450Bushmaster.net

As hard as I tried to love the 500 grain cast bullet from the Lee 90577 mold, it was just not accurate enough for how much work it involved. It also barely functioned the gun and used up a lot of my lead. I figured it was time to try another mold, this time a little closer to my hunting load. Up front, the Lee 90373, 340 grain .457 bullet is easy to cast, sizes down to .452 without difficulty, doesn't use as much lead, and cycles the gun. We're off to a good start.


Still using the same gun:
18" AR15 GLFA barrel, mid gas, 1:24 twist


The bullet:
Lee 457-340 2 cavity aluminum mold
Dropped at 340 grains with straight wheel weights
I found that since they have a nice flat nose, I can cast, powder coat, then size the bullet upside-down in the Lee die, and I don't get the base deformations I got with the 500 grain bullet. This saves me a ton of time from sizing, sanding, coating, then sizing again. For these first bullets I used WW with added lino, water quenched after PC. Seated to 2.1", taper crimped. I made these harder bullets in anticipation of higher velocities.


I first started with 34 grains of Shooters World Blackout. Two of the three cycled, I didn't get any chrono data because I got rained out. The cases were nice and clean.
Next moved up to 35 grains. Perfect cycle on most of them. I did have an oddball velocity that didn't cycle.

1698
1545
1641
1693
1700
1648

I'm discounting the 1545 fps shot as it's so far off from all the others. This brings the avg velocity to 1675.



As you can see there's room for improvement. My hunting load is a 300 grain XTP with 40.5 grains SWBO, so I have some room to increase velocity. I can also try softer or harder lead. After that I'll probably try some H110. Either way, it hits almost the same zero as my hunting load, which is a plus. I don't have to make special concessions with this bullet like buffer spring strength or buffer weight like I did with the 500. So far I'm happy for a plinking load, now it's time to refine it.

Comments/critiques/criticism welcome.

Nice start. Are you gonna bump the charge up?

I think so. As long as it doesn't rain I should have time tomorrow. I'm going to cast some softer ones tonight with some tin to see if I can get any expansion out of them. Once I get a group dialed in with the hard cast, I'll see if the softer alloy changes anything.

I got some good bullet expansion and velocity data today, but the accuracy still isn't there.

36 grains SWBO
1694
1739
1755
AMV: 1730


36.5 grains SWBO
1766
1782
1758
AMV: 1772


37.0 grains SWBO
1796
1820
1876
AMV: 1830


37.5 grains SWBO
1809
1873
1895
AMV: 1859


Primers never changed shapes and I didn't have any hiccups with the function of the gun. I find it odd that my 300 grain XTP load iss 40.5 grains SWBO and it chronos at 1900fps and these 350 grain bullets are at 1850 with only 37.5 grains. An interesting trend I found was that the first shot was always slower than the follow on shots. I may increase velocity a little bit more as the last group was better than the others but was still 4 inches.

The expansion test, on the other hand went great. I casted some bullets with about 7 lbs stick on WW/pure lead mix with a pound of WW lead and a few ounces of tin to get an approximate 2% tin content. I water quenched some and air cooled some, but of the two I shot into water, it didn't seem to make much of a difference. Bullet on the left was air cooled and on the right was water quenched after PC. When I casted WW with some lino with a water quench and shot into packed dirt I got zero deformation, so it makes a bit of difference there.


I'm really hoping to find a way to dial these in to about 2" or so. I'd feel comfortable hunting with that.

your result shooting into water and shooting into meat are going to be strikingly different.

the two mediums do not equate. which is why ballistics gel is used for expansion testing in a medium similar to meat.

when you hit water at high velocity it doesnt compress or move like we're used to seeing it when you put stuff in at low velocity... you might as well be hitting concrete that has a little give to it.


dont believe me? go water skiing and wipe out at 20 mph... you'll bounce across the top a couple times like you took a dive on the lawn falling from a pair of roller blades.


that doesnt mean i don't believe those will smash thru and cause a bunch of damage doing it... thats a large hunk of lead moving right along with a relatively flat point... its gonna cause trauma.. i'm just saying dont expect expansion like you're seeing.

I agree with you there. I had just read a post on the castboolits forum about a guy that never got the same expansion in deer that he got in water. Although both the air cooled and water quenched bullets showed the same expansion in water, I doubt they would behave the same in deer. I didn't see any difference in the bullet accuracy between the two, so I'll stick with the air cooled.

All that said, I'm not hunting with it until I can get a consistent 2" group at 100. Until then I'll stick with my XTPs.

I think this is the 4th range report I've done on this forum (230 jacketed plinkers, 230 HAP, 500gn cast subsonic), and so far I'm most happy with this one. It is easy to make and load, cycles the gun without any issues, easy on brass, hits like a hammer, and is fairly accurate. I couldn't get reliable loads out of the 230s for whatever reason and the 500 was an all around pain that I really tried to force.

I lengthened the bullets out to 2.13 from 2.1 and it has seemed to make a fairly significant difference. I still get a flyer as you see in the pictures, but I'm thinking it may be a casting issue like the picture above that has a small hole. I'll keep a better QC and maybe weigh each bullet next time.

This is my first group of 5, fired from the magazine at a fairly quick pace. The wheel weight bullets weigh about 340 grains


This is the second group, shot a few minutes later, still from the magazine. The soft lead with tin added bullets weigh a touch under 350 grains.


Any other tips for getting rid of the flyer? For a bullet that can both hunt and plink for very cheap, I'm still very happy with these groups, at least compared to the first groups I was getting. The next adventure is getting a can on this rifle, because these rounds are LOUD.

plant_one wrote:your result shooting into water and shooting into meat are going to be strikingly different.

the two mediums do not equate. which is why ballistics gel is used for expansion testing in a medium similar to meat.

In this case they ended up being very similar. This thread is basically dead, but I'll close it out with some good info.

Weighing the bullets and keeping them within a grain and lengthening the oal out to 2.13 has given me fairly consistent results that I'm happy enough to hunt with. I'm not posting more pictures of targets, but I've gotten 2"-1.5" groups often enough now to feel confident to hunt with it.

Got my first cast bullet deer today, front quartering shot entered the shoulder and lodged in the hide at the bottom of the opposite ribcage. This bullet has some serious momentum and expanded fairly quickly as evidenced by the first hole size after the shoulder.

Final load is 37.5 grains Shooters World Blackout, 2.13" COAL, taper crimp to .474, 2% tin bullet sized to .452 (sizing base first after PC).



Recovered bullet


Entrance hole in ribcage is large after destroying shoulder (not the shot I wanted, but the shot I was given), exit hole in ribcage is out of the picture on the left side (didn't see it when I took the pic), bullet lodged in skin.

Nothing wrong with that, good job on the kill and follow up.