or so I'd like to think. Here is the ~270 gr .476" swc that I had mountain molds make in a fairly close copy of the classic Keith bullet.

Also shown in a 400 gr XLFN gc brass mountain mold.

The bullet line up is 270 SWC, 310 LFN ballisticast, 400 rf Lee, 400 XLFN gc mm and 460 WFN gc ballisticast. The loaded roundup is same bullets minus the Lee (didn't have any loaded.

Hopefully this bullet will produce the head shot accuracy I want for small game hunting @ ~700 fps.

Just a note, you have to select galary at the upper right to see all the pics.

Those Mountain Molds look super. Have to check them out.

MOA.

Hey Paul, those look great, could I beg some from you??
Are you shooting these in your 480?
I just picked up a BFr in 475. It's not here yet, but hopefully by next week sometime.
I would gladly pay you tuesday for some boolits today.

email me
idahobronco@aol.com

I have some 500gn 475 boolits from MM with a 70% and 90% nose if you want to try some. There might not be any room in the case for powder though?

No problem, though I'm way behind on casting and other stuff so it'll likely be a few months.

Yes, I'm shooting them in the 480. I don't think the 500 gr would work in the 480. With the 460 gr, I have to seat it to the first lube groove, seated to the canalure the gas check bulges the case.

The 480 with long loaded bullets has the same powder capacity as the 475 Linebaugh. That was the purpose of the extra long nose 400 gr bullet my friend designed and I ended up with. That said, I've never loaded it above 480 levels. 400 gr 1200 is all the recoil I want out of a super redhawk.

The Lee and mm 400's shoot wicked accurate over 21 gr of H-110 or Lil gun @ 1200 fps from the 7 1/2" tube. If that isn't enough power, then I'll take a big rifle.

I used the info from Glenn Fryxl's article on the Keith SWC to design this one. Driving bands are equal length of .090", single deep lube groove, and the meplat is 73% of bore dia. The nose is a touch shorter then a true keith, but I wanted as much bullet as possible in the case for better burning of light charges, as well as keeping the weight to ~270 gr. I figure dropping the weight ~10% over my 310 gr LFN should help drop recoil and concerve ww's and I'm really hoping to get tight groups with milder loads. If things work out, I'll get in a range session at lunch.

Well I managed to get in a range session at lunch.

The bullets performed exactly as I'd expected. The 7gr loads printed about 3" at 25 yds, and increasing charges tightened up the groups. It looks like somewhere around 10-11 grs of Unique will probably produce the best accuracy and I'm guessing around 1000 fps.

Yes, I'd hoped for tight groups at say 700 fps, but unique isn't the powder for that task. I'm guessing I need to pick up some bullseye and give it a go.

With the same 9.7gr charge of Unique, the 270 gr definately has milder recoil than the 310 gr LFN, so my goal of milder recoil has been realized. Now I just need to find the magic powder to get a mild shoot it all day long load that groups tight.

Will keep all posted on the progress.

Roger,

Thanks for the suggestion. I had tried red dot previously for mild loads, and it seemed to burn dirty and inconsistantly, and I never got great accuracy with it. I'm thinking that bullseye as the fastest of the fast will hopefully burn more consistantly at lighter levels.

I've also long wanted to try "cat sneeze" loads in rifles, and bullseye is the cat's meow for that, bad pun, I'm sorry. These are loads with just enough pressure to get a heavy cast bullet out the barrel, and report is milder than a cap gun. I worked some up with unique, but a faster powder would be even better for a quiet load.

Roger,

Thanks for the suggestion. I had tried red dot previously for mild loads, and it seemed to burn dirty and inconsistantly, and I never got great accuracy with it. I'm thinking that bullseye as the fastest of the fast will hopefully burn more consistantly at lighter levels.

I've also long wanted to try "cat sneeze" loads in rifles, and bullseye is the cat's meow for that, bad pun, I'm sorry. These are loads with just enough pressure to get a heavy cast bullet out the barrel, and report is milder than a cap gun. I worked some up with unique, but a faster powder would be even better for a quiet load.

Well, I just got back from the range and tried WAAP and Blue Dot. The WAAP loads didn't seem to tighten up, though tweaking one might have promise.

The Blue dot was generally tighter across the board, and the ~12 gr load printed about 1 1/2" at 25 yds. I'm going to try and tweak from there.

The chrony is still dead from my stray gas check incident, so no readings. I'm guessing ~900 fps.

I put a few more down range yesterday. I was hoping that trying small variations in charge weight around the previous promising blue dot load would do the trick. Well, the results were mixed. My friend had his chrono, so I was able to clock the loads. Velocity was ~850 fps, but would vary by 100 fps in a 5 shot string, and there was unburned powder in the cases. Definately a too mild load for a consistant burn. Accuracy was also so-so, but one load did have 4 shots clustered really tight with a flier.

What this shows me is the bullet will shoot at around 800 fps, but I haven't found the right powder yet. That's the upside, knowing the bullet will shoot.

The powders I'm thinking of trying are Bullseye, Red dot, 231 and 800-X. What I don't know is which of those powders work well in a case that has alot of air space.

BTW, my shooting partner weighed a couple samples I gave him, and it looks like from ww's it's basically 275 gr on the nose. The lighter weight notably drops the recoil from the 310 gr bullets.

I like your bullet I was going to suggest LIL'GUN untill I looked at the Hodgdon web site it looks to hot for mild loads. Have you ever tried LIL'GUN?

quote:

The powders I'm thinking of trying are Bullseye, Red dot, 231 and 800-X. What I don't know is which of those powders work well in a case that has alot of air space.

I was just reading the other day that WW 231 is good for light loads in bigger case's. I believe it was in the Hodgdon's #26 manual. Their HP9 (I think) was compared to 231 and said to be designed with that in mind. It worked out pretty well with the Lee 476-325.

In regards to your 700 fps load, and I might be all wet on this, try to soften up your alloy some. I was trying to work up a replacement load for my 357 mag. Originally I used a Hornady swaged 158 gr LSWC, 5.0 grs 231, and CCI 500 primer for a 1,000 fps. When I tried to work up a plinker load for a Lyman 358156, I tried the same load. Didn't work out. I figured I needed to push it a bit harder due to the WW alloy hardness. The Hornady's were 5 Bhn and the WW bullets were 9-10. Once I got the velocity to 1,100 fps it shot one ragged hole. I tried 231, Universal Clays, and AA #5. They all shot there best groups at this velocity range.

I solved my problem by upping the velocity. You may be able to cast a softer bullet to go the other way. Maybe a 50/50 mix of WW's and pure lead may do it. Good way to use up those stick-ons.

I've used Lil gun, but it's a full patched powder. If you want to drive 325's 1500 fps, or 400's 1200, it works great. I don't think it would be the way to go for pushing 275's 700-800 fps.

I'll give 231 a try, I know other folks have had good results with it. I'll also think about making some softer bullets, though I don't have much pure lead to make a softer than ww alloy, but it might be the approach to take. I probably can scrounge up enough stick on's and some other pure lead I have to make a 10# batch.

I'm just not sure if I have to go softer at this point. The blue dot load is likely much milder than the Unique and WAAP loads, yet the blue dot shot the best.