cast bullet leading – The ExhaustNotes Blog

A Boudreau Econo-Whelen Load!

The .35 Whelen is an interesting cartridge. A wildcat formed by necking .30 06 brass up to .35 caliber, it’s been called the poor man’s .375 H&H, but the price of ammo would suggest it’s anything but a poor man’s cartridge. A box of 20 factory rounds when I checked just a few minutes ago ranged from a low of $50 to a high of $72. For 20 rounds? Gimme a break!

My .35 Whelen Ruger No. 1. They didn’t make too many of these and mine has exceptional Circassian walnut. It’s not for sale.

I like to shoot, but I’m a cheap SOB and truth be told, I don’t like beating my self up with factory .35 Whelen recoil. Roll that up with the good luck I’ve been having with good buddy Ralph’s Boudreau Bullets in several handguns and I wondered: Could I have Ralph make .35 caliber powder-coated pistol bullets sized to .359 inches? You see, cast pistol bullets for the .38 Special or .357 Mag are ordinarily sized to .358 inches (the sizing operation occurs after the bullets are cast when they are swaged down to the desired diameter). But .358-inch diameter bullets probably wouldn’t work in the Whelen. The .35 Whelen rifle has a bore of .359 and shooting bullets sized to .358 would allow the propellant gases to escape around the bullet as it traveled down the barrel. That would melt the sides of the bullet and create God-awful leading. A tighter fit (with .359 bullets) ought to work better, and powder-coated cast pistol bullets are inexpensive. Inexpensive is good. Did I mention I’m a cheap SOB?

Boudreau 158-grain powder-coated pistol bullets with candy apple green powder coating. These are sized to .359.

I’ve loaded jacketed pistol bullets in the .35 Whelen before, I’ve loaded cast pistol bullets, and I’ve also loaded cast rifle bullets from Montana Bullet Works. The Montana bullets are great and the Whelen performed well with them. The jacketed pistol bullets worked well. The cast pistol bullets I tried before didn’t work well (you can read about that here). The premium cast Montana Bullet Works bullets are not cheap (nor should they be). I wanted something inexpensive so that I could play with the Whelen at recoil levels comparable to a .22. Maybe Ralph’s powder-coated pistol bullets would work.

Montana Bullet Works cast rifle bullets. These are very accurate, but they cost as much as jacketed rifle bullets.

Ralph obliged, and when my .359 158-grain cast semi-wadcutters arrived, the fun began. I did my research on the Internet about what loads other folks had used with cast pistol bullets in the .35 Whelen, or at least I attempted to. Like everything else on the Internet, opinions were all over the map.

I make .35 Whelen brass from older .30 06 brass that I had already reloaded a few times by running the cases through a .35 Whelen full length resizer. Not every case survived the neck expanding operation.

Loaded .35 Whelen ammunition with Boudreau’s 158-grain powder-coated bullets. Later loads seated the bullets out further for an overall cartridge length of 2.910 inches. I don’t use a crimp on these bullets and I neck size only.

I initially went with what one forum commenter fervently quoted: Low charges of Trail Boss were the way to go with 158-grain cast bullets. He was wrong, as least as far as my Ruger No. 1 is concerned. I tried 13.0 grains and the groups at 50 yards were (no kidding) about a foot in diameter. This might be okay for a shotgun, but not a rifle. The groups were lousy, but I noticed that the bore was clean. Ralph’s powder coating, which had worked well in keeping a handgun bore clean, worked well in the longer rifle barrel as well.

These groups were typical of all loads tried (except the last one).

A nice clean bore with Trail Boss powder. There was no leading.

I next tried Unique propellant (first with 13.0 grains, and then with 15.0 grains), which had worked well for me in the past in a variety of cast rifle loads for other cartridges. Nope, both of these loads shot lousy groups, too, and they leaded the bore way more than Trail Boss. Trail Boss is actually a faster powder than Unique, so the slower-burning Unique was driving the bullets to higher velocities.

Bore leading with Unique. This stuff doesn’t dissolve with Hoppe’s or any other commonly-used bore solvent. You’ve got to scrub it out with a bore brush.

Then it was on to Bullseye. I found a few references to these loads in various forum comments, but Bullseye is a dicey powder and I wanted a better load data source than some yahoo on a gun forum. I hit paydirt when I found an old Ideal reloading manual and it had a Bullseye load for the .35 Remington (the .35 Whelen was still a wildcat cartridge when this manual was published and there was no load data for it). I figured with the .35 Whelen’s bullet weight and case volume, I wouldn’t get into trouble using the .35 Remington load. I tried it and I tried a few others with a bit more powder (there were no pressure signs), but nope, it was not to be. I still had terrible groups at 50 yards.

Loads from an old Ideal reloading manual. It was a place to start.

Bullseye loads in the .35 Whelen produced no leading.

Hmmmm. Maybe it’s a powder position thing, I wondered. I called Ralph at Boudreau’s Bullets and chatted with him. Ralph explained that when the powder doesn’t fill the case, powder position makes a huge difference in accuracy even in a 9mm pistol cartridge. Okay, I can fix that, I thought. So after loading my brass again with the same light Bullseye loads, I inserted a cleaning patch in each cartridge to hold the powder up against the primer. Still no cigar, though: The groups remained stuck on atrocious. It was cool, however, seeing the cleaning patch threads dissipate downrange in the scope after each shot. One good thing that came out of the Bullseye loads was that they didn’t lead the bore. Well, maybe two good things: I didn’t blow myself up. Okay, three good things: None of the bullets stuck in the bore.

I was just about ready to give up trying to make the powder-coated .359 Boudreau bullets work in the Whelen when my mind returned to the powder position question. Okay, I thought, the cleaning patch wad trick (a noble thought) was a bust. But Trail Boss might still be the way to go, even though the lighter load wouldn’t group. Those earlier 13.0-grain Trail Boss loads left a lot of unoccupied space in the case. The beauty of Trail Boss is that you can load all the way up to the bullet base (thereby completely eliminating the powder position issue, as the case will be full) without overpressurizing the cartridge. So that’s what I did. I measured where the base of the bullet would be at a cartridge overall length of 2.910 inches and I filled a case to that level with Trail Boss. The magic number was 19.3 grains. I adjusted my powder dispenser and went to work.

19.3 grains of Trail Boss powder in my RCBS powder scale. The powder flakes look like little Cheerios.

19.3 grains of Trail Boss in the .35 Whelen cases. The powder stack just touches the bullet base. The propellant is held in place and it provides a nice, even, repeatable burn.

The next day I was on the range at the West End Gun Club. I’d been reading more forum posts about 158-grain semi-wadcutter bullets in .35 Whelen and the feel I got from them was that most people were shooting at 25 yards. You know, turning a grizzly bear rifle into a close-range gopher grabber. Okay, that’s an old reloaders trick: You want tighter groups, just move the target closer. So for the first six of my 19.3-grain Trail Boss loads, I shot at a 25-yard target and wowee: Finally, a group!

19.3 grains of Trail Boss and the 158-grain Boudreau powder-coated bullets at 25 yards.

It wasn’t a great group (I’ve shot tighter groups at 25 yards with a handgun), but it was a group. It was a clear indication I was on to something. So I next set up a target at 50 yards.

The same 19.3 grains of Trail Boss at 50 yards. I can’t explain that flyer off to the right. But the other five rounds were looking better. More work is necessary. I have a path forward.

That group was gratifying. I can’t explain the one flyer off to the right (the trigger broke cleanly on that shot and it felt like it should have grouped with the others…maybe it hit a fly on the way to the target). The other five shots went into a group about the size of the bullseye, but biased to the right. That’s one thing I noticed with all of these light loads: They shoot to the right.

When I returned home, I photographed the muzzle. It’s the photo at the top of this blog. I was pleased to see how clean it was. It had the same appearance as occurred before with 13.0 grains of Trail Boss. There was a kind of swirly thing going on near the muzzle inside the bore; I think that is a combination of melted lead and powder-coating paint behind the bullet as it exits the bore. The rifling was clean, as in no lead.

There are a few more things I should mention: When you’re loading at these reduced levels, the brass doesn’t really expand or stretch. Neck sizing works just fine. Also, when you’re loading cast bullets, you have to flare the brass case’s mouth (I use a Lee tool for this) so that the bullet can get an easy start into the case. If you don’t flare the case, you’ll shave the powder coating and lead off the sides of the bullet, both of which will degrade accuracy. And one more note…you’ll see in these photos that I seat the bullets pretty far out for an overall cartridge length of 2.910 inches. The bullets are not contacting the rifling at that length, and there’s enough of the bullet in the case to keep it aligned. I’m not worried about setback (the bullets moving under recoil) because the Ruger No. 1 is a single-shot rifle.

The gray arrows point to a very slight flare. You have to flare the cases before seating the bullets or the case will shave the bullet as it is inserted into the cartridge case.

The bullet seating and crimping die in my RCBS Rockchucker press. Seating and crimping are performed in two separate steps.

After I seat all the bullets to the correct depth, I then back way off on the bullet seater (again, denoted by the upper arrow in the above photograph). I’ll next screw in the die body (denoted by the lower arrow) until the reduced crimping radius in the die body interior contacts the mouth of the cartridge. At that point, I’ll adjust the die by screwing it in just a little bit further. What I’m doing is adjusting the die so that it removes the flare, but does not crimp the case mouth. You can see the results (i.e., the case mouth flare removed) noted by the red arrows in the photo below.

The upper arrows show the case mouth after the crimping die has removed the case mouth flare. These are not crimped; I adjusted the die to just remove the flare. The lower red arrow indicates the depth to wihch I neck sized these cases.

Back to the cost issue: As you read at the start of this blog, a box of 20 rounds of .35 Whelen factory ammo goes for anywhere between $50 and $72. By my computations, the reloads you read about here cost under $6 for a box of 20 rounds.

So what’s next? Well, the brass is in the tumbler and I’m going to load more. Same load, which kicks about like a .22. Then I’ll try reducing the load slightly to see if that improves things. Stay tuned; you’ll be able to read all about it right here on the ExNotes blog.

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A Kinder, Gentler Range Session

I always liked that “kinder, gentler” line from George Bush. We don’t do politics here at ExNotes (we’d lose half our readers no matter which way we leaned), but every once in a while I’ll borrow a phrase if it fits. So, you’re looking at the big photo above showing a 300 Weatherby Magnum, a 7mm Remington Magnum Ruger No. 1, and a custom Howa 30 06, and you’re probably wondering: What is kinder and gentler about shooting those T-Rex cannons?

Cast bullets, that’s what. I started shooting cast bullets back in the 1970s in El Paso and I’ve been hooked on them ever since. I don’t cast my own these days (it’s easier to buy them), but I still enjoy the benefits. Lower cost, exclusivity (far fewer folks shoot cast bullet rifle loads), long brass life, easier cleaning, and the big one: Lower recoil.

That last one, reduced recoil, figures prominently in my mind. I’ve been beating myself up lately shooting full bore .300 Weatherby cartridges and it’s been tough. I have a box of 180-grain cast .308 bullets and I have a bottle of Trail Boss propellant and that got me to thinking: Would cast bullets work in the .300 Weatherby?

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I checked the Lyman manuals and there are cast loads listed for .300 Weatherby. I checked the Trail Boss site and it lists .300 Weatherby cast loads, too. Hmmm. I wondered how good it could be. After all, you could fit the Hollywood Bowl inside a .300 Weatherby cartridge case. There’s a lot of space in there, and not occupying it usually hurts accuracy. With jacketed bullets, the .300 Weatherby usually delivers its best accuracy at max or near-max loads. Would all that volume and the much lighter charges associated with cast bullets make an accurate load?

Trail Boss propellant. It’s shaped like flattened Cheerios and it’s a light, fluffy powder. It’s good stuff.

There’s one powder designed for cast bullet shooting that hits the cartridge case volume issue head on, and that’s Trail Boss. The Trail Boss people tell you to fill the case to the base of the bullet and that’s your max load, and if you take 70% of that, you’ll have your minimum load. My Weatherby brass took 31.3 grains of Trail Boss, but that was in a fired, unresized case, so I figured 30.0 grains would make for a good max load. 70% of that is 21.0 grains. Then I checked the Hodgdon site (they’re the folks who make Trail Boss) and it showed a range of 19.0 to 27.5 grains. That’s close enough for government work…my lower end load would be 21.5 grains, and then I’d try a warmer load with 24.5 grains. You know, to get a feel for what the Weatherby Mark V preferred. So I loaded a few rounds early one morning and I was ready to test the Mark V with cast bullets.

The .308 180-grain cast bullets I used in both the .30 06 and the .300 Weatherby. They were sized to .309.

.300 Weatherby ammo loaded with the above 180-grain cast bullets.

I already had a bunch of 7mm Remington Magnum reloads with Gardner’s 145-grain cast bullets. I had three boxes: One with 18.0 grains of Trail Boss, one with 20.0 grains, and a third with 21.4 grains. My prior reloading adventures with the 7mm Remington Magnum in my Ruger No. 1 indicated that it liked Trail Boss, but I didn’t know what the right dose would be.

7mm Remington Mag ammo with cast bullets seated to different depths, with and without crimping.

I also had a box of .30 06 ammo loaded with cast bullets. I loaded these with SR 4759 powder, a stellar cast bullet propellant. I grabbed that box and my custom Howa.

I stocked this rifle with a Bishop cherry stock about 35 years ago. It’s one of my favorite rifles. There’s a blog on it here.

I wanted to try my hand at a Mannlicher style, full length stock. I carved it to match the Alex Henry fore end tip on a Ruger No. 1. It’s a unique rifle that always gets noticed on the range.

Howa sold barreled actions to Smith and Wesson when Smith wanted to play in the rifle business maybe 40 years ago. They no longer are.

.30 06 ammo loaded with 180-grain cast bullets and SR 4759 propellant.

A comparison: .30 06, 7mm Remington Magnum, and .300 Weatherby ammunition, all loaded with cast bullets. It’s cool-looking ammo.

So how did the cast bullet rifle session go? Surprisingly well. I shot the Weatherby first, as it was the rifle that had prompted the cast bullet theme. The recoil level was low, almost like shooting a .38 Special. That was a welcome relief from the factory-level loads I had been shooting. The .300 Weatherby Mark V printed its best 50-yard group at 1.102 inches (a three-shot group), and that was with 21.5 grains of Trail Boss.

Shooting cast bullets in the .300 Weatherby was a pleasant experience. I could do this all day.

Because I was shooting at 50 yards, I needed to readjust the parallax on the Mark V’s 4-16 Weaver scope. When I did this at 100 yards, the parallax adjustment was right where Weaver had marked it for 100 yards. At 50 yards, the Weaver marking on the scope’s objective was a bit off, but that’s okay. I could move my eye around behind the scope and the crosshair movement had been appropriately minimized.

At 50 yards, the parallax adjustment was at about the 46-yard mark. I took this photo so I could return to this spot on subsequent 50-yard shooting sessions.

The Ruger No. 1 in 7mm Remington Magnum printed a 1.107-inch five-shot group at 50 yards with 18.0 grains of Trail Boss.

The Ruger No. 1 shot well with Trail Boss and cast bullets. I have more loaded with a slightly lighter load (not because of recoil, but because it appears the gun will do better with a lighter load).

And my .30 06 Howa did the best of the three, with a 0.902-inch three-shot group at 50 yards. I loaded that ammo with 24.5 grains of SR 4759. I’ve always had good accuracy with SR 4759 when shooting cast bullets.

The .30 06 group. These were with SR 4759 powder; I’ll next test with Trail Boss.

None of the cast bullet loads leaded the barrels, and that’s a good thing. Take a look (all of these photos were after shooting, but before cleaning):

The 7mm Ruger No. 1 bore after firing cast bullet loads. The bore was surprisingly clean with almost no leading.

The Howa’s bore after firing a box of cast bullets. This bore was immaculate. It appears the machining on it was better than the Weatherby and the Ruger rifles.

The Weatherby Mark V’s bore after firing cast bullets. There’s a very tiny bit of leading, but nothing significant. It cleaned up easily.

Cleaning a rifle after shooting cast bullets is much easier than cleaning after shooting jacketed bullets. I run a patch soaked with Hoppes through the bore and let it set for maybe 15 minutes to soften any lead remnants and combustion residue. After that I run a bronze bore brush through the barrel three or four times, and then I push two or three patches through the bore. That’s all it takes to get an immaculate bore. It’s much easier than removing copper fouling after firing jacketed bullets.

On the next set of cast bullet loads, I think the direction is clear. The .300 Weatherby shot better with 21.5 grains of Trail Boss than it did with 24.5; the Hodgdon online data shows the charge going as low as 19.0 grains. My next .300 Weatherby load will be with 20.0 grains of Trail Boss. The 7mm Remington Mag shot better with 18.0 grains of Trail Boss than it did with 20.0 and 21.4 grains; I think I’ll try 17.0 grains in a few to see if accuracy improves. I haven’t tried any 30 06 loads with Trail Boss yet (the loads I shot for this blog were loaded with SR 4759), so I’ll do some .30 06 Trail Boss loads for the next outing.

I was just about out of Trail Boss powder after loading more cast bullet ammo for the next session with the above three rifles, and with component availability today being what it is, that concerned me. I got lucky, though. I found a source with a 5-pound bottle of Trail Boss at a decent price and I jumped on it. I’m set for a while.

Trail Boss propellant. Good stuff and a good find.

Ready for the next range session: 7mm Remington Magnum, .300 Weatherby, and .30 06 ammo, all loaded with cast bullets and Trail Boss propellant.

I’ll move the targets to 100 yards the next time I’m out. Good buddy Paul set me up with a box of Montana Bullet Company’s 200-grain .308 cast bullets, and I’ll load a few of them to see how they do in the .30 06 and the .300 Weatherby. Montana Bullet Company’s cast bullets have done superbly well in my .35 Whelen and .416 Rigby rifles; I’m eager to see how these do in the .30 06 and .300 Weatherby.