(revised 2246h gmt-8)



I have had an ongoing love hate relationship with 45-70 for a number of years. Poor performing rifles such as a Browning High Wall and a Marlin 1895 with a rough sloppy chamber and microgroovy rifleing that had a hard time engaging lead. I got rid of the Browning and gave the Marlin to my brother who is content with 300g JHPs. Several years ago I bought my first Shiloh Sharps 1874 and was hooked for life. I now have a second Shiloh and a Ballard High Wall. Between business travel keeping me on the road a lot over the past few years I have not had time to work through the problems I've had feeding these rifles. They shoot elcheapo jacketed bullets and Barnes X bullets fine but all of the cast bullets I bought for them were a disappointment. A friend sent me a small sample of the Lyman 457132 535g Postell bullet and I liked the look of them. I found Lyman manufactured bullets on the web and shot some of them today. My first real success with cast bullets in these rifles and a very nice three shot group.



I then tried some Meister 500g RNFP bullets that went everywhere except the target. Very similar loading, should have gone to a similar point of aim but they didn't go to any point of aim. I figure wrong size or stripping. There wasn't enough lead on the cleaning patch for severe leading.



I have reached the inescapable conclusion that I need to cast my own bullets. So now with some FNG questions



Is the 535g Postell design proprietary?



Who makes the best moulds?

Lyman

Saeco

RCBS

Other

Custom makers like Steve Brooks



Whose bullet sizing press or does it matter?

Whose bullet sizing dies?



Many thanks



One more question: Boolits or Bullets? Does it matter?

djl4570, Without hesitation, for bullet sizing I recommend that you get a star sizer if you decide to get into casting your own bullets. The star is the best, fastest, and easiest to use. The Magma Star currently manufactured is a good machine. The best Stars are the ones made in San Diego; often available on eBay used. The San Diego Star lubers are no longer manufactured, as Magma Engineering bought the rights to the Star Luber a few years ago.

Regarding micro-grove rifling, you need to size your bullets pretty large to make them work properly. A good starting point is .459 or .460 diameter. This is because the micro-grove rifling is usually larger than normal.

Good Luck! PhotonII aka Turbo

Djl,
Suggest that you go all the way on this - and get a mold that 'fits' your chamber. So make a chamber cast, send it to someone like Steve Brooks or Dave Mos and ask the man to dimension a bullet for it, specifying yourself the alloy. And while you're at it, get some cans of Black, and shoot that stuff... You just might be surprised! Also, With a bullet up to spec as cast, you won't need a bullet sizer - you can pan lube.

What does a chamber cast mould get you that a properly sized and lubed bullet will not? I ask because a custom mould as you described would cast a bullet optimized for one rifle. This does not sound like the best way to start casting for multiple rifles. I currently have three of these rifles; two Shilohs and one Ballard High wall. I can see myself buying more over the years.

Thanks

It seems a sacrilege to not shoot black powder in a Shilo Sharps. Take a look at http://groups.msn.com/BPCR Click on Message Board on the left hand side of the screen.

http://www.sizingdie.com/
Stillwell makes exacellent custom sizer dies for Star sizers. - Lew

"What does a chamber cast mould get you that a properly sized and lubed bullet will not? I ask because a custom mould as you described would cast a bullet optimized for one rifle. This does not sound like the best way to start casting for multiple rifles. I currently have three of these rifles; two Shilohs and one Ballard High wall. I can see myself buying more over the years"

martinibelgian has given you can excellent piece of advice djl4570. A bullet that fits a rifle like a glove most often performs to the potential of the rifle. Consider the cost of a good gun and a companion mold is a trivial expense to get maximum performance. There's just NO substitute for a bullet that fits so alignment is near perfect before the hammer drops.

And you might luck out and find said custom design works in other guns...

Djl,
Quite a lot of things. For starters, most sizers will tend to deform the bullet, because of the pushing action. Also, the fact that it's too big is a negative by itself, and making it smaller can introduce some inconsistencies in bullet balance etc.
Als, the bullet parts that are too small are not helped in any way by sizing - like the boreriding section on a Lyman Gov't style bullet (457121? - I'm really bad with numbers...). Bullet slump upon firing can cause the nose to slump off-balance, reducing accuracy.
When a bullet mould is made specifically for YOUR rifle, advantages are numerous:
- less leading
- better accuracy
- ease of casting
- better quality of bullet mould
- no sizing required
- ...
That's not to say that a 'normal' mould won't perform well, but made-to-measure is always better. I even went as far as having a lightly modified 500 gov't styler bullet made according to my specs, with the boreriding section at exactly land diameter, and the grease groove section slightly tapered from .455 to .460. Dave Mos made this one for me, and it is a beaut - I can hardly find the mould parting lines on the bullets! And talk about round. Oh yes, did I mention that it also shoots?!

One more question: Boolits or Bullets? Does it matter?


OK,A bullet describes a jacketed projectile while a Boolit is distinctively a cast projectile.
Now for the best value in custom molds I suggest Mountain Molds
He has a great track record and has some great designs for the 45-70. 45nut

OK,A bullet describes a jacketed projectile while a Boolit is distinctively a cast projectile.
Now for the best value in custom molds I suggest Mountain Molds
He has a great track record and has some great designs for the 45-70. 45nut

---

I can't find a target 45 caliber bullet similar to the Postell on Dan's site? Is he making such?

djl4570 -



What type of load are you using? What type of velocities are you expecting/seeing? and if you do catch one of these stray bullets, are then keyholing, or still giving you nice round holes, just in the (way) wrong places? And I assume, sans gascheck?



do shoot straight (or at least try to),

greg

Casting your chamber is easy. I just did 2 of mine for a custom mold from mountainmolds.com. Since I was slugging my barrels anyway, I just put the lead slug back in the barrel after I was finished with it, about 1/2" into the rifling at chamber end. I bought a lb of Cerrosafe from Midway, it is a casting alloy that melts at 180deg. I broke that up into a cleaned up ladel, melted it over a camp stove and poured it in. Dan at mountainmolds said that I didn't need the whole chamber, just the neck and throat area. One interesting thing about Cerrosafe is that it shrinks a bit when it cools, then expands back to size over the following 24h so no release agent is needed. Just use a dowel rod and pound the slug and casting out as one piece. One warning I would give is be very careful not to get it anywhere but your chamber. That stuff in your works is a real pain to get out. I found out the hard way when I overfilled my levergun and it flowed into the bolt area. Yeesh, I was sweating there for about 30 minutes.

Good luck,
Ian

djl, it sounds like at least some of your problem with the Meister boolits is lube-related.

If you still have any of those boolits left, you might want to try relubing them and give them another shot, so to speak. For low velocity and pressure rounds like these, I'd simply give them a shot of Lee Liquid Alox right over the existing commercial lube and try them again.

If the commercial lube is cracked and not filling the grooves evenly, it might be worth removing the existing lube first, either with mineral spirits or heating them in an oven.

Easy stuff first!