The Goose
NES Member
The main reason that I got into bullet casting was to cast bullets for Black Powder Cartridge Rifle rounds (BPCR). I do not compete or anything, I just love shooting those old smokepoles. Today I shot the first round with bullets that I cast. The mold was a Lyman 457125 that casts a 500 gr. round nose. It is a very old design. My alloy was a mix of range lead and wheel weights, heavy on the range lead. I weighed the bullets shot and they were within .5 grains +/-. I ladle pour on my large caliber rifle bullets, .45 and .50. The lube is SPG black powder lube. The bullets come out of the mold at .459 and I size them at .459 to apply the lube. Powder charge was 62 grains of Goex 2F with a Winchester magnum primer. The rifle is a 1873 Springfield trapdoor .45-70 that was made in 1888. Three breaths on a blow tube in between shots and swabbed out the bore every 10 shots. The first photo shows the cast bullet (it is not really wrinkled, bad photo), then one with lube and the finished product. Second photo is at 50 yards and lastly at 100 yards. Like most old military rifles this one shoots way high at those ranges so there was a bit of good old Kentucky windage (or elevation) involved. This is about as good ,or better, that this rifle has ever shot with anyone's bullets. I was pleased. Now I want to start checking out my bullets on my Sharps and Rolling Blocks with good Soule sights to see what they really can do.
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