Hello from Scotland~

I will shortly be reloading for a Marlin cl .218 Bee,i have can get speer 46 gn FN bullets which is what i wil start with.

But im wondering about trying cast bullets in my Bee ? Obviuosly the 1:16 twist really limits me to the Lyman 44 gn bullet gas checked, just wondering if anyone has used this bullet in other .22 centre fires on varmints ?

Englander

Englander
I've not used cast bullets for a 22 but I've cast for a 243.
I'd bet that you can achieve close to factory jacketed velocities with cast bullets.The downside of the deal is the cast bullets will need to be very hard, hince they will zip through the critter like the penetrator from an AP round.
Jim

Hey Englander, I used to load some FN 45gr GC Lead bullets for a 22Hornet. There was a local supplier who cast them from Linotype and were only $6.50/100. He eventually quit casting them because of the number of rejects he was getting.

They were so hard, they would simply pass through Varmints. They would eventually die, but often ran a good bit. Of course, the smaller the Varmint, the more difficult that makes locating them.

I'd decided to quit using them because of that, plus the ones I had tended to "ricochet" due to that hardness. That is not a problem in some of the places I hunt, but in other places it is not good at all. So, I was going back to the standard 45gr Jacketed Hornet bullets anyhow.

Good luck to you.

I too tried cast bullets in .22 centrefire, but quickly abandoned them. I'm sorry, but I bought these so I don't know the mold maker, but they were about 47 grains (lubed and ready to go with gas check) so they might have been Lyman.

They had to be hard so they would not lead at a reasonable velocity, but they passed right through groundhogs. I didn't have a chronograph, back then, but my top loads might have been just over 2000fps (this was in a .22-250). The rifle has long since been traded, and I don't know what twist it had, but these bullets were never that accurate.

My advice is to save the small calibre cast bullets for practice only.

jpb

[ 03-07-2003, 18:04: Message edited by: jpb ]