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Reamer for match cast bullet shooting

Dimner

I do believe in Captain Crunch.
Hi gang,

I know cast bullets are not often discussed in these parts, but I figured I would bring it up here before I ask this question over on castboolits.gunloads or artfulbullet. I am planning a build for the mid/end of 2025 and need to put in a barrel and possibly reamer order in a month or two so I can have it delivered in time for the build. I'm not sure what cartridge yet, so I figured I would ask all you with lots of experience and exposure to a bunch of obscure stuff.

I want to build a rifle that will shoot 30 cal cast bullets. Has to be 30 cal because 1) 30 cal is the optimal size where you can start designing your own custom molds. And 2) I seem to be the most proficient at casting 30 cal from a weight and dimensional stability perspective. Boolit weight is not a constraint. (legally you have to call it a boolit when it's a cast boolit) I'm not married to any specific boolit weight. I'd be good with either the 100s -130s grain wise or upto 180-200gr. I'll cast what ever works with a proven reamer design.

The rifle will be a range rifle, with a barrel profile around the medium Palma size (unless reamer notes or some other info pursuades me in a different direction). Twist and length will be determined by the needs of the reamer design. It will be shot of front rear and bags. 100 to 500 yards. 100 yards at first while I develop loads then probably 300 yards after that. 500 yards when I get the itch. I don't shoot matches, not even sure if there are CBA matches near me, but I'd like to get this rig as near to cast match precision as possible. What does cast match precision mean? I honestly don't know. In factory rifles and standard chambering, I'm able to achieve 1 moa at a hundred yards with the right boolit profile and tune. So I guess anything .5 moa and below at 300 yards would be nice if that's possible

My gut says look into 30br reamers that are cast specific, does anyone know of any or are there other cartridges that are suited for this type of thing. I think there was something like a shortened 308 win that was used a while back.
 
If you could get some recent CBA magazines (The fouling Shot) it usually tells what is used in the matches. At least it used to. I have gotten some great groups with 308, 338wm and 38-55 cartridges. Unfortunately, it was with 4759 powder.
Been thinking of either a 30Br or a 30-30(turn the rim down to use a 308 bf)
 
Long ago I was shooting a lot of cast & gas checked wheel weight lead bullets in my M1 Gerand and it worked well… Just did not have the $ for jacketed bullets.
About 168grains as I recall.
Loaded up the 30-06 cases with a shoulder level of 4831 {it too was cheap, military surplus from Hodgen and .50c a pound…!}
AH, the carefree days of youth…. {:~)
 
For 30 caliber cast bullet shooting I would give the old .30-30 Winchester a hard look, that long neck is cast friendly.
 
For 30 caliber cast bullet shooting I would give the old .30-30 Winchester a hard look, that long neck is cast friendly.
I have 3 30wcfs I cast for and one 303 savage. I 100% agree, the necks are perfect for cast bullets. However the rims are the weak link when it comes to making a match capable rifle due to chamber alignment probably would have to pay a boatload on custom smith work to overcome it.
 
I have not shot a cast bullet in too long. I went close to 20 years without shooting a jacketed bullet, then the Varmint bug bit me and the speed freak came back out.
I would do a search on the 35 BR, there were some really good results with it as I recall.
I found the 35’s to be way more forgiving than the 30’s in the long run.
With SR4759 no longer around I don’t have a clue what powder to point you towards. There are some that bang their drum on AA5744, it works but I never got the accuracy I did from 4759.
 
First off Id decide on bullet design. The weight of the bullet will let you calculate how big of a case is needed to push it the desired velocity. Your alloy will dictate how fast you can push it. No reason to go with a bigger case than you need. The 30 BR would be a good choice most likely. If its a little small, look at the 6.5x47 case necked up to 30. You will be sizing the bullets larger than jacketed so freebore diameters will reflect that. And you will need to know if you have a bore rider design or not for freebore length. Im not a cast expert but I do thing its interesting and used to play around with cast bullets in a few rifles. I have had excellent results with the lyman 314299 mould.
 
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Many years ago, I cast and shot my own .30 caliber cast bullets. At the time I read everything that I could get my hands on on the subject. IMO, for a specialized rifle, or barrel the chamber reamer, bullet mold, and barrel top of lands diameter need to be coordinated. I used a bullet that was designed for the front half or so to ride the tops of the lands. For this to be optimal the front of the bullet needed to have slight resistance as it was inserted into the muzzle, which was of course a matter of coordinating the mold dimension with the barrel. The back of the bullet was designed to fit the groove diameter and had the lube grooves, and was designed for a Hornady gas check. I sized the bullets so that they were .001 over the nominal groove diameter. There was another important detail. It seems that some of what I had read indicated that bullets were more accurate if they were sized nose first and minimally reduced in diameter by the process. To get this done I used one of the Lee bullet sizing dies in .309 diameter, sizing the bullet and crimping on the gas check in one operation and then filling the lube grooves in conventional manner, base first, with not sizing taking place in that step, using an RCBS lubesizer. If you dig into it, I think that bullet lubes are a whole subject into themselves. If I were going to get back into this today, I would pay very close attention to advice from top cast bullet benchrest shooters, including what caliber they favor, what barrel, and twist, as well as what mold maker. In short I would copy everyting that I could find out that winning shooters were doing, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. Back then I was shooting lead with added wheel weight material, but that had some issues with hardness changing over time. Given the changes in wheel weigh systems and the general availability, today I might experiment with a lead tin alloy. One other detail that I ran across, was that bullet hardness and peak chamber pressure need to be coordinated. In the well done test that I read the bullets that shot the best slugged up a bit in the bottoms of their lube grooves from being shot, but if the bullets were too soft or hard, for the pressure level, they did not shoot as accurately. For the plain base guys there is something called pan lubing that involves shooting bullets as cast, to avoid the deformation and subsequent slight accuracy loss from the slight deformation that sizing imparts. I mentioned this to a friend with a Browning HIgh Wall in .32-40 that was shooting plain base bullets with over powder wads, and he got his best results that way. Typically to avoid cutting the bullets cast bullet shooters flare their necks in some fashion like pistol reloaders commonly do. I found that the Lyman M die had a better design for this, having a unique mandrel design as compared to other expanders.
 
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Good luck with your project. I'm a varmint hunter so cast high velocity is the "norm".

Tapered nose sizing can be a game changer. The reason is you get to set the bullet base-to-powder column height independent of jam. You also can change the taper degrees.
Nose sizing obviously effects the reaction to the body numbers,but that's a dynamic factor. It easier to understand/calc the dimensions as two separate functions.
Dynamic fit IMO is best "understood" if you build a vertical impact tester. It's a well established tool,you need it set up for typical bullet weights... 10lb head is about right. Which is what mine is... well the empty head weight. It is a hollow top design for adding weight. You can talk chit all day about running cast @.001 or .002 "over",but until you've experienced hitting an "undersized" bullet with metered blows,watching THAT particular mould's reaction... or gain in diameter,well you just aren't getting a clear picture.
Low node accuracy dosen't require much work on the bullet itself. Size it,lube it,shoot it. Get into jacketed speeds and cast takes on some interesting characteristics.
I mill cast bullet bases in a gang fixture,11 at a time. It's done on an Atlas bench DP I keep in the loading room(we have a fully kitted machine shop).... the reason I'm relating this is not to "sell you" on the process. Nope,it's to point out... like impact testing... that certain aspects of this sport really are best "understood" by a visual. I'm a VG caster,been at it since the mid 70's. Got ALL THE BELLS N WHISTLES. But it wasn't until milling bases that I literally saw where 90%+ of dropped weight variance comes from...
Let's say I'm dropping 140g 264's at +- .5 grains. With an occasional outlier on each end. Take a handful of those and gang mill the bases.... watch what happens to that 1/2 grain. So the takeaway is... get your base fill out PERFECT, and watch your scores.
Bunch more to it,hopefully you can use some of this.
 
Having won 3 Cast bullet Assoc national championships and currently holding 21 CBA national records, my advise would be to go with a 30 PPC reamer with a .3095 throat. Your brass should end up being approx 1.520. Have a die made to fit your brass or ream out the neck on 6PPC dies to 30 caliber. I would go with a .329 neck thickness. I would recommend a bullet around 210 gr. tapered from .310 at the base to .3015 at the ogive. N-135 would be my go to powder starting at 26 gr and slowly going up. I would try to get a barrel with a .295-.298 bore. with an 11 twist. Hart makes an excellent barrel if you tell them what you want. 25 inches seems to work as the best length.
Maybe more than you want to undertake but this will give a very accurate rifle.
 
Dimner, not sure where you are from, but the Cast Bullet Association will be shooting the National Match in North Carolina at Piedmont Gun Club in two weeks. If you are any where close to that I would recommend attending. Very good and extremely knowledgeable folks will be in attendance. These guys can answer your questions. I have shot around the guys for years, although I typically shoot jacketed bullets. I do the scoring for some of their matches and will be scoring these Nationals.

There are several calibers that seem to be popular and do well. I have seen several variants of the PPC in 30 do well, but lots of 30 BR's here on the eastern side of the country.

If you will contact me with a PM, I'll share what knowledge I have or can possibly put you in contact with someone that can discuss the reamer design in more detail.

Hope this helps you a little.
 
I would suggest you start with an off the rack Savage in 308 Win. A quick look at the various heavy barrel models should get you started. I shot a little CBA back in the 1980'/90's before I got off track wanting to go to Zimbabwe and hunt Cape Buffalo. Got a nice one. Then, two more trips to RSA. But, I digress.
For many years Savages held all the production class records.
Check the CBA records and see how many are still being shot competitively...

Good Luck with your casting and shooting,

ISS
 

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