Wildrangeringreen
40 Cal
I'm assuming it's rested? for 50 yards, it shows some promise, but then again many loadings, even less than ideal ones look ok at 50 yards. You'll need to back off to 100 or more to really see what it's doing (minutes of angle are tiny changes in trajectory, and those translate into inches when you start extend the range).
As for rodwha's reply: bullets don't need to be perfect groove to groove to be bumped up into the bore lol. As long as your rifling is not more than .007" deep (.005-.002 is ideal, in my experience with non-cloth patched projectiles), and your bullet is at least touching the lands, you're good... so long as you use a suitable charge (no mouse-fart stuff for land-riders). Even fairly hard lead bullets can be deformed by you stepping on them on concrete, what do you think will happen when it's hit with 20,000 psi + almost instantaneously? If they needed to be perfectly groove sized, paper patched bullets wouldn't work in ML rifles.
Some people like the REAL's, and have good success with them; but I have a 320gr REAL mold for .50... I played with it for a bit, and never was impressed with them. I felt that I was having to deform the bullet entirely too much to get them down. Accuracy was poor (As I recall, roughly 6" at 100 yards from a rest was the best I could get... my smoothbore (with sights) with a tight fitted pp ball and a musket charge from a rest runs around 9" at that distance...lol). That rifle was a 1:48 twist rifle with a .502 bore and .003 grooves. Couldn't push the Lee Minie's hard enough to flatten the trajectory the way I wanted, without the skirt blowing out, so I eventually went back to cloth patched Round ball for that rifle and had hunting worthy groups (this was before I went of the deep end in paper patching and playing with a lot of bullets).
A couple years ago, I want to play with a ball gun again, so I picked that rifle back up and switched to paper patching and weighing charges, and my groups shrank by a lot. I use printer paper for targets (and patching), and it figures, now that I want to measure the group again, they seem to have been "cleaned up"; but looking in my google sheets, my 5 shot groups last range session with that rifle at 100 yards averaged out to 1.78" (1.7MOA) (from a caldwell fieldpod), the sights were the stock (read: poor and oversized) tradition's fiber sights. In my opinion, there are far better bullets/molds out there for accuracy (I like NOE and Accurate Molds). I don't know what your rifle is twisted at, but an AM50-300B would be a good PP bullet for at least a 1:50 (so long as you got it up to 1600fps); If you have a faster twist, Am makes longer versions of that bullet, plus NOE has a bullet similar to the original .50-70 bullet (424gr with the cup-base) and a 404gr bullet for the Smith Carbine. AM will make your mold to the size/alloy you want, with NOE molds, you'll have to size them (if you were doing competitive rifle shooting, you probably have a press, and lee makes affordable sizing dies).
I live in OH, and we have quite a bit of heat in summer, and it can get pretty cold at times in the winter, so my lube has to handle that. My lube that I use is, by weight (roughly): 3 paraffin, 1 crisco, .15 Diesel Anti-gel (keeps it from cracking in winter). Heat this mixture until it melts together, and then lower the temp until it is almost starting to solidify again. Now quickly dip the shot end of your cartridge into the mixture up to the top of the shot (not the powder). It should cool and solidify very rapidly, this is key to making sure the lube doesn't soak in and stick the paper to the shot. If not, your lube is too hot, and it needs to cool.
As for rodwha's reply: bullets don't need to be perfect groove to groove to be bumped up into the bore lol. As long as your rifling is not more than .007" deep (.005-.002 is ideal, in my experience with non-cloth patched projectiles), and your bullet is at least touching the lands, you're good... so long as you use a suitable charge (no mouse-fart stuff for land-riders). Even fairly hard lead bullets can be deformed by you stepping on them on concrete, what do you think will happen when it's hit with 20,000 psi + almost instantaneously? If they needed to be perfectly groove sized, paper patched bullets wouldn't work in ML rifles.
Some people like the REAL's, and have good success with them; but I have a 320gr REAL mold for .50... I played with it for a bit, and never was impressed with them. I felt that I was having to deform the bullet entirely too much to get them down. Accuracy was poor (As I recall, roughly 6" at 100 yards from a rest was the best I could get... my smoothbore (with sights) with a tight fitted pp ball and a musket charge from a rest runs around 9" at that distance...lol). That rifle was a 1:48 twist rifle with a .502 bore and .003 grooves. Couldn't push the Lee Minie's hard enough to flatten the trajectory the way I wanted, without the skirt blowing out, so I eventually went back to cloth patched Round ball for that rifle and had hunting worthy groups (this was before I went of the deep end in paper patching and playing with a lot of bullets).
A couple years ago, I want to play with a ball gun again, so I picked that rifle back up and switched to paper patching and weighing charges, and my groups shrank by a lot. I use printer paper for targets (and patching), and it figures, now that I want to measure the group again, they seem to have been "cleaned up"; but looking in my google sheets, my 5 shot groups last range session with that rifle at 100 yards averaged out to 1.78" (1.7MOA) (from a caldwell fieldpod), the sights were the stock (read: poor and oversized) tradition's fiber sights. In my opinion, there are far better bullets/molds out there for accuracy (I like NOE and Accurate Molds). I don't know what your rifle is twisted at, but an AM50-300B would be a good PP bullet for at least a 1:50 (so long as you got it up to 1600fps); If you have a faster twist, Am makes longer versions of that bullet, plus NOE has a bullet similar to the original .50-70 bullet (424gr with the cup-base) and a 404gr bullet for the Smith Carbine. AM will make your mold to the size/alloy you want, with NOE molds, you'll have to size them (if you were doing competitive rifle shooting, you probably have a press, and lee makes affordable sizing dies).
I live in OH, and we have quite a bit of heat in summer, and it can get pretty cold at times in the winter, so my lube has to handle that. My lube that I use is, by weight (roughly): 3 paraffin, 1 crisco, .15 Diesel Anti-gel (keeps it from cracking in winter). Heat this mixture until it melts together, and then lower the temp until it is almost starting to solidify again. Now quickly dip the shot end of your cartridge into the mixture up to the top of the shot (not the powder). It should cool and solidify very rapidly, this is key to making sure the lube doesn't soak in and stick the paper to the shot. If not, your lube is too hot, and it needs to cool.
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