stoatman
LE
I had a rather productive evening yesterday and for the 1st time got fairly good results straight off the bat attempting something new.
I decided, for the challenge, to try some cast bullets in 223 Remington, which is not a terribly cast-friendly cartridge.
Since I really did not know how this was going to go, I only did the test at 50 m (and once I started at that distance I really had to finish at that distance), and as I ramped up the loads from 10.5-12.0 grains of N 110 behind Lyman's most modern 55 grain bullet, the groups got down to 1.7 MOA. That might not sound impressive, but these are by far the smallest and the fastest cast bullets I have ever attempted, and I loaded them with basic Lee dies (including the universal case mouth expander) rather than match dies. I also couldn't discard every bullet with the slightest flaw as you need to do with these small cast pills, since I didn't have enough.
So having expected 3-4 MOA groups and leading, I was really pleased to have come away with groups bettering the vast majority of factory FMJ, and no leading to speak of.
I am thus a very happy little stoat right now...
If I can get them to cycle the AR they will make marvellous training rounds.
I decided, for the challenge, to try some cast bullets in 223 Remington, which is not a terribly cast-friendly cartridge.
Since I really did not know how this was going to go, I only did the test at 50 m (and once I started at that distance I really had to finish at that distance), and as I ramped up the loads from 10.5-12.0 grains of N 110 behind Lyman's most modern 55 grain bullet, the groups got down to 1.7 MOA. That might not sound impressive, but these are by far the smallest and the fastest cast bullets I have ever attempted, and I loaded them with basic Lee dies (including the universal case mouth expander) rather than match dies. I also couldn't discard every bullet with the slightest flaw as you need to do with these small cast pills, since I didn't have enough.
So having expected 3-4 MOA groups and leading, I was really pleased to have come away with groups bettering the vast majority of factory FMJ, and no leading to speak of.
I am thus a very happy little stoat right now...
If I can get them to cycle the AR they will make marvellous training rounds.