.38 Winchester Under lever accuracy

[Alpha1]

I am using my under lever a lot more now that I have access to an indoor range. I found that using lead PPU semi wad cutters bought ammunition the rifle performed OK ish.
When I tried home loads using 158 grain round nose flat point GM hard cast bullets with unique powder the groups are terrible.
I spent to day scrubbing the barrel clean and generally cleaning and oiling the rifle to eliminate a dirty or leaded barrel being the cause.
It was not to bad to be fair.
I measured the bought bullets and they came out at .3578 to .3581. Rog suggests that GM hardcast are generally to hard to drive with light loads. He knows what he is talking about when it comes to cast bullets so I will listen to his advice.
I all ready suspected this might be the case. Any way I had a rummage and found the two molds I used back in the day.
One is a Lee tumble lube 158 grain semi wad cutter that I used in my .357 revolver. If I remember rightly it worked OK in the underlever with 3.6 grains of bulls eye.
I also have a Lyman 38 caliber 155 grain semi wad cutter gas checked mold that worked with bullseye. Both bullets were cast with wheel weights. I still have a quantity of wheel weights so the plan is to cast 100 bullets with each mold using wheel weights.
Then I intend to melt down a quantity of the GM hard cast bullets but add some lead to soften the alloy cast them into the same two molds then load them up and shoot them for comparison.
I have purchased a tub of bullseye to be consistent.
I will run them through my Lyman lube sizer I have a few different diameter sizers from the old days. (Some were)

[dodgyrog]

Dont size the tumble lube boolits

[Alpha1]

Dont size the tumble lube boolits

Ah yes I remember now thanks Rog. Its been a while but I'm sure it will all come back to me once I get under way. I found a box of gas checks. My gun room is a mess I keep turning up all kinds of stuff.
If I remember right the Lee tumble lube bullets worked really well. We will see.

[Alpha1]

I have not been able to progress this any further I don't have any spare time I'm up to my eye balls with work. May be this week end.

[Ovenpaa]

0.0004" variance sounds good although about all I cast is slug so I am far from qualified to comment.

[Alpha1]

I took to day of work enough is enough.
Any way I thought I would take the opportunity to tidy my shed. I gave up on that idea very quickly. I cleared a bit of bench top space and set a Lee lead melting pot up. I have two one I use for melting crap and getting the dross of before casting the melt into ingots. The ingots and clean stuff go into the other one for casting as bullets. Its a life time ago when I was seriously casting so I'm a bit out of practice but here goes any way.
I suspect the hard cast bullets I'm using in my underlever are actually to hard and accuracy is suffering i might be totally wrong but experience tells me that lever guns and pistol calibers prefer a softer bullet. Any way I thought it might be interesting to find out.
So the first thing I did was check I had suitable molds as my previous post says i have two molds that might fit the bill. The first one up is the Lee mold. After getting every thing set up I cast using this mold the first ones out of the pot were rubbish. I had the melt two hot and they cast frosted not the end of the world but the base of one of them was not good the sprue plate was not cutting cleanly and the bottom of the bullets had rags on them they were also sticking in the mold. So I dismantled the mold cleaned up and polished the face of the sprue plate. I checked the locking pins and adjusted the alignment then I used some fine emery on the top of the mold. The surface that mates with the sprue plate and then started again. Every thing went a lot better after that and I managed to cast some usable bullets. They dropped from the mold at .360 which is exactly what I was hoping for. The alloy was a bit of a guessing game I tipped the box of shop bought 158grain hard cast bullets into the pot I then added a couple of ingots of what I hoped was pure lead to soften the alloy. The ingots have been laid about for years I know some of them are wheel weights and the others are lead but I have no idea which is which.
Any way time for some pics. To morrow I will cast some using the Lyman mold.

The pot set up ready for use.

Some ingredients in the bowl is a sample of wheel weights. Behind it is a lead ingot I get these from work and some cast ingots I have no idea what they are made up of.

A box of bought hard cast that went into the pot.

[Alpha1]

Because I used a box of hard cast lubed bullets the first thing to melt was the lube it then caught fire as it does. Lots of smoke and flames but it burns out quickly. It was as it burst into flames that the wife stuck her head round the door. To say she was a bit agitated is definitely a under statement. The look on her face was priceless.

I found a box of Linotype i was going to add some of that but I can not remember why you use the stuff and what its hardness is may be Adam or Rog can advise.

The melt.

[Alpha1]

The mold being heated up to temperature ready for casting to get under way.

Finally the nice shiny bullets ready to be lubed and then they can be hand loaded. OH OH I just realized I don't have any alox type lube. Oh bugger that's torn it.
Any way bullets.

[Alpha1]

Hmm I just realized I have no idea were the mold handles are and the lyman mold wont work with out them. I could waste a Saturday looking for them or I could do some thing else. I'm inclined to machine a mandrel to expand the cases to accommodate my cast bullets. I think I might do that before I get lost in my gun room trying to find the mold handles. I need to blow the cob webs of the lube sizer while I am in there.Now that begs another question were are the sizing dies and top punches. Hmm whats next.

[flamoudi]

Linotype is high in antimony and really harden your bullets.

Have a look at the metalurgy section on this site.

http://www.lasc.us/ArticleIndex.htm