This article written by George Damron, was published in the March/Apr 2009, #198 issue of the Fouling Shot.
I recently came into a 4-cavity version of Lyman’s 311466 at a reasonable price. While not a design I had luck with in the past this recent one seems to be working quite well. Weather it was the inexperience I had 20 years back or the dimensions of my current mold are better I can’t say. This current mold casts .312” out of a Linotype/WW mix and if I remember my old one cast .315” out of a similar alloy.
This 4-cavity is a gem and drops its bullets the instant the blocks are opened, a fortuitous situation indeed for a four cavity Loverin style design. The choice of Unique as “the powder” in the loads was due to recent use in the 7.65 Mauser in an 1891 Argentine. Joe Gifford of the CBA has shot one for years quite successfully and recommended 12.0 grains with any bullet over 150 grains. It has matched (or bested) my “standard” 2400 and 5744 loads in the 7.65 Argentine. I haven’t regretted re-trying it and figured it deserved another chance in other calibers. When I “found” 2400 12 years ago I never went back to Unique in .30 caliber rifle loading. Now I’m glad I gave it another chance.
So the first try with the new mold was in the 1891 “Argie” (as Joe calls it). Other than the 4” shortened bar-rel and ramp ft sight the gun is “as issue” with open sights and original stocking and hardware. The 311466 was cast in a Lino/WW mix, bottom poured and lubed in a .313” die in the Lyman 450 with a Hornady gas check. I lubed the first three grooves with Jake’s NRA style. I dropped 12.0 grains of Unique capped off by CCI 200’s in reformed 30-06 cases and seated the bullet three bands deep in the case. They were shy of the rifling a bunch due to the large throat in the rifle, but I found that the “running start” worked fine in the 7.65 with other loads and designs.
Using Lyman’s 311284 and the 12.0 Unique load it’s usually a 2.0”-2.75” gun for 10 shots at 100 yards and a bit over 5.0” at 200 yards. The rear ladder sight has a notch that is good for a zero for 200 yards with my load. I use it primarily for offhand practice on steel gongs at the end of my bench shooting sessions. Even 4 MOA is good enough for the 12” 200 meter gongs so that’s at least what I wanted to see with the new bullet. The 31466 load with the same charge shot near identical sized groups as the 311284 the first time out and I was pleased and surprised.
With that I decided to leave the measure be and stuff the bullet and load into an ’06 case. I picked my 1903 Springfield with Lyman target peep sights for test #2. This gun is consistently accurate with 16.0 of 2400 and the 200 grain Eagan MX3-30-US. Many times has it shot 5-shot MOA groups at 100 and 10 shot groups are in the 1.8-2.5 MOA range out to 200 yards. I seated it three grooves deep just like the 7.65 and it responded nicely. Groups were about 1/2 MOA larger than my Eagan load and I couldn’t complain a bit with my new high production molds accuracy. One 10 shot group at 100 was 1.65” with 9 of the 10 into 1.2”!
With this minor success I decided to try my new “universal bullet/powder” in a different style rifle. I chose a “new to me” truck rack worn, repaired stock, beat-up Marlin 336 30-30 RC with Micro-Groove rifling. I had no idea what to expect in MicroGroove as it has been 10 years since I owned one. I seem to recall having decent success, but really couldn’t remember the details. But I doubted the horror stories of MicroGroove and cast bullet shooting.
I recently came into a 4-cavity version of Lyman’s 311466 at a reasonable price. While not a design I had luck with in the past this recent one seems to be working quite well. Weather it was the inexperience I had 20 years back or the dimensions of my current mold are better I can’t say. This current mold casts .312” out of a Linotype/WW mix and if I remember my old one cast .315” out of a similar alloy.
This 4-cavity is a gem and drops its bullets the instant the blocks are opened, a fortuitous situation indeed for a four cavity Loverin style design. The choice of Unique as “the powder” in the loads was due to recent use in the 7.65 Mauser in an 1891 Argentine. Joe Gifford of the CBA has shot one for years quite successfully and recommended 12.0 grains with any bullet over 150 grains. It has matched (or bested) my “standard” 2400 and 5744 loads in the 7.65 Argentine. I haven’t regretted re-trying it and figured it deserved another chance in other calibers. When I “found” 2400 12 years ago I never went back to Unique in .30 caliber rifle loading. Now I’m glad I gave it another chance.
So the first try with the new mold was in the 1891 “Argie” (as Joe calls it). Other than the 4” shortened bar-rel and ramp ft sight the gun is “as issue” with open sights and original stocking and hardware. The 311466 was cast in a Lino/WW mix, bottom poured and lubed in a .313” die in the Lyman 450 with a Hornady gas check. I lubed the first three grooves with Jake’s NRA style. I dropped 12.0 grains of Unique capped off by CCI 200’s in reformed 30-06 cases and seated the bullet three bands deep in the case. They were shy of the rifling a bunch due to the large throat in the rifle, but I found that the “running start” worked fine in the 7.65 with other loads and designs.
Using Lyman’s 311284 and the 12.0 Unique load it’s usually a 2.0”-2.75” gun for 10 shots at 100 yards and a bit over 5.0” at 200 yards. The rear ladder sight has a notch that is good for a zero for 200 yards with my load. I use it primarily for offhand practice on steel gongs at the end of my bench shooting sessions. Even 4 MOA is good enough for the 12” 200 meter gongs so that’s at least what I wanted to see with the new bullet. The 31466 load with the same charge shot near identical sized groups as the 311284 the first time out and I was pleased and surprised.
With that I decided to leave the measure be and stuff the bullet and load into an ’06 case. I picked my 1903 Springfield with Lyman target peep sights for test #2. This gun is consistently accurate with 16.0 of 2400 and the 200 grain Eagan MX3-30-US. Many times has it shot 5-shot MOA groups at 100 and 10 shot groups are in the 1.8-2.5 MOA range out to 200 yards. I seated it three grooves deep just like the 7.65 and it responded nicely. Groups were about 1/2 MOA larger than my Eagan load and I couldn’t complain a bit with my new high production molds accuracy. One 10 shot group at 100 was 1.65” with 9 of the 10 into 1.2”!
With this minor success I decided to try my new “universal bullet/powder” in a different style rifle. I chose a “new to me” truck rack worn, repaired stock, beat-up Marlin 336 30-30 RC with Micro-Groove rifling. I had no idea what to expect in MicroGroove as it has been 10 years since I owned one. I seem to recall having decent success, but really couldn’t remember the details. But I doubted the horror stories of MicroGroove and cast bullet shooting.
I did have to size them down from .312” to get neck clearance and I did this in my .309” Lee Push through die that sized them to .3095”. I decided to load Unique again but I dropped the charge to 10.0 grains, seated the bullet to 2.6” and lightly crimped in the third groove. This gun with it’s 4X Redfield scope grouped 1.75” to 2.4” at 100 yards for four 5-shot groups. Not great, but acceptable for the first time out.
I had a lot of vertical tendencies in the groups I felt were shooter induced so I loaded another 30 and did a re-shoot. This time I was being more careful of my bag handling. I was rewarded with round 1.4” to 2” groups at 100 and 2.75 to 3.25” groups at 200 yards. All were 5-shot groups and three consecutive groups at each range were shot. It was over 90 degrees and even though the gun was very hot its accuracy held up. So at least with this bullet and about 1400 f.p.s. velocity MicroGroove rifling works fine unless you consider about 1.5 MOA bad grouping in a lever gun!
Best 100-yard group with the 30-30 Marlin.
200-yard groups.
I like my 311466 4-cavity mould. It only uses 150 grains of metal, casts nice bullets with only about one grain difference from lightest to heaviest, and works great in three of my favorite 30 caliber plinking rifles. I still think there are better designs out there, but if you find one reasonable don’t pass it up. As for Unique powder it worked well and gives about 580 loads per pound at 12.0 grains. I will be trying it in other rifle loads now. (I was using a 20 year old lot so the new Alliant may need to be load adjusted when I run out of the old stuff.) So, two things I didn’t have faith in suddenly work for me, I wonder what else I have missed or bad mouthed over the years that works just fine? Probably more than I want to know.