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I had a very productive and watershed moment with my Heym .450NE over the last few days, culminating with tremendous success yesterday with cast bullets that regulate beautifully and shoot very accurately!!!!!

My baseline was 480 grain hydros and 450 grain TSX, both of which shoot to P.O.A. at 50 yards, shoot a composite group of around 1” and barrels do not cross. I use 90.75 grains of H4350 for both bullets. The Hydros clock @ 2175 FPS and the TSX clock at 2205 FPS average.

Now the challenge: “find a cast bullet that will shoot to P.O.A. regulate well, not cross or shoot apart and produce tight groups and not shotgun patterns.”.

After much screwing around, I ended up using wheel weights, an 18” strand of silver solder and 18” of leadless solder (95% tin) mixed into a full Lee pot of melted wheel weights. I cast using a 405 grain gas check RCBS mold, and dropping the cast bullets from the mold directly from the mold into a pail of cold water. My brinnel hardness indicator showed the cast bullets to be of 30 hardness. I then crimped on the copper gas checks and used the very messy but effective Lee liquid Alox as lube.

My first loads usd the same powder charge of 90.75 grains with the cast bullets and the result was excellent per barrel accuracy but the barrels crossed by a good 6”. Velocity was around 2325 FPS.

My next attempt dropped the powder charge to 88.0 grains and eureka!!!! Both barrels on the money at 50 yards and velocity was 2214 FPS!!!!

I’m pretty happy with the results to say the least!!! I’ve played with cast bullets before and have had some reasonable successes, but nothing like what I’ve just experienced..... I’m thinking that the key was to use gas checks, and to harden the lead to 30 Brinnel, both of which I’ve never done before. The barrels do not show any signs of leading.

I tried the same bullets in a .458 Lott and got 1 inch to 1.5 inch goups at 100 yards at 2550 FPS velocity, nearly identical to what I’m gettng with the Woodleigh 400 grain PPSP bullets...... Same powder charge as with the Woodies, and again no signs of leading.

These cast will make great practice rounds, with all the noise, fire and pounding of a DG load but without the expense of good DG bullets!!!!! Absolutely perfect medicine for slaying paper elephants, buffalo, lions and tigers and bears oh my!!!!!!!! I can now save the good bullets for the real deal!!!!!!!

Edited by Postman (04/07/18 03:57 AM)

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