I'm a 25 yr veteran handloader, and I shoot a good bit, usually about 200 rds/week. I've always been interested in finding good cast bullet loads for midrange shooting, primarily for the 44 mag, 454 Casull, 45 colt and 357 mag. I like the idea of casting my own, primarily because I'm a tightwad. So far I've only met with frustration, and am about ready to throw in the towel.

My requirements are pretty simple: 800 - 1000fps, plain base bullet, 2- 2 1/2" accuracy at 25 yds, and not lead the barrel. I've used the Lyman 429421 in the 44, and the 452424 in the 454/45. Alloy has been straight wheel weights or Lyman #2. I can cast beautiful bullets. Lube has been Lyman Orange magic, because I bought a large quantity of it cheap. I've mixed up a batch of FWFL, but haven't tried it yet. I sized to bore dia., bore + 0.001, and bore +0.002. I tried 231, Unique, Universal, and lately Titegroup, with charges ranging from barely moving the bullet out of the barrel to near max loads.

The two guns I have used the most are a S&W 629 Classic DX 6 1/2", and a FA Mod 83 7 1/2". Both are scoped, and will group slightly over 1" at 25 yds with jacketed bullets.

Despite all this, my results have been poor. Groups of 4-5", with some ranging to improved cylinder, and badly leaded barrels are the norm. I've been after this mythical load for several years, normally I try a month or so, get disgusted, go back to jacketed for a couple of months, then try cast again.

Today is close to the final straw. Last week I tried Titegroup in the 454, from 6 to 10 grains in 1/2 grn increments, 20 rounds of each load. I seemed to hit a sweet spot at 9.5 grns, about 2.3", (rest were 4-5"), so today I loaded and shot 50 rds of the 9 1/2 grn load. Same old crap, 5". In frustration I shot a cylinder full of Hornady 250's & H110, which made a nice round 1.1" group. It's not me or the gun(s).

So:

Is the Orange Magic junk? Do I need another lube?

Are my powders too fast? Maybe blue dot or 2400?

Or should I just put all my cast bullet stuff in the classifieds, and shoot jacketed (with good but pricey results) or commercial cast (with poor but less pricey) results?

Thanks for any help.

John

First off, guns are individuals, so even though a certain combination may work great in my gun, your gun may have different preferences.

It would take a book to answer all the questions that you have raised, but let's cover the basics.

SIZING
1) Size to throat diameter and the throat diameter should be 0.0005" - 0.0010" larger than the groove diameter. The only reason to even bother measuring your groove diameter is so you can compare it to the throats. Modern barrels are usually very close to spec.

Smith throats are all over the place. Some recently manufactured Smiths, particularly stainless, have undersize throats that need to be reamed before they will shoot cast bullets worth a darn. Older Smiths had oversize throats that are unfriendly to plain base cast bullets.

FA's are usually pretty good but even FA's have been known to leave the factory with undersize throats.

Measure your throats and let us know what you find.

When in doubt, it's better to err on the large side of bullet diameter. Don't be afraid to experiment with larger diameters -- it won't hurt the gun.

GAS CHECK vs. PLAIN BASE
I recommend gas check bullet designs for the beginning caster because it is easier to get acceptable results with gas checks. Even if the diameter is not optimal, even if the alloy is not optimal, even if the gun is not optimal, etc., a gas check bullet will usually shoot tolerably well with little or no fouling at handgun velocities. Plain base bullets are much pickier in more than one way. Many people will disagree with me but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

KEITHS
This will hackle a lot of feathers but Keith bullets are the least reliable in the accuracy department. Sometimes they will shoot quite well, but other times they are pathetic, even when loaded in an accurate gun by someone who knows what they are doing. Almost any design is better than the Keith. For a low velocity plinker, something with a modest meplat. Big meplats are sometimes unstable at low velocities.

WEIGHT
It's easier to get good results with a slightly heavy-for-caliber cast bullet. 250 - 280 gr. in the 44, 300 - 325 in the 45.

WHAT NOT TO WORRY ABOUT
At low velocities, the type of lube is not critical. Alloy and hardness are not critical, either, AS LONG AS THE BULLET DIAMETER IS BIG ENOUGH.

Powder shouldn't be critical at plinking velocities.

There are other possible problems like a constriction at the barrel shank, but I'm betting that if your throats are about the right size, if your bullet is sized to fit the throat or slightly bigger, and if you use a gas check design that is slightly heavy for caliber, you'll start getting good results.

Popenmann is correct about the throat issue and maybe the lube as well. Have you recovered any fired bullets? If you have, do they still have [Orange Magic] lube present? If they do, it is possible that (a) the lube is too hard and not doing its job; (b) your CB's are too small for the cylinder throats; (c) your alloy may be too hard and not expand to seal the bore; or (d) all of these conditions may be present and contribute to a fouled bore. The easiest thing to do is to slug the throats and size your CB's accordingly. You can also try a softer lube, e.g., Felix Lube, which you have on hand. Hope this helps and let us know how you progress.

I have recovered some fired bullets. The OM doesn't seem to be as hard as some of the commercial lubes, and although this is sorta tough to get a handle on, it seems about half the lube is being consumed, and about half is remaining in the lube groove on the bullet.

I haven't tried gas checks much. I would rather avoid this step if possible.

I have slugged the bore and throats on the FA, but not the Smith. The FA bore is 0.4520, the throats consistent at 0.4515, just a breath tighter than the bore. This was done by tapping a pure lead round ball thru each, then measuring the ball. I couldn't detect any constriction where the barrel screws into the frame with the lead ball, the bore felt quite consistent.

My lastest effort with the FA were with the bullets sized 0.452. 0.453 seemed to give the same results in the past. Tomorrow night I will slug the Smith.

Tonite I cast about 50 of the 452424, cleaned out the lubrisizer, and lubed them with the FWFL. This batch is a little soft, to the point you have to wipe down the bullets after seating and crimping. I will melt it and add a little more parafin.

If I can slip off from work tomorrow, I'll shoot this batch and report.

Thanks for the help.

John

I would re-measure the throats on the FA. They sound like they are too small. They should be .4525 to .453. Even with an oversize boolit, you are going to size them down in the throats.
OM is too hard for handguns and Felix is just right, I would not harden it. Lube left in the grooves all the way to the target will throw them off balance. It is better to spin it off excess when the boolit exits the muzzle. If you make it so hard that all of it stays in the grooves, it is useless and you might as well shoot unlubed boolits. Harder lube is for rifles.
There is no reason you can't shoot around 1" groups at 50 yd's. All of my revolvers will do that and I even have some groups as small as 1" at 75 yd's. I use heavy LBT style boolits in all of my guns. Don't let anyone tell you they are not accurate. I have shot all of my revolvers at 500 meters with astounding accuracy. Don't give up on cast boolits! I can take my BFR .475 and hit pop cans all day at 100 yd's from the bench. All of your calibers will benefit from heavier boolits except the Freedom Arms. I don't know what the twist is on the FA .454 but in the .475 FA, it is wrong for the heavier boolits. It is too slow (1 in 18) and likes 350 gr boolits while the BFR (1 in 15) doesn't shoot good until I get from 400 grs up to 440 grs.
In your .44, go to 296 and use Fed 150 primers, YES, standard primers, and group size will get smaller. Use boolits of 265 to 320 grs for a S&W. Rugers also like heavy boolits but will shoot 240 gr boolits OK.
Work up loads with half gr increments. None of my revolvers shoot good with max loads so don't look for the hottest you can load.
And those light plinking loads never group as good no matter what boolit you are using. The magnums were not designed for light loads. The twist rate is wrong. For light loads, be happy with 1 to 2" at 25 yd's. For anything more you have to follow the above posts for throat size and boolits to fit. Any throats that are smaller then bore size will not shoot, period! They will require very soft boolits to expand back to bore size and no matter what, they will lead. You will not like the looks of a soft boolit when it turns to putty in the forcing cone. You want a boolit to size down to the bore, not up to it.

This being my first post I'm really afraid to step in but it sounds to me like the bullet alloy is to soft. Wheel weights alone will not cast a hard enough bullet for speeds over 1000 fps. You usually have to water harden (dropping the bullet while still hot into cold water)(letting them age for about 6 months will harden them more) them before they will stop leading the barrel.
Also a rough barrel will cause the barrel to lead up. Back in the heyday of IHMSA I would run about 500 rounds of jacketed bullets through a new gun before shooting any cast bullets in it.
MHO
Larry

Larry, great to have you. It is not really true about too soft of lead causing leading. There are just too many other factors involved. I have shot WW metal to almost 1800 fps with zero leading. Some have shot pure lead very fast.
I have shot oversize WW metal boolits in my BPCR that filled the bore with lead but a 1 to 20 mix the same diameter does not lead at all. It depends, depends, etc.
The worst offender is throat size versus bore size and boolit fit to the throats. I would much rather have throats a little too large.

Gun's are definately individuals. My 480 SRH is a cast bullet shooting machine, I've managed to get each of nearly a dozen cast bullets from 310 to 460 gr I've tried to group 1" for 5 shots at 50 yds, scoped from the bench.

Then again, my 357 blackhawk groups in the 4-5" range at 25 yds, and I've tried lots of different cast bullets in it. I finally did do a diagnosis of it after years of frustration, the barrel has a constriction where it threads into the frame, and hence after the bullet get's swaged down it wobbles it's way out the barrel and they fly where they will, not where I will them. I will be putting a Taylor throat into the barrel to get rid of the constriction, and it should too be a cast bullet shooting machine.

I've cast somewhere around 1000#'s of wheelweights and mostly for big bore revolvers for myself and friends, in 45, 454, 480, 475 and 500. Here are a few things that I've learned in no paticular order.

Wheelweights will make a great bullet, cast em hot to fill out the mold, and without hardening they will shoot fine upwards of 1000 fps plainbased, and can be driven 1200-1300 w/ gaschecks and no problems, this in revolvers, I've driven gas checked air colled gas checked in rifles to 2000 fps and gotten 1" 100 yd groups. Bullets that are too hard, and especially undersized will cause more problems with leading than bullets that are softer, though not dead soft.

I've also water quenched ww bullets and driven them to 1300 fps plainbased, and 1700 gas checked, and they shoot well, in guns that are sized to use them. IMHO hard cast bullets are more critical to gun dimensions than soft ones, but for highest velocities hard cast is the way to go.

Bullet lube is very important, no matter what the velocity. Most commercial lubes are IMHO way too hard, and hard lubes are only good for shipping bullets and keeping the lube in the grooves. I mostly use a home made lube of beeswax and moly/lithium axle greese and have found it to perform as well as the best commercial lubes, and better than most. LBT blue lube is a good commercial lube.

Cast bullets should be sized as big as you can get away with. Freedom arms run tight tollerances, so larger bullets won't fit in the chambers.

If your throats are smaller than the bore, then you might never get good cast accuracy, re my 357 blackhawk problem child. IMHO, throats should be 0.0015" over bore dia, and bullets sized 0.001" over bore dia for best accuracy. Sounds like your FA should have throats honed out to 0.4535".

Keep at it, I understand the frustration, but having guns that don't want to shoot teach you alot more about casting and making cast shoot than guns that are easy.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
The worst offender is throat size versus bore size and boolit fit to the throats.

bfrshooter hit the bullseye.

jt1, if the FA's throats are indeed 0.4515", that is very bad for cast bullets, especially plain base. However, it is tricky to measure ID's accurately. Sometimes the slug is abraded as it passes through and comes out smaller than the actual ID. If you decide for sure that the throats are smaller than the barrel, then I suggest you have the throats reamed to 0.4525" - 0.4530". There are outfits who do this for a reasonable fee, like http://www.cylindersmith.com/

I don't want to hijack the thread and turn it into a lube debate but don't worry about your lube and don't worry about lube in recovered bullets. In a good wheelgun, I have shot unlubed cast bullets with only minor leading, just to prove that it can be done. Best results to date are with Rooster HVR which is an extremely hard lube. I haven't tried Orange Magic. I have tried Felix lube and like most soft lubes, it is below average, but it really doesn't matter at handgun velocites. If the bullet forms a decent gas seal, any lube will suffice. A better lube like HVR will make a good gas seal better, but it won't plug a humongous leak -- and it sounds like you have a humongous leak.

Hang in there. My first experiences with cast bullets were similar to yours, shooting plain base bullets in dimensionally challenged wheelguns and getting awful results. Fix the guns if it is cost effective or switch to gas check bullets if it isn't. When you find a wheelgun with perfect dimensions hang on to it because they tend to shoot cast bullets extremely well.

Today's shooting showed some positive results, in fact the best cast groups from the FA83 so far. 4 10 shot groups averaged 1.81". This was the same load, 9.5 titegroup, 452424 sized 0.452, this time with the FWFL instead of orange magic. There was some very light leading, not nearly as bad as before.

This mold/alloy is dropping the bullets at 0.4535, so tonite I loaded up 50 more with the bullets unsized, again with the FWFL. Maybe tomorrow I can try these.

Is opening up the throats strictly a gunsmith/reamer job, or can you do it yourself, maybe with 2000 grit sandpaper wrapped around a rod in a drill? I can sorta see the possibility of "hourglassing" the throats with sandpaper and a rod.

Once again, thanks for the suggestions. Progress is much better than frustration.

John

John, there is no way in the world I would take an FA and try to open up the throats. Adjust the size of the bullets if you must, but don't tamper with the throats. Just my opinion.

And my knowledge of the FAs is that they are built to shoot jacketed, not cast. So I would stay somewhere around .452" and not go much above that. I have a 654 Silhouette revolver from them that won't take anything above a .410" bullet....

Hey BFR shooter, what the heck is a "boolit"?

quote:

Originally posted by jt1:
Is opening up the throats strictly a gunsmith/reamer job, or can you do it yourself, maybe with 2000 grit sandpaper wrapped around a rod in a drill? I can sorta see the possibility of "hourglassing" the throats with sandpaper and a rod.

It has been done, but I wouldn't do it to an expensive gun like the FA when the cylindersmith will ream it for $30. Another possibility is firelapping, but once again, I would be reluctant to do that on an FA. A Ruger or S&W, maybe.

As Doubless suggested, if you elect to open up your throats and shoot 0.453" bullets, you may or may not run into chambering problems due to a lack of clearance in the neck area. Load a dummy round with an unsized 0.4535" bullet and see if it binds and if so, where.

Another thing I forgot to mention is don't use a Lee factory crimp die or a Hornady crimp die or possibly a Redding profile crimp die because they may squash the part of the bullet that is inside the case. Use an ordinary roll crimp die.

I'm not quite ready to mess with the throats on the FA. This thing shoots jacketed bullets like a house afire, 25 yd groups are generally one ragged hole. My search for a midrange load is because I like to shoot the gun more than the amount of full power 454's I can tolerate. I don't want to do anything that might mess up the excellent jacketed accuracy.

The necks are indeed tight. When I first started loading the 452424, which has a full diameter band in front of the crimp groove, I had to trim the brass slightly shorter to get a loaded round to chamber, and dedicated this group of brass to cast bullets. I can't remember the trim lenght, I'll check at my notes at home.

One constant thru all my cast bullet trials has been the use of a Redding Profile crimp die. Perhaps this has been actually sizing the bullets slightly smaller. I'll try a batch with a normal roll crimp.

While I was shooting yesterday, there was a fat gray squirrel, which has made a career out of breaking into my outside dog food storage, barking at me the whole time. After I finished up the forth group, I spotted the tree rat looking around the side of a white oak, barking away, about 30 yds out. The crosshairs settled on his chin, and a decapitated squirrel hit the ground. My Blue Heeler was on him as soon as he dropped, and she gnawed him till there was only the tail and some of the hide remaining.

So, I can confidently report the 454 Casull has adequate power to take the common western NC gray squirrel.

If anybody was wondering.

John

jt1, there are two possible explanations for chambering difficulty with the 452424.

One, if the cartridge OD is larger than the chamber ID in the neck area. FAs do have tight chambers. There are no easy solutions to this problem, unless you consider neck turning and custom chamber reamers easy.

However, since you were able to solve the problem by shortening the cases, I'm guessing the interference is happening not at the cartridge neck but at the bullet's front band. A revolver chamber normally has a tapered section in front of the case mouth. For reliable chambering, the front band should either be a hair shorter than this tapered section, or else the front band diameter should be slightly smaller than the throat diameter. If this is your problem then it is easily fixed with a cast bullet designed to fit the chamber -- or by shortening the case enough to place the front band just shy of the throat, as you have apparently done.

Elmer Keith insisted on long, full diameter front bands to create a snug fit in the sloppy chambers that he had to deal with, but bullets designed FAs typically have a short or slightly undersize front band.

I haven't tested the Redding profile crimp but I just don't like the description of what it does. The only way to know for sure is to pull a bullet and measure it. Some Hornady dies have been confirmed to squash cast bullets and also some Lee FCD dies for revolver cartridges.

Good shooting on the marauding squirrel.

Wow, What an education I received by reading this thread. For a reloader who is about to start casting this information is gold. Thanks to all who contributed.

Weather has been bad, and I haven't got to shoot any. Last night I slugged the cylinders on the FA again, and I'm now confident all five throats and the bore are 0.4520". I don't know how I previously came up with 0.4515, but it was wrong. I also slugged a S&W M66 I would like to shoot with cast, and was pleasantly surprised to find the bore at 0.357 and the throats at 0.358, so maybe it will be a good cast shooter.

I also pulled some bullets that had been crimped with the Redding profile crimp die and miked them. If it's downsizing the bullets any, it's less than half a thou. Mearsurements varied some, and it was obvious pulling the bullets a little lead was scraped as the bullets came thru the crimp. I will shoot some roll crimped and profile crimped for a direct comparison to see if I can tell any difference in the groups, which is the final determination.

The interference with the 452424 was occuring at the front of the first band. The band was contacing the taper from the chamber to the throat and preventing the round from fully chambering. You could see the mark on the band from the contact. Trimming the brass to min lenght, 1.38, and seating the bullet to bring the case mouth to the very top of the crimp groove allowed the round to fully chamber. I had the same problem with my FA97 in 45 colt, with the same bullet. The 45 colt brass had to be trimmed to 1.25" to allow the 452424 to chamber in the 97.

I fully agree with Snowwolfe, there is a ton of good information here. Many thanks to all who have contributed.

John

quote:

Originally posted by jt1:
I'm now confident all five throats and the bore are 0.4520". I don't know how I previously came up with 0.4515, but it was wrong.

You were smart to remeasure them. It's tough to measure IDs accurately without special tools. The tendency is to err on the small side.

quote:

I also pulled some bullets that had been crimped with the Redding profile crimp die and miked them. If it's downsizing the bullets any, it's less than half a thou.

That's excellent information. Thanks.

Also good information on the 452424 front band hitting the throat.

Now are you going to keep us in suspense on the S&W 629 dimensions?

I really appreciate it when people share this kind of information. It helps me decide which guns to buy and what kind of special handloading issues I'm likely to encounter.

Some of this sounds very familiar. I own a FA 83 and found that the throats were very tight. When I began using the Lyman 452651, I had problems seating the loaded rounds in the chambers. 452651 is a 330 grain gas check design, and is a very long bullet (boolit for you casters). When I sized them, I set the sizing depth so that bullet lube wouldn't seep up into the crimp groove. That was a mistake, the very front of the bullet was not being sized sufficiently (stayed about .453), and this caused a bind within the throat area of the chamber. The solution is to size in two steps, or accept bullet lube in the crimping groove by running it deeper into the sizing die. Since I hate lube in the crimp groove, I opted to size twice. I size and lube normally, then set the depth limit lower and run them through again without any lube pressure.

All the previous posts address possible causes, but one has not been mentioned. I've found that shooting cast and jacketed bullets together causes a degrading of accuracy with both. I'd suggest you do a thorough cleaning before your next test, and make sure that all traces of copper fouling are removed.

454Pb brings up a good point about sizing the front band. I checked mine carefully, and the sizer seems to be fully sizing the front band, at least with the 452424 and a Lyman 450.

I noticed something very interesting while looking at sized 452424's under magnification. The bands would be heavily sized on one side of the mold parting line, and barely touched on the other side. The amount of sizing would begin at the parting line, and progressively increase or decrease to the opposite parting line. I had been measuring the unsized bullets roughly 90deg from the parting line, getting 0.4535. But measuring adjacent to the parting line they are 0.458!!!!, something I hadn't checked. Examing the mold carefully with a dental pick reveals a definite "step" between the two halves of the mold. The locating pins are off, and all my shooting with the two FA's have been with out of round bullets. This @#$%& mold is going back to Lyman to see if they will fix or replace it.

I haven't got to shoot any due to cleaning up from the big ice storm, out of power and trees across the driveway. Last night I slugged the 629, and all the throats check 0.430. This is a 629-4 Classic DX of late 80's vintage. This week I will shoot it some while waiting resolution of the mold issue.

John

John,
Sounds like the Lyman mold is not aligning. Sometimes you can adjust the pins to fine tune the alignment, but it is very tricky to get it right. A couple thou out of round shouldn't hurt accuracy much if at all. At least it is cleaning up in the sizer.

The 629 throats sound fine. Thanks again for the quality data.

Here is one solution for the front band but it involves an extra step. Take a lubri-sizer die 0.001" smaller than the throats, say 0.451" for your FA. Adjust the lubrisizer stop so that the bullet can only go halfway into the die -- I had to make a modification to my stop in order to achieve the right depth. Now size the bullet nose first. The idea is for it to enter the die just far enough to size the front band down to 0.451", while leaving the rest of the bullet 0.452+". I did this for a while for a 357 mag with a short leade until I finally got tired of the hassle and made a mold with a shorter and slightly undersize front band.

A boolit is a cast bullet and a bullet is a condom one. A word that has grown among cast boolit shooters to tell the difference. So when you see it spelled that way, you know right away what kind it is.
JT, sometimes the sizer will size one side more then the other. My RCBS and Lyman will do this. It is due to spring of the machine or a nose punch out of line. The more you have to size a boolit, the worse it gets. The Lee sizer and my home made push through ones do not and boolits come out sized evenly.

Thanks for the explanation, bfrshooter. No disrespect intended, but it appears to me that if the word "cast" is inserted prior to the word in question, the confusion is eliminated. You yourself typed the words "cast boolit". As soon as I saw the word "cast" there was no confusion. We don't cast jacketed bullets (at least typically, although Paco Kelly did. He enlarged some moulds to .375", and used pieces of 3/8" copper tubing as inserts for his .375 Winchester bullets)...

And we typically don't size jacketed bullets, so there is no room for confusion there, either.

Never heard of a "condom bullet". I have yet to see a bullet with a rubber jacket.

The story I heard was that the "condom" term originated on another cast bullet forum where an overjealous moderator forbid using the dreaded j-word.

"Cast Boolit" because the "castbullet.com" web name was already taken.

The big ice storm has melted away and yesterday I shot the unsized 4535 452424 bullets in the FA, with the same powder, 9.5 of Titegroup. No joy here, groups were 4-5" @25yds.

Last night I lubed a bunch of 429421 with FWFL, sized 0.430, and mounted a scope on the 629 DX. I'm going to play with the 44 a while as I see what Lyman's response to the poorly aligned mold will be, hopefully positive.

John

a boolit is a word used by the "enlighten" to desribe a projectile cast of lead .if you see someone using the word , take heed . Odds are that he is a cast bullet expert of the highest degree.

Things to try:

Make sure melt and mold temps are consistent.

Try to melt in largest possible batches to even out variations in wheel weight composition.

Cast melted/cleaned metal into ingots. Set aside the last ingot you cast to be put in pot with next batch of wheel weights. Clean out pot, then melt clean ingots to cast bullets.

Try water quenching to harden bullets. Use 5 gallon buckets full of water, 3 buckets is enough. Rotate buckets after 20 or so bullets to keep water temp consistent. Change water after using all 3 buckets if you will continue casting. OR Use one bucket and change water after 20 bullet run. Float a sponge in the bucket to slow down the bullets on their way to the bottom of the bucket.

Pain in butt, even kind of anal, but doing one or more will help eliminate some variables.

Lots of more experienced casters than me wouldn't bother, but if you could watch them, you would see that experience has developed a very consistent technique with them. Like anything in reloading, consistency is vital, but tends to come with experience.

Gee whiz guys, for usuns that be lazy, boolits is a lot easier then cast bullets and jacketed is harder to spell then condom!
Merry Christmas to all of you even if you are lazy like me!

That's not lazy, that's doing what works for you. If you are creating good loads without all that, that's all that matters.

quote:

Originally posted by popenmann:
First off, guns are individuals, so even though a certain combination may work great in my gun, your gun may have different preferences.

It would take a book to answer all the questions that you have raised, but let's cover the basics.

SIZING
1) Size to throat diameter and the throat diameter should be 0.0005" - 0.0010" larger than the groove diameter. The only reason to even bother measuring your groove diameter is so you can compare it to the throats. Modern barrels are usually very close to spec.

Smith throats are all over the place. Some recently manufactured Smiths, particularly stainless, have undersize throats that need to be reamed before they will shoot cast bullets worth a darn. Older Smiths had oversize throats that are unfriendly to plain base cast bullets.

FA's are usually pretty good but even FA's have been known to leave the factory with undersize throats.

Measure your throats and let us know what you find.

When in doubt, it's better to err on the large side of bullet diameter. Don't be afraid to experiment with larger diameters -- it won't hurt the gun.

GAS CHECK vs. PLAIN BASE
I recommend gas check bullet designs for the beginning caster because it is easier to get acceptable results with gas checks. Even if the diameter is not optimal, even if the alloy is not optimal, even if the gun is not optimal, etc., a gas check bullet will usually shoot tolerably well with little or no fouling at handgun velocities. Plain base bullets are much pickier in more than one way. Many people will disagree with me but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

KEITHS
This will hackle a lot of feathers but Keith bullets are the least reliable in the accuracy department. Sometimes they will shoot quite well, but other times they are pathetic, even when loaded in an accurate gun by someone who knows what they are doing. Almost any design is better than the Keith. For a low velocity plinker, something with a modest meplat. Big meplats are sometimes unstable at low velocities.

WEIGHT
It's easier to get good results with a slightly heavy-for-caliber cast bullet. 250 - 280 gr. in the 44, 300 - 325 in the 45.

WHAT NOT TO WORRY ABOUT
At low velocities, the type of lube is not critical. Alloy and hardness are not critical, either, AS LONG AS THE BULLET DIAMETER IS BIG ENOUGH.

Powder shouldn't be critical at plinking velocities.

There are other possible problems like a constriction at the barrel shank, but I'm betting that if your throats are about the right size, if your bullet is sized to fit the throat or slightly bigger, and if you use a gas check design that is slightly heavy for caliber, you'll start getting good results.

What bullshit,I haven't read this much idiotic shit in a long time.

Smith throats are very consistant and I've dealt with at least 30 new smiths in the past year. All were consistant and exact.

Yes,larger diameter bullets will spike pressures and cause more leading.

As for keith bullets,they are some of the best designed bullets period. The only time you run into problems with keith bullets is when some manufacturer has varied from the original design. I've seen 5 new 629's in 44mag(you know the shitty ones)that will stack the 429421 bullet a t 50 yards.

On the subject of meplat,speed has nothing to do with it. If slow speed was a factor with large meplat inaccuracy,then none of your bullseye shooters would use full wad cutters,which are nothing but meplat.

RMK,
Smith throats consistent? Older 44s were commonly 0.432" - 0.434". Some recently manufactured Smiths have undersize throats that have to be reamed before they will shoot cast well.

Larger bullets causing leading? In my experience the opposite is true. That experience includes shooting 0.434" bullets in a S&W with 0.4335" throats -- anything smaller would lead the barrel. That experience includes shooting 0.316" bullets in a 0.308" barrel. Yes, that's right, 0.008" oversize.

Larger bullets spiking pressure? I pressure test cast bullet loads all the time and haven't seen any such spike. How many loads have you pressure tested, Mr. RMK ?

Of course some guns shoot Keith bullets well, but there's another side to the story. My M29 -- you know, the one with the 0.4335" throats -- shoots patterns with a plain base keith bullet, but shoots just fine with most gas checked ogival nose bullets. A friend's scoped 454 Raging Bull wouldn't keep Keith bullets on the paper, yet it shot good or great with half a dozen other cast bullet designs. A customer's scoped FA 475 struggles to shoot 6" groups with a Keith, even though the FA is a tack driver with every other cast bullet the owner has tried. I don't know of any other bullet design that has such spotty performance.

Regarding meplat and speed, my pet 357 wheelgun bullet with an 80% meplat shoots great at 1250 fps but the groups turn into patterns at lower velocities. The lower the velocity, the bigger the group. The same gun will not stabilize an 85% meplat at all.

My M29 -- with the 0.4335" throats, remember? -- would not stabilize Veral's blunt 230 gr. ogival wadcutter (approximately 90% meplat) at any velocity from 600 - 1400 fps. The bullet yawed as evidenced by the oblong holes it left on the target. I sold that mold to someone who shot it in a TC barrel. The new owner told me it shot fine in the TC as long as he drove it fast enough.

My Marlin 357 shoots a 75% meplat noticeably better than an 80% meplat, with no other changes to the bullet design.

The fact is that a short, blunt bullet is not necessarily aerodynamically stable. The high drag on nose tries to make the bullet tumble. There is no simple formula for predicting this phenomena and no hard rule for predicting whether or not a given blunt bullet will shoot in any given gun, but the problem does exist and if you play around with blunt bullets long enough, you'll eventually see it.

The 452424 bullet that jt1 is using is a fairly blunt, short design, so stability could be a factor.

JT1, this is a long thread, and I didn't re-read it all, just kind of skimmed it, so the question may have already been addressed. But here is the question: have you weighed your bullets? What kind of weight variation are you getting? This is just another shot in the dark, but look at the groups, and see if you have two or three bullets hitting close to the same place, with others scattered. I found this to be indicative of bullet weight variation, and once I got moulds that cast the same weight bullets (or very close, at least), my groups improved remarkably.

Lyman moulds are only guaranteed to +/- 5%, or so I was told by a factory rep several years ago. With the larger calibers, that leaves a lot of room for weight variation, even between cavities on a two-cavity mould, and the best caster in the world won't be able to make up for it.

Just another thought...

RMK, sorry, but I have to agree with Popinmann. I have worked on Smiths with tight throats and have owned many with throats that were too large. I have seen FA guns with the throats the exact same size as the bores, which is really OK, but should be a little larger.
The only Keith boolits that have shot good for me were the 429421 and the 358156 and most of the other Lymans have shot good. But I have tried too many that I didn't know if they even could hit paper. The commercial ones are only good for slingshot ammo. I tried several different Keith boolits in my .475 and I could have done better stuffing a handful into my shotgun. This is one boolit that can offer either the best or the worst. I have been trying them for over 50 yr's and always used to consider it the benchmark boolit to try first. Not anymore! Now the LBT WLNGC is my benchmark. For a condom bullet, the XTP is by far the most consistant and accurate.
I always shoot throat size boolits but have done as good if they are a tad larger too as long as they can be chambered and there is room for brass expansion. Undersize boolits are a crap shoot and undersize throats will only shoot a condom bullet and pressures are higher. The jacketed bullet can still grab the rifling but a boolit sized in a tight throat will skid and lead the bore.

Update-

Clearly I do not understand the mysteries of cast bullets.

I didn't get to shoot much over the holidays, but recently tried 40 rds with the FA, same 452424/FWFL/9.5 Titegroup load, only this time with a firm roll crimp. 10 shot group avg was 2.5". Then I tried the same load with the profile crimp die, for comparison. 5 10 shot groups averaged 1.6". That surpasses my goals and I'm happy with it, but why is the load now shooting better at 25 yds than when I first tried it? The only difference I can see is the FA 83 is now at about 500 rds with only cast FWFL bullets fired thru it, no jacketed or other lube. Perhaps there is something to switching between bullets and lube.

Doubless, I haven't tried weighing and sorting bullets. It would probably help, but my goal is a sub 2" 25yd load that I could cast/load/and shoot in quantity easily and cheaply. Having to weigh and sort bullets would defeat my purpose.

EDIT: Doubless, I just realized you were meaning check for variations between the cavities, not necessarily weighing all bullets and sorting them. That is worthwhile to check, I'll give it a try.

I've about gone thru the batch of 452424's I had cast up. No word from Lyman on the out of round mold, so I'm going to load the remaining bullets with this load and play with them till I get the mold resolved, and try the 629 some.

Thanks to all for the thoughts and help. I will report the 629 results.

John

One thing to remember (and I will get a lot of opinions) is that you don't want to shoot lead after copper until you remove all of the copper. It has an affinity to lead and the gun will not only be harder to clean but accuracy will suffer. Use a good copper solvent like Sweets and get ALL of the copper out. I shoot almost all cast and have a drawer full of jacketed bullets and may never shoot them up. I hate the cleaning process from them.
Many say it is OK to shoot jacketed after cast but I don't even like to do that. I worry that the harder bullet, instead of pushing out the leading, will iron it tighter into the bore.
Why a gas checked boolit does not cause a problem is beyond me. I do know that if I find a tiny amount of leading, it doesn't matter if the boolit was plain base or had a gas check. I do know that if I shoot jacketed bullets for a while and get lazy, then shoot cast, even guns that never lead will be full of leading.
If you think copper will not build up and ruin accuracy, think again! I have had rifles brought in that took 4 days to remove the copper. After cleaning, they went from 4" patterns to 1/2" groups. To shoot lead down those bores without cleaning would make a guy think that cast boolits suck.

Doubless, in the handgun at the ranges shot, weight variation means little unless the boolits are cast very badly. I use a double cavity mold that I made, never weigh boolits and the .475 will hold from 5/8" to 1" groups at 50 yd's all day. If a boolit shows a defect by looking at it, it goes back in the pot and that is as far as it goes. I just cast 18# of boolits and had 2 that had a slight defect and they were not really bad enough to affect how they would shoot. This weighing boolits to 1/10 of a grain is totally overblown. If your boolit will not group, the thing is wrong for the gun or the load is wrong or the guy pulling the trigger is wrong. If you are a poor caster and get your boolits full of air pockets, then that is another story. I will put boolits that vary 5 gr's in the same hole.

I agree with BFRshooter on most of what he said about shooting cast bullets in a barrel that has been shot with jacketed. However, one of the easiest ways to remove leading is to shoot one or two jacketed bullets through the barrel. Granted, you don't want to use a hotly loaded jacketed round, since the leading will raise pressures. Back when I first bought a snubby model 19 S&W, it was leading terribly. After a few sessions of scrubbing and brushing for hours, I started firing two jacketed .38 specials through the gun after a cast bullet session. Instant lead removal, at least the lumpy chunks. Yeah, there is some cleaning to do afterwards, but nothing like the scrubbing required without the jacketed "cleaning". Another way to remove lead quickly is to "slug" the barrel. All the chunks of lead are pushed out by the slug.

When shooting cast bullets in my rifles, the barrel has to be absolutely cleaned of copper fouling. If it is not, groups will open to twice the norm.

It could be that your F.A. has begun to group better with cast since you have not used any jacketed bullets.

I think the accepted theory on gas checks is that they protect the base of the bullet during the transition from chamber throat to barrel. If the throats are bigger than the bullet, the gas check shields the lead base from the terrific pressure and heat so that even though the bullet is "undersized", it is protected. I recall reading an article years ago where the author removed the barrel completely on a revolver, then fired it and recovered the slugs. The base of each bullet was greatly expanded and gas cut due to the lack of a forcing cone and barrel to "reshape" the bullet as it was fired. Gas checks stop or at least reduce) this deformation.

BFR Shooter, you and I will just have to agree to disagree.

Around 20 years ago, right after I bought my first handgun, I bought a box of 500 cast 240-grain bullets from Marksman Bullet Company. I proceeded to load and fire them out of my new 629 Classic, and they wouldn't stay on a pie plate at 50'. I was a reasonably new handloader, and I weighed the bullets. They varied by as much as 11 grains.
About two months later I bought a 4-cavity 429421 at a Houston TX gun show, and began to cast my own. The Keith that you claim is "the least reliable in the accuracy department" promptly started shooting into one hole at the same 50' range. (This was with 18 grains of Accurate #9.)

I acknowledge your years of experience with bullet casting, and understand we all learn from those experiences, but with all due respect, bullets that weigh differently will not group as well as those that weigh the same. (And I suspect your mould cavities are very close to the same in weight; as they should be...)

Regards,
Scot

Doubless, you didn't read my post very well. I said the 429421 was one of the best and that some of the other brands were no good, mainly the store bought boolits.
Then the Marksman stuff was junk and not just because the weights were off. Wrong design, badly made etc. I am surprised that some found the pie plate. Yeah, I tried them and the rest made nice noise from a slingshot. So you see, we really do agree.
I sold off my handguns for a short time and the moulds for them, to buy archery equipment. I then got into IHMSA and had to start again and the sorryest thing I ever did was to sell the old mould for the 429421. There are just too many bad copys of the Keith boolit.