This article written by CBA member, Pat Iffland, was published in the July/Aug 2002, #158 issue of the Fouling Shot.
Much has been written in these pages about the unbelievably successful experimentation that’s taken place with cast bullets through the years. The novice or casual bullet caster must stand in awe of the people that write these articles and feel rather diminished by their own supposed ineptitude. The problem as I see it is that for every success story there’s a bushel basket full of fail-ures that never seem to make it to print. What you’re going to get here is the truth, the whole truth, and noth-ing but the truth of what I usually have to go through when I decide to go off on a “Buck The Norm” endeavor. I’ll tell the story of my recent decision to design a 250-gr. bullet for the .30 BR case.
The seed of heavy bullet technology (?) was planted by Ed Doonan on our trip home from the ‘99 nationals. I’d shot my usual and was bemoaning the effect of wind on our puny projectiles when Ed started pushing his heavy bullet/high ballistic coefficient theory. He must have figured he’d finally found a patsy, I mean student, who was ripe to give it a try. Naturally I played Devil’s Advocate looking for holes in his reasoning but he sup-ported his ideas with good firm logic and reeled me in like a 1-lb. catfish.
Bidding Ed a fond farewell the wheels started spinning. As stated earlier the chambering was a foregone conclusion, .30 BR. The throating took about 15 minutes to decide upon, I always used a .310x30 minute throat with the shorter bullets so this one would be .310x22-1/2 minutes to accommodate the extra bullet length I’d be dealing with. Greenhill would decide the rifling twist after I had my bullet design drawn up. The biggest hurdle I faced was how to actually go about designing a bullet that weighed my stated goal of 250 grains. With pencil in hand and the confidence of someone who doesn’t know any better, I went to work.
When finished, I had a drawing for a bullet 1.205 inches long, .311 diameter, two .050 grease grooves, tapered from before the front grease groove to the ogive from .311 to .301. A true work of art! Print and check were sent off to Dave Mos and the story begins.
When the mould arrived in what can only be described as record time I strode to the garage to put ladle to sprue plate, boasting to anyone within ear shot just how lucky they were to be living in the same neighborhood as someone who was about to become a CBA living legend, Numero Uno, King Of The Hill, in other words The Champ!
After casting up a handful back to the house I went stopping only to retrieve the bottle of 1954 Don Perion I had chilling just for this occasion. Slipping a gas check ever so gently on my new jewel I placed in on the Pact scale, picked up my bottle of celebratory libation, and awaited the results.
With ever increasing thumb pressure on the cork I counted down the blinking screen, 3-2-1 and there it was, staring at me with all the intensity of a numerical Mike Tyson. A grand total of 218.8 grains!After picking my chin up off the floor, placing the mumble juice back on ice, and checking the financial status of my checkbook it was back to the drawing board. I really liked the design of #1 and figured by adding a .050 long straight section in front of the forward grease groove and keeping all else the same I’d make my magic 250 grains with no problem, hence #2 saw the light of day.
When #2 arrived I performed the same drill as before, firm in the belief that this was it, the Holy Grail, 250 grains of rompin’ stompin’ fanny kickin’ lead that’d cause grown men to quake in their boots and put me in the drivers seat of any match I ever decided to attend!
When I got through casting up my usual handful back to the house I went, stopping to grab hold of my happy sauce for the big celebration. Up the stairs I galloped wearing a grin that you only get when you know you’re at the top of your game and the gods of cast bullet shooting are in your corner. After once again slapping a gas check on the bullet I gave it a hook shot from across the room that landed base down in the pan and started working on what load I was going to use.
Now you might not believe my next statement, and the folks at Pact told me such a thing couldn’t possibly happen, but when the numbers 228.6 popped up on the little screen I swear to you all I heard a laugh! Not a big rip roaring gut wrenching laugh but a small diabolical“Gotcha” laugh. There I stood with tears streaming down my face and the one eyed blue devil was laughing at me!While smashing my still corked bottle of stumble bum down on the demon I was already planning #3 and deciding from where to order my new scale.
A right thinking man might deduce that if adding a .050” long straight section onto #1 added 10 grains of weight then naturally adding .150” would add 30 grains, and since I started at 218 grains with #1 the 30 would make it a perfect 250 grain bullet, right? You’re absolutely correct, it would. I on the other hand added a .200” long straight section and ended up with, you guessed it,a 260 grain bullet (word must have leaked out about how I deal with laughing scales because this one didn’t make a peep).
Why I didn’t stop here is beyond me but I can only conclude that at the time this had become a fight to the poorhouse between me and the elusive 250 grain bullet and I wasn’t about to give up even if my better (and saner) half had to work 70 hours a week to make it hap-pen!
Picking up my chartreuse colored crayon (after the laughing scale incident the little woman decided that any sharp instruments, including pencils, were off limits) I started on #4, incorporating a few design changes.
Once again going through my, which by now had become second nature, routine of waiting for the mould, casting the handful, mounting the stairs, and installing the check I slipped the bullet onto the scale with much trepidation and prepared myself for yet another disappointment.
When the number 249.9 appeared in front of my eyes the Rebel Yell that exploded from my lungs deafened every four-legged critter within 1/4 mile! Following my verbal explosion I immediately proceeded to race outside and started doing a very poor imitation of Michael Jackson’s “Moon Walk” up and down my street emitting shrieks of excitement at precise 15 second intervals.
All this unbridled exuberance ended when Mrs. Cuttlehut, the 85 year old widow woman who lives up the street, set her deafened but still vicious 95 pound Rottweiller “Butterfly” on me as I glided backwards past her living room window on my third go round and let loose with a yelp that must have raised the hair on the back of her neck, which with what she’d managed to cultivate on her chin and under her nose amounted to quite a crop! I can’t say I really blame the old girl, the sight of me repeatedly gliding backwards past her house letting out blood curdling screams was probably more than the poor dear could take.
Much has been written in these pages about the unbelievably successful experimentation that’s taken place with cast bullets through the years. The novice or casual bullet caster must stand in awe of the people that write these articles and feel rather diminished by their own supposed ineptitude. The problem as I see it is that for every success story there’s a bushel basket full of fail-ures that never seem to make it to print. What you’re going to get here is the truth, the whole truth, and noth-ing but the truth of what I usually have to go through when I decide to go off on a “Buck The Norm” endeavor. I’ll tell the story of my recent decision to design a 250-gr. bullet for the .30 BR case.
The seed of heavy bullet technology (?) was planted by Ed Doonan on our trip home from the ‘99 nationals. I’d shot my usual and was bemoaning the effect of wind on our puny projectiles when Ed started pushing his heavy bullet/high ballistic coefficient theory. He must have figured he’d finally found a patsy, I mean student, who was ripe to give it a try. Naturally I played Devil’s Advocate looking for holes in his reasoning but he sup-ported his ideas with good firm logic and reeled me in like a 1-lb. catfish.
Bidding Ed a fond farewell the wheels started spinning. As stated earlier the chambering was a foregone conclusion, .30 BR. The throating took about 15 minutes to decide upon, I always used a .310x30 minute throat with the shorter bullets so this one would be .310x22-1/2 minutes to accommodate the extra bullet length I’d be dealing with. Greenhill would decide the rifling twist after I had my bullet design drawn up. The biggest hurdle I faced was how to actually go about designing a bullet that weighed my stated goal of 250 grains. With pencil in hand and the confidence of someone who doesn’t know any better, I went to work.
When finished, I had a drawing for a bullet 1.205 inches long, .311 diameter, two .050 grease grooves, tapered from before the front grease groove to the ogive from .311 to .301. A true work of art! Print and check were sent off to Dave Mos and the story begins.
When the mould arrived in what can only be described as record time I strode to the garage to put ladle to sprue plate, boasting to anyone within ear shot just how lucky they were to be living in the same neighborhood as someone who was about to become a CBA living legend, Numero Uno, King Of The Hill, in other words The Champ!
After casting up a handful back to the house I went stopping only to retrieve the bottle of 1954 Don Perion I had chilling just for this occasion. Slipping a gas check ever so gently on my new jewel I placed in on the Pact scale, picked up my bottle of celebratory libation, and awaited the results.
With ever increasing thumb pressure on the cork I counted down the blinking screen, 3-2-1 and there it was, staring at me with all the intensity of a numerical Mike Tyson. A grand total of 218.8 grains!After picking my chin up off the floor, placing the mumble juice back on ice, and checking the financial status of my checkbook it was back to the drawing board. I really liked the design of #1 and figured by adding a .050 long straight section in front of the forward grease groove and keeping all else the same I’d make my magic 250 grains with no problem, hence #2 saw the light of day.
When #2 arrived I performed the same drill as before, firm in the belief that this was it, the Holy Grail, 250 grains of rompin’ stompin’ fanny kickin’ lead that’d cause grown men to quake in their boots and put me in the drivers seat of any match I ever decided to attend!
When I got through casting up my usual handful back to the house I went, stopping to grab hold of my happy sauce for the big celebration. Up the stairs I galloped wearing a grin that you only get when you know you’re at the top of your game and the gods of cast bullet shooting are in your corner. After once again slapping a gas check on the bullet I gave it a hook shot from across the room that landed base down in the pan and started working on what load I was going to use.
Now you might not believe my next statement, and the folks at Pact told me such a thing couldn’t possibly happen, but when the numbers 228.6 popped up on the little screen I swear to you all I heard a laugh! Not a big rip roaring gut wrenching laugh but a small diabolical“Gotcha” laugh. There I stood with tears streaming down my face and the one eyed blue devil was laughing at me!While smashing my still corked bottle of stumble bum down on the demon I was already planning #3 and deciding from where to order my new scale.
A right thinking man might deduce that if adding a .050” long straight section onto #1 added 10 grains of weight then naturally adding .150” would add 30 grains, and since I started at 218 grains with #1 the 30 would make it a perfect 250 grain bullet, right? You’re absolutely correct, it would. I on the other hand added a .200” long straight section and ended up with, you guessed it,a 260 grain bullet (word must have leaked out about how I deal with laughing scales because this one didn’t make a peep).
Why I didn’t stop here is beyond me but I can only conclude that at the time this had become a fight to the poorhouse between me and the elusive 250 grain bullet and I wasn’t about to give up even if my better (and saner) half had to work 70 hours a week to make it hap-pen!
Picking up my chartreuse colored crayon (after the laughing scale incident the little woman decided that any sharp instruments, including pencils, were off limits) I started on #4, incorporating a few design changes.
Once again going through my, which by now had become second nature, routine of waiting for the mould, casting the handful, mounting the stairs, and installing the check I slipped the bullet onto the scale with much trepidation and prepared myself for yet another disappointment.
When the number 249.9 appeared in front of my eyes the Rebel Yell that exploded from my lungs deafened every four-legged critter within 1/4 mile! Following my verbal explosion I immediately proceeded to race outside and started doing a very poor imitation of Michael Jackson’s “Moon Walk” up and down my street emitting shrieks of excitement at precise 15 second intervals.
All this unbridled exuberance ended when Mrs. Cuttlehut, the 85 year old widow woman who lives up the street, set her deafened but still vicious 95 pound Rottweiller “Butterfly” on me as I glided backwards past her living room window on my third go round and let loose with a yelp that must have raised the hair on the back of her neck, which with what she’d managed to cultivate on her chin and under her nose amounted to quite a crop! I can’t say I really blame the old girl, the sight of me repeatedly gliding backwards past her house letting out blood curdling screams was probably more than the poor dear could take.
L- R: RCBS 30-165-SIL, Lyman 311284, Mos/Iffland 30- 250, custom .375 cal.
I reached the safety of my door barely half a stride ahead of the beast and raced upstairs to sit in wonderment before the end result of my newfound sense of genius, forgetting all the bumps and disappointments I had to endure to reach it, which is what this article is all about.
You may be asking yourself, if you’ve not wandered off to do something useful, did he ever get the thing to shoot? I’d have to say yes. After many fits and starts and what amounts to basically stumbling into a load the thing shoots pretty fair. Was it worth it? HELL YES! It was so much fun that as I write this I keep glancing lovingly at my newest toy, an 8”-twist 6.5mm based on the PPC case shooting an inch and a quarter long 169 grain bullet, but we’ll save that story for another time.
When you think about it, it only took $420 in moulds, 10 months in time, a near stay at “Happy Dale”, and a second mortgage on the house to get a set up that’s never won a match but is competitive and would have potential in the right hands. A pretty good experience overall and not one I doubt anyone writing the “success” articles hasn’t enjoyed.
Keep The Faith!
You may be asking yourself, if you’ve not wandered off to do something useful, did he ever get the thing to shoot? I’d have to say yes. After many fits and starts and what amounts to basically stumbling into a load the thing shoots pretty fair. Was it worth it? HELL YES! It was so much fun that as I write this I keep glancing lovingly at my newest toy, an 8”-twist 6.5mm based on the PPC case shooting an inch and a quarter long 169 grain bullet, but we’ll save that story for another time.
When you think about it, it only took $420 in moulds, 10 months in time, a near stay at “Happy Dale”, and a second mortgage on the house to get a set up that’s never won a match but is competitive and would have potential in the right hands. A pretty good experience overall and not one I doubt anyone writing the “success” articles hasn’t enjoyed.
Keep The Faith!