a plus in this area.

Looking foward to your replies and further education as to cast bullet BR as I could very well be totally off base with my assumptions. :lol:

Good shootin'. -Al

 

[harryone]

It looks like you guys will be seeing him at the matches as he is working real hard on this project.If your old record is in the 3's he may soon break it?
He did mention someone e-mailed him.
Lynn

I talked to Marlee last night and I am going to shoot his Sat HBR match with cast if i can get a gun ready on time.I wont be competitve with my 22 cast loads but i hope he shoots his so i can see it in action. For a number of years the 5 shot small group at 100 was .208 so Rich was a bit off about the group size. I think the agg for the 4- 5 shot groups is the the 3/8" range in heavy class,he may have been talking about this.

 

[harryone]

Maybe the future of cast bullet BR lies in bullet dies..not bullet molds? Maybe that's what Marlee is working with? It wouldn't be too hard to come up with an ejection punch that has the shape of the bullets point correspondingly lapped into it...point damage would be a non issue, I believe, as leads inherent lubricity would be a plus in this area.

We do this already with "bump dies" to already cast bullets to get them to fit the throating of our rifles.It has been done for at least 20 years and was most likely started by John Ardito.Many say sizing damages a bullet,but bumping helps bullets a bunch.I think most of the top CBA guys are bumping these days.I use my .3095 x 1.5deg swage quite a bit.I can take an aberration and turn it into an animal i one easy stroke of the handle,I stole that quote)
We cannot legally shoot pure swaged bullets in our matches.

Geo.

 

[harryone]

Rich said-
"Smaller calibers are usually tilting at windmills, since they are soooooo much harder to cast."

I disagree a bit on that one Rich.Sometimes old "rumors" get repeated too often beacause they just seem to make sense.Another factor is that some older Lyman designs were not very good and drove people away from the caliber.
I have 16 22 calibers molds I cast with and they make very uniform bullets with good production.Well.. all of them except one Lee I cant figure out.I can cast 150-180 per hour in a single cavity custom nosepour Eagan brass mold and my bullets weigh and "mike" nearly identical from start to finish.It is rare to get as much as 2/10th grain weight variation during a two hour casting session.I think the 22's have their own set of problems,bullet castablity is not one of them.Wind doping, bore condition,GC quality,and processing is the real hurdle in my trials.Mike Mohler has some pretty decent CBA records in Production class in the CBA with a .243 Ruger Varmint,small 5 shot group 100 yds .2443" and 5 shot 100 yd agg.,4 groups avg.of .547") and Paul Pollard came in second UNR Class,193-4x) with a .222 @ 2700fps at the Nationals at 200yd score this year,so we are slowly figuring out the small ones.I even shot a respectable winnning score of 195-2X at 100 with a 22-250 Savage 12BVSS in production class this year in Spokane.It was my first BR match in 8 years so it was "begining-again'ers" luck for sure.
I have a small article about shooting 22 cast bullets in a cheap Stevens 200 22-250 that will be out early next year in the CBA's journal "The Fouling Shot".I make my case for 22's being easy to work with.The Editor has been very patient doctoring my poor writing skills.Maybe if i could write as well as Rich more people would listen to me <G>
No, probably not.

Geo.

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

lynn,

never questioned IF, but wanted to know who the gentleman was, and "...how'd he do that...?". Cast bullet groups that small are record holders, and I had not previously heard of Marlee Parks in cast bullet shooting circles. The posts indicating others have done something similiar are proof that we are getting there. Repeatability is the issue.

Other thing, he was shooting a .222 caliber rifle.

Rich

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

harryone,

I can't seem to get a new Egan mould ordered...

Who is making them to that level of skill and expertise of design this century?

I have tried Lyman, RCBS, and NEI to date for 22 caliber moulds, nobody makes a good one that I know of. Care to send me a handful and your alloy formula? If I have that, Steve Brooks makes the best moulds I know of currently.

Rich
Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost...

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

lynn,

the original post I read said Marlee was shooting 1/4" groups at 100 yards at over 3000fps with a 6mm caliber slow twist rifle. It was on the cast bullet assn. forum, not here. The reason I posted here was to try and find Mr Parks to talk about this amazing feat. Having talked to him, I believe the groups were shot by him, and that accurate and fast. His 30BR is taking the current VFS work and applying it to cast bullets. Nobody has done that yet to the best of my knowledge. He told me he was shooting 130gr grooveless bullets in his 30BR, a different deal from the initial one. Anvil hard alloy, moly plated, and shows serious promise. I am planning to meet with him in LaGrande, Oregon, at the rifle match Sunday. I have a million questions, with hopes of learning something about how this works so well.

Rich
Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost...

 

[AlNyhus]

[We cannot legally shoot pure swaged bullets in our matches. Geo.

Geo; thanks for taking the time to do this brief overview for me.

On a related note, I would think that swaging lead bullets would be an idea that would gain approval from the rules makers in cast bullet BR. I understand the 'tradition' of bullet moulding, but given the health issues surrounding working with molten lead and the fact that the cast bullets are then 'bumped' in a die..well, you're almost all the way to a swaged bullet at that point anyway.

Thanks again! -Al

 

[AlNyhus]

I am planning to meet with him in LaGrande, Oregon, at the rifle match Sunday. I have a million questions, with hopes of learning something about how this works so well.

Rich, if Larry Cribbs, Marv Nunn or Ron Baldner are there..make sure and say "Hello" to them from me. Good guys at the LaGrande 'Beaver Pond', that's for sure. Beware of the 'Pond Froth'.

Marlee tinkers with what he calls a '6 Irish' which was a 6BR case with the shoulder blown foward to hold 45.0 of water..legal for HBR. Sort of a 'mini' version of our 30 WolfPup HBR case.

Keep us posted and good shootin'. -Al

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

Al,

will do, I shot my first HBR match at LaGrande about eighteen years ago. I can remember Cribbs when he was skinny! Ron Baldner lives about 20 miles east of me. I remember Ron when he had a job! Does that make me old? Do you remember Verne Johnson? He was the gold standard then in HBR. Steve Kostanich built my rifle.

Rich