91/30 Cast Bullet Loads???

[muzzle flash]

I have started shooting cast bullets out my nagant sniper with poor results. About 6"groups at 100 meters. Load consists of 210 gr.lyman gas checked bullet 34 gr. h4350. Any of you cast bullet wizards care to share your x ring cutting loads????

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[Claven2]

A couple of thoughts.

first off, make sure your bullets are big enough to fully engage the rifling. I suggest slugging your bore and making sure your bullets are .001" larger diameter than the groove depth.

next, make sure you use cast bullet load data. If you use jacketed bullet date, in addition to increasing pressures, you'll strip the rifling grooves off the bullet and it'll just tumble out of the barrel.

I would also suggest trying IMR 3031, H4895, or Varget. They all have pretty good track records with cast bullets.

Finally, what alloy are you using? You might want to consider using water quenched wheel weights. In a rifle you want good hard bullets in my experience.

[Andy]

Yes, slug it for sure to determine minimum bore diameter and then select a bullet at least 0.001" over that. I go with the largest I can chamber (the chamber neck diameter determining that), and have found myself as much as 0.004" over bore. I use exclusively wheelweight with 2% tin added which is moderately hard and good for moderate pressures - typically those found when muzzle velocity is in the 1500-1800 fps range. Your load of 34.0 grs of H4350 is an odd one - it's barely 60% of a max load for a jacketed bullet and with a powder that slow you are liable to have a lot of unburnt powder, but worse yet, unreliable and potentially dangerous pressure spikes.

I have used:

12.0 grs of Unique;
20.0 grs of 2400; and
28.0 grs of H4227

and seen very good accuracy with velocities in the 1400-1900 fps range.

[muzzle flash]

This is the same load that I use in my 44 mosin and it works very well. I average 3" groups in this gun at 100 off a bench. Bullets are sized .314" which have also worked well in the enfields.
To slug my bores I use a soft cast bullet sized .310 then lube it up and pound it down the bore with a brass rod. (Pounding a bullet down the bore just seems wrong). I have tried many of the pistol powders but could never get any consistant results on paper or over the chrony. I add 4 oz. of tin to every 10 lb. of ww. Going to try a reduced load of 4895 and IMR 4198 will let you know how this turns out.