Cast PRS Bullets ... Are They Really 250 Grainers?

[john boy]

I've cast probably over 4 hundred pounds of PRS bullets out the 6 gang mold.  Never, have I been able to get them drop at 250grs with a completely filled out cavity .

The alloy used is always garden variety WW's (Bhn 12) plus 1% SN.  I've cast them at 660 to 830F.  Casting  at the higher temperatures, the heaviest they have dropped is 244.8gr.  The normal bell curve (690-710F) is 241 - 243gr which produces non-frosty completely filled out cavity bullets with bases between 457 - 453.

1.  Anyone getting 250gr?  If so, alloy and temperature please.
2.  What are the cast weights that others are obtaining?

[Springfield Slim]

Mine run about 252 grains. I use a very soft alloy of lead and tin that test at 8-9 Brinnell on my lead hardness tester. The more lead in your mix the heavier they will be. I run the RCBS pot at 695deg. I like to keep the moulds hot enough to get slight frosting. I get better fillout that way. Why do you want your bullets so hard? Straight wheelweights are too hard as is, and you add in more tin. I don't get it. Try 50-50 wheelweights and pure lead, and only add the tin if the fillout is bad. I've sold tens of thousands of these bullets and they work great for BP. We don't run our bullets that fast, so soft is good.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Howdy!

I'm still new at casting.  I've cast 300-350 of these now.  They are averaging about 246.5 gr.  I don't know what hardness they are, except they are wheelweights and seem to be pretty hard, by the fingernail test.  They will gouge and scratch, but they're hard.  I'm casting between 750F & 850 F.

I like 'em so far.  I'm getting well-filled bullets with no findable voids, now that I'm casting them hotter than when I started @ 650F - 750F.

[w44wcf]

John Boy,

When I was at your place in 2006, I was curious about the Big Lube .45 Bullet and you kindly offered me some bullets from your mold, but I took just one.   Later DD kindly sent me some bullets in exchange for the larger than normal lube capacity Winchester bullets (a friend has this mold) I sent to him.  

In comparing  the bullets from the two different molds, I find the following:

JB - length .66"  base band thickness - outer edge .10"
DD -length .68"  base band thickness - outer edge .12"

The additional .02" length will = an additional 10 to 12 grs. in additional weight.

w44wcf

[Dick Dastardly]

Ho the fire,

I'll join in here.

From what I've learned from LEE, they break a lot of cutters making Big Lube™ bullets.  That's the reason they won't make Big Lube™ molds as standard inventory items.  When a cutter breaks, a new one has to be made.  There may be some difference between cutters.  For that reason, it's possible that some molds drop slightly different weights.  A bigger difference comes from different casting techniques and alloys.  Add it all together and the differences could compound each other, or cancel each other out.

I've sold lots of LEE molds and where there has been an out of spec mold, they bend over backwards to try to sort it out.

DD-DLoS

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

If you want me to weigh some of my PRS bullets, I'll have to scrape the lube out. Or do you want me to weigh them with the lube in them? I have it written down somewhere exactly what they weigh, I don't have that information in front of me right now.

To add to what Dick just said, in my conversations with Lee during the development of the J/P 45-200 bullet, they told me their manufacturing tolerance on molds is a .003 spread on diameter. +.003/-.000. or +.000/-.003, or +/- .0015. However you want ot express it. But the bottom line is, all the molds are not identical in diameter, your mold may drop bullets .003 bigger than mine, or .003 smaller than mine, even if we cast with the exact same alloy, and at the exact same temperature.

Add to that, the variation in alloy. I cast my PRS bullets and my J/P 45-200 bullets from a mix of about 26/1 lead/tin. No antimony. I cast my Mav-Dutchman bullets from pure lead, nothing added at all. I cast hot, around 800 degrees.

I'll see if I can remember to throw a few on the scale tonight. By the way, for CAS I don't do none of this bell curve stuff. They weigh what they weigh. I shoot them all, unless they look really, really terrible.

[john boy]

JB - length .66"  base band thickness - outer edge .10"
DD -length .68"  base band thickness - outer edge .12"
The additional .02" length will = an additional 10 to 12 grs. in additional weight.

w44wcf ... Bingo!

... and where there has been an out of spec mold, they bend over backwards to try to sort it out.

Dick, your recommendation please.  I'm sure you remember the episode with the revised 500gr mold - paid you the bucks, sent it back to Pat, he sends me a production spitzer mold that doesn't shoot worth shit and I never got the Big Lube Mold back from him

[john boy]

The subject of Bhn shooting CAS bullets - Here's why I cast the PRS's with WW's plus 1% Sn:
... There is no blowback to speak of on any of the cartridges shot in my revolvers and rifles.  Yes, they are loaded with Black.  So, this means the bullets are obturating in the barrel
... I have Zero leading in any of my firearms with these cast bullets.  Again, this means the obturation is OK.  Am sure Dick's Peal Lube prevents starvation too!
... The rifle bullets fly with accuracy out to 200yds.  From my Lightning, the groups are in the 10-12" range from benchrest.  From the revolvers, good at 25yds and out to 50yds, accuracy could be better.  But who shoots 50yds consistently with revolvers in CAS anyway?
... The price of lead is getting more expensive every month.  I have better things to do with pure Pb, like shooting LR BPCR alloys
... For general shooting with velocities in the 800 - 1000 fps ... Bhn 12 bullets are totally acceptable

Better minds than mine have researched the Bhn/velocity subject for acceptable use shooting WW's in the velocity ranges that we shoot for CAS.  Here is a good article on the subject ... http://www.lasc.us/FryxellCommentsCBAlloys.htm

So, unless there is a radical change relating to the subject ... WW's they shall be.  BTW, I still have close 1400#'s of it to shoot

[Carolina Lead Foot]

I have been casting them since the git go.  Have weighed them more then one time in lots of 50 to get to a 500 count weight.  The seem to always come in at 1.8lbs or 18lbs for 500.  That translates to 252 each.  Been getting that all along with my original molds and my last two that I got this year.

Lead Foot 

[Doctor Bill]

I have been using a PRS 0.45 mold for a while now and usually cast 20/1 lead to tin alloy.  I am not sure what the temp is since I just look for frosted bullets and then turn the heat down and take a bathroom and water break at that time then start casting again.  I used to weigh bullets fairly frequently and found that most of them were in the ~253 grain range.  I haven't cast in about eight or ten months due to moving into the heart of Yankee-land but hope to get back to casting sometime this winter.

Doctor Bill

[Adirondack Jack]

Oddly, except for the EPP when it first came out, I don't think I've ever weighed a CAS bullet.  Long range bullets, sure, but the main match stuff, whatever it is, it is, and they seem to fly just fine.  I'm much more concerned with a crisp, well-registered mold and ROUND bullets that size nicely. 

[Dick Dastardly]

Right AJ,

The gun don't care so much exactly what a bullet weighs as long as all of 'em are the same.  Weighing is a good way to sort very long range stuff to eliminate any with voids in 'em.  But as far as having a particular precise weight, 5% one way or the other won't make much difference as long as they all weigh the same.

When I design a bullet I do the sketch, a wax model, then the mechanical drawing.  I  forward that to LEE and they do a final working drawing and feed that thru a program that predicts drop weight.  If need be, the bullet is altered to get closer to the desired design weight.  Then, the bullet gets it's final designation and name.  Sometimes a mold will drop bullets outside the design prediction.  It's clumsy to go change the name of the bullet to accommodate small differences in actual final bullet weight.

Ok, that's clear as mud now. . .

DD-DLoS

[john boy]

...in my conversations with Lee during the development of the J/P 45-200 bullet, they told me their manufacturing tolerance on molds is a .003 spread on diameter. +.003/-.000. or +.000/-.003, or +/- .0015.

Gentlemen, as Driftwood stated ... it's manufacturing tolerances!
Now if Lee can't make all their molds within the tolerances, then those outside the specs are ... REJECTS!  This holds true with any manufacturer and it is incumbent on their Quality Control Section to insure product IS within tolerances before they leave the plant.

Let me ask you all a correlation question.  What would you do if the rifle or revolver that you bought had a chamber,  bore and groove that were out of tolerance?  Shoot it as is?  I believe this would hardly be the case!

So, I looked through my reference files and I don't have the drawing specifications for the PRS bullet.  Dick, would be appreciative if you would post it and then I can see if this mold is within or outside of specifications

[Adirondack Jack]

Right AJ,

The gun don't care so much exactly what a bullet weighs as long as all of 'em are the same.  Weighing is a good way to sort very long range stuff to eliminate any with voids in 'em.  But as far as having a particular precise weight, 5% one way or the other won't make much difference as long as they all weigh the same.

When I design a bullet I do the sketch, a wax model, then the mechanical drawing.  I  forward that to LEE and they do a final working drawing and feed that thru a program that predicts drop weight.  If need be, the bullet is altered to get closer to the desired design weight.  Then, the bullet gets it's final designation and name.  Sometimes a mold will drop bullets outside the design prediction.  It's clumsy to go change the name of the bullet to accommodate small differences in actual final bullet weight.

Ok, that's clear as mud now. . .

DD-DLoS

Computer program?

The hell you say?  Last time I played with a mold design I had to divide up the mold into various definable geometric shapes, calculate the volume, and using the factors for 20:1 alloy, figure out the predicted weight.  It was a .36 C&B HB RN bullet roughly similar to the EPP.  I figured it out and came out about 2 grains heavier than they actually dropped.  I called that good enough

[Driftwood Johnson]

John Boy

Lee ain't always too good at keeping those out of tolerance molds from shipping. When I ordered my first Big Lube mold a few years ago, I called up Lee right after they had made up a production run of PRS 250 grain molds. This was before Dick started brokering all these deals. It may have been him that brokered the order, it may have been somebody else. But it was before Dick copyrighted the 'Big Lube' name.

Anyway, I heard through the grape vine that an order of PRS molds had just shipped, and I called up Lee to see if they had any left. Back in those days, before Dick was doing all the brokering, Lee would make up a few extra molds and put them on the shelf in case anybody called up wanting one. I called up, they had a couple on the shelf, and they shipped me one. Turns out it was way out of spec. I could not get bullets to drop down as small as I needed no matter what alloy I used. I don't remember exactly how big it was, but it was way too big. Lee took it back, but I had to wait until they made another run before I got one that was in spec.

When I was working on the design for the J/P 45-200 I had several conversations with Pigeon Roost Slim. He gave me a lot of good advice about designing one of these bullets. He also sent me a sketch of his original PRS design. It should be someplace in my design folder, if I can only find that. As I recall, Slim did not tolerance the drawing, he just had nominal dimensions on it. If I can find his sketch, I'd be happy to send you a copy, I'm sure he won't mind.

I designed the bullet using a 3D CAD program, so it was fairly simple to keep tweaking the bullet shape until I got exactly what I wanted. After each tweak, I had the computer calculate the volume of the bullet, then I multiplied it by the mass of lead.

As far as this tolerancing business is concerned with Lee, I went round and round on that with Patrick. The tolerancing of these things is tricky. You don't normally tolerance the mold, you tolerance the bullet. At least that's what I did. I gave them the nominal diameter I wanted the bullet to drop out of the mold at, but I also specified the alloy I was using. In my conversations with Slim, I seem to remember he specified wheel weights. I don't use wheel wheights, so I specified a 20/1 lead/tin alloy. I also specified the weight I wanted the bullet to drop out at with both pure lead and a 20/1 alloy. After I had toleranced the bullet, it was up to Lee to do the calculations to get the mold oversized enough to drop the bullet in tolerance.

This is really no different than anywhere else in the manufacturing world. If I were designing an injection molded plastic part, I would not worry about shrinkage. I would let the mold maker worry about that. That's his business. I would simply design my part the way I wanted the finished part to turn out. I would dimension my drawing of the part, and tolerance it that way, and send the mold maker the drawing. I would also specify the particular plastic, so he could do his shrinkage calculations. As a matter of fact, today, I would just send him a 3D file of the finished part, and he would design his mold directly from that. And he would worry about the shrinkage. That's the way it works in the manufacturing world, you don't specify the process, you specify the finished part.

The difficulty arises here in the bullet casting world because the mold maker has no control on the process we use to make bullets from his mold. Lee has no control over what alloy anybody uses with their molds. If I vary my alloy, I will vary how much my bullets shrink. So will you. The bullet mold maker has no control over that. He can only controll how big he makes the mold, after doing the calculations for shrinkage. That's why I specified the alloy, so he could calculate the shrinkage the way I wanted the bullet to turn out. But in truth, I don't think Lee is going to great lengths to worry about that right down to .001. Add to that some tool wear like Dick mentioned, then what ever alloy you are using, and it's really pot luck what you wind up with.

[Dick Dastardly]

Thanks Driftwood,

I couldn't have said it with less words.  The whole thing, by the nature of uncontrollable and unpredictable variances beyond manufacture,  can't get much more exact.  I think it might be an interesting exercise to get a sample from each of the molds I've sold and run a spread sheet on them. . . .

Some of what we do ain't science.  It's more like art.  That's one more reason I enjoy shootn' Holy Black.

DD-DLoS

[Adirondack Jack]

Ho the fire,

DD ole pard, if what we do was EASY, millions would do it and like Disney, it would be a pay yer money and check yer brains at the door entertainment.  I'd be in search of the egress myself,as such things bore me to tears.

After ruminating on it a bit, those of us who stray beyond the "grandpa's recipe scrawled on the reloading room wall" and store bought everything" are not just consumers looking for that quick fix of instant "juice".  We are more the wizards, the modern day Merlins entertained as much by the perfection of our craft of wizardry, the elixers of salt petre and carbon, the potions of wax, and the amalgams of molten plubdinum, as we are our mere mortal skills at killing the iron bad guys.  Watching a target go down knowing ya made the bullet, created the lube, perfected the load, and mebbe even created the cartridge is satisfying in a way winning a foot race in the newest pair of  whiz bang shoes never could be.

It is the difficulty, the frustration and problems to work around that make it the joy that it is.

<<Jack>>

[Dick Dastardly]

More fuel for the fire.

There's herd safety in numbers.  If ya run with the pack, fly with the flock or graze with the herd,  yer probably "safe".  When ya stand out from the pack, fly alone or eat stuff the others didn't find,  ya become dangerous.  Then, the herd instinct cuts in and the "different" one is cut out cuz he draws attention and brings danger to the bunch cuz he flys in the face of herd wisdom.  That's when they try to kill him.

But when, now and then, he gets it rite and profits from his search for a different way of doin' stuff,  the whole herd wants a piece of his gain.  They say "it ain't fair" that he is so lucky.  But, ask for some support when stuff don't work and the herd don't know ya even exist.

Fortunately we are in a sport where difference is appreciated and individuality is a thing to be proud of.  That's one reason CAS will continue to thrive.

DD-DLoS