at present im building a 375h&h rifle and an planning to use cast bullets to start of with.....im just wondering is it possible to run a 300 gn cast proj which is gas checked and water quenched for hardness and lubed with quality lube at 2500 fps without loosing to much accuracey
im getting veral smith to make the mould for me
any help qwould be much appreciated
daniel

I don't think you'll be able to get that muck velocity without a great deal of leading, but who knows? You just might get lucky. When C.E. )Ed) Harris was still on the NRA payroll, he worked up cast bullet hunting loads for use in Africa that worked quite well with only one problem. The bullets needed to be crimped much more firmly that what they had done.
The bullets used were the RCBS #37-250-FN at 275 gr. (I have that mold and mine makes 270 gr. bullets.)and the Hoch nosr pour mold #377298 which cast a 311 gr. bullet. Best accuracy was at 2153 FPS for the RCBS bullet and 2047 FPS for the 311 Hoch bullet.
The 275 gr. bullet was used on waterbuck and warthog, approximated the .358 Win. in performance.
The 311 gr. bullet was used on sable, cape buffalo and zebra. Energy about equal to the .400/.350 Rigby. Considered a close range load for larger game. He had to use regular factory ammo to finish off the buffalo because of the crimping problem mentioned earlier.
As I mentioned, I have the RCBS mold. I use it for a practice load for my Ruger #1 in .375 H&H with 49.0 gr. of IMR-4895 and a one grain tuft of dacron. Groups usually run about 1.5" from the bench if I do my part. Metal was not heat treated.
The alloy I use is 10 pounds of wheel weight metal, one pound of linotype, a three foot piece of lead free solder and 1/3 cup of magnum bird shot. BHN # is about 14 and oven treated will reach 30 BHN easily.
Mr. Harris used several alloys of wheel weights of pure lead to achieve the hardness he wanted, Bullets were oven treated and water dropped.
Having used both the water drop from the mold and oven treating and then water dropping, I much prefer the latter system as I feel results are more consistant.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
Paul B.

PAUL
veral smith says much the same thing...about 2000fps is max from the cast proj.....however Paco Kelly from some of his articles drives them well over 2500 fps ...will have to revisit his articles

regards daniel

Your results will depend on the lube and bullet alloy along with heat treating. Wheel weights will get you to 2100 - 2200 fps with accuracy. Above that you will need to heat treat.

Yes, I've achieved this. If you look at my other postings on this subject you will see I regularly shoot the NEI .375-280 gc at 2200fps with superb results. I've also shot them at 2600fps but accuracy (>2 moa) wasn't good enough for the punishment I was taking.

Bullets are cast from wheel weights and dropped from the mould in to water. Lube is Lyman super moly.

The way I normaly go if I want to create full factory loadings with this bullet is I insert a piece of 3/8" copper tube into the mould cavity so the bullet ends up with a copper driving band. Works great! Also you might give paper patching a try.