Reduced / youth loads

[JohnV]

Mtnman

"Someone needs to sell 40gr JHP 22WMR projectiles." Yes, I believe they were very popular.

However,

Lee do a mould 55gr .225

If you powder coat you will get those velocities. First 150 bullets you cast will pay for the mould.

I would make .224 , 243 .308 jacketed HP bullets for the forum but I can't get reliable supplies of good quality jackets at a price that makes it worth doing .
I refuse to make junk bullets so quality very concentric jackets are the corner stone of an accurate bullet . I would have to buy in container loads of jackets from the US to have some chance of making a profit at the slow pace of precision hand swaging . Also the bullets would have to be dearer than some other commercial stuff and you then get buyer resistance .
Plus it's a lot of hard work for little reward , the people shooting them get all the joy and I just get RSI . I can make precision bullets that handle most soft skinned game here's a batch I made before Covid struck . I can also core bond bullets to make a Woodleigh weld core style bullet in 308 mainly which will handle larger game bigger pigs and larger deer but with a slight loss in accuracy due to core bonding . No boat tails I don't have the dies for that .

[JohnV]

Wrong Post

[Oldbloke]

John,
You dont bother with 22lr or 22mag cases like some?

[Oldbloke]

Now,,, that's reminded me. A member here makes bullets for 22 hornet I think.

Bills shed
He is still a member and still making bullets.
Mntman, send him a PM i think he can help you.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11143

[JohnV]

John,
You dont bother with 22lr or 22mag cases like some?

I have in the past and they can be made to shoot ok with some velocity restrictions but I don't feel comfortable selling bullets made from rimfire cases .
I have all the gear to make them and they are a good standby for reduced 223 ammo but they are more work than using a commercial jacket . I keep about 5000 spent rimfire cases just incase . The way things are going I might have to rethink my position . I think Bills Shed bought a heap of Malcolm Bone's jacket inventory so he may be able to sell some commercial jacketed bullets or he's keeping them for the future . I wanted to get in on that but Malcolm ripped me off once with bad quality jackets and I just would not deal with him again . Reports from Bills Shed seem to indicate the jackets he got were quite good but I can't confirm that . If things get really bad I think for most shooters the most practical way is casting bullets with gas checks and coatings .

[Oldbloke]

John,
You dont bother with 22lr or 22mag cases like some?

I have in the past and they can be made to shoot ok with some velocity restrictions but I don't feel comfortable selling bullets made from rimfire cases .
I have all the gear to make them and they are a good standby for reduced 223 ammo but they are more work than using a commercial jacket . I keep about 5000 spent rimfire cases just incase . The way things are going I might have to rethink my position . I think Bills Shed bought a heap of Malcolm Bone's jacket inventory so he may be able to sell some commercial jacketed bullets or he's keeping them for the future . I wanted to get in on that but Malcolm ripped me off once with bad quality jackets and I just would not deal with him again . Reports from Bills Shed seem to indicate the jackets he got were quite good but I can't confirm that . If things get really bad I think for most shooters the most practical way is casting bullets with gas checks and coatings .

Mntan wants them for reduced loads.

i recall him mentioning having some commercialjackets

[bladeracer]

I bought 1000 52gn swaged-from-.22LR-brass bullets from Tripod (a member here) in Tassie five years ago. I use them for my reduced .223 loads. They don't deform at subsonic velocities even with the high-rpm of 8" twist but they blow up impressively at higher velocities, basically turning into powdered metal fragments. Perhaps not ideal for meat you want to eat.

They were not as cheap as bulk commercially made .224" bullets, you need to be doing a _huge_ amount of shooting before you'll recoup the costs of making or buying the swaging dies and equipment (probably close to $2k nowadays per calibre?). But the investment does mean you will never be in a situation of not being able to buy bullets. They're not as accurate as commercially made bullets either which limits their range more than anything else, but perfectly adequate at the ranges most of us hunt at. Bruce Bertram and Scott Driver basically make their bullets the same way. I have maybe 50,000 empty .22LR/S cases already just in case I ever find a use for them one day.

Really, if you want cheap bullets for close-range or reduced loads you're better off either buying bulk when they're on special, or casting and powder-coating your own. There's a learning curve but it's probably quicker to learn than getting into swaging, and the initial investment is next to nothing - essentially a steel ladle, a mould and a source of heat, and a $75 toaster oven if you want to powder-coat them. You can cast and powder-coat the bullets and load a couple hundred rounds of ammo in an afternoon. If you can get lead alloy for nothing then your bullets cost next to nothing. You're probably not going to get close to the accuracy of commercial jacketed bullets, especially at longer ranges, at least not without putting in a great deal of effort, but you can certainly produce perfectly effective bullets for plinking and hunting.

I had a very quick look at Cleaver's.
50gn VMax .224" is $330/1000.
Hornady 55gn SP is $960/6000 - 16c apiece.
62gn Gameking is $250/1000
55gn SuperRoo is $185/1000 - 18.5c apiece
Speer 33gn JHP is $30/100
46gn FNSP is $29/100
52gn HP is $235/1000
50gn TNT is $234/1000
and the 40/45/50/55gn SP is $29/100

Some of these will not function reliably at greatly-reduced velocities, but in the 2000-2500fps realm I'd expect them to work fine.
The Hornady and Sierra bulk 55gn SP's are both terrific bullets at ridiculous prices.

[Oldbloke]

I find that odd too.
I've shot a couple of foxes, say 70 yards with these doing about 2000fps @ the muzzle. Dead as a door nail. Both bang flops.

Hornady 55 gn SP #2265 - BC .235

These should work at 2500fps on dogs

Your unlucky. I loaded up the last few I had about 2 months ago. Otherwise I could have sent you a dozen to try.

Perhaps buy super roos and file the tip off?

Foxes and rabbits i think would be ok but not sure about cast bullets on dogs though.

Ar2207 is similar to IMR 4198

[bladeracer]

Foxes and rabbits i think would be ok but not sure about cast bullets on dogs though.

Pure lead will likely deform even on small game, but will be very limited in velocity, especially in tighter-twist barrels. Keep them down around subsonic or a little higher and they should work very well, if you can get the accuracy. But it'll essentially be a .22LR, and you can probably find .22LR ammo that will be more accurate.

I think the highest most people can push cast bullets in .223 is around 2800fps, with hard alloy and powder-coating. 2500fps is more realistic, but I wouldn't expect any deformation at all with the hard alloy required.

[Oldbloke]

Here is 3 I cut a few years ago all 55gr SPs

L to R

Hornady Sellier Belliet Sierra super roo.

All very similar in construction.

Hornady Sellier Bellot Sierra 55g.JPG (330.07 KiB) Viewed 1783 times

[Oldbloke]

Foxes and rabbits i think would be ok but not sure about cast bullets on dogs though.

Pure lead will likely deform even on small game, but will be very limited in velocity, especially in tighter-twist barrels. Keep them down around subsonic or a little higher and they should work very well, if you can get the accuracy. But it'll essentially be a .22LR, and you can probably find .22LR ammo that will be more accurate.

I think the highest most people can push cast bullets in .223 is around 2800fps, with hard alloy and powder-coating. 2500fps is more realistic, but I wouldn't expect any deformation at all with the hard alloy required.

He wants them for dogs, IMO a good bullet doing about 1800 on impact would be about minimum. (22 mag) But no personal experience.

Pure lead will be useless can't push it past about 1600. It just strip's in the rifling.

Hard cast checked and powder coated, 2500 is about max. And no guarantee they Mushroom.
IMO they would be ok up to foxes, but I have doubts they would be reliable on dogs.

As you said buy in bulk. Perhaps a mate will go halves in 1000 super roos with him.

[JohnV]

I found that I could get some extra velocity out of rimfire jackets by core bonding them but getting the inside of the jacket clean enough for the solder flux process was a real pain and took lots of time and expensive acidic cleaning agents and still some did not adhere properly . Residue from rimfire priming compound is particularly dirty nasty stuff . The thing with dogs is the hard cast bullet will kill them but because they don't expand much the dog can run off a long way and you loose them . Not a big issue for the grazier but the rec shooter wants the photo op . When I first converted my Sako 243 to 308 the first shot at game was a feral dog and it just ran off into the distance . I thought I can't believe I missed it with this tack driving Sako I have tuned up to buggery and then it stopped and fell over . Then I realized I had loaded a core bonded bullet and not a standard core . So after that mistake I put pink nail polish inside the meplat of the core bonded ones . No I don't have a favorite colour and no I don't paint my nails either , it's cast offs from my wife .
I think if your using a cast bullet with a flater nose would help give some extra whack .

[MtnMan]

As I've come to realise, sounds like no easy task finding a bullet that will expand at or below 2500fps.

I have managed to use the 22lr hollow point swaging die I made to swage HP's in the Speer 46gr flatnose bullets. I've loaded up a dozen with 21gr of AR2206H for +2500fps. See how they go.

[MtnMan]

Also pulled half a dozen 40gr JHP bullets from some .22mag ammo a mate gave me. Got them suiting on 20gr of AR2206H for the same velocity.
Interested to see how they go. Probably awesome because there is no source for them.

[JohnV]

As I've come to realise, sounds like no easy task finding a bullet that will expand at or below 2500fps.

I have managed to use the 22lr hollow point swaging die I made to swage HP's in the Speer 46gr flatnose bullets. I've loaded up a dozen with 21gr of AR2206H for +2500fps. See how they go.

There is a swaged lead bullet called a base guard . CH made the die 7/8 x 14 thread some years back and Corbin also made the washers . You mould up a soft lead slug then drop a zinc washer onto the punch then guide the slug into the die on top and in one pass you have a bullet with a gas check and a bore scrapper . The washer is at full groove diameter so it scrapes all the way down the bore helping to remove lead fouling as it goes . I used them in a 44-40 many moons ago and they worked ok but no idea of what velocity they achieved . You could also coat them . You can also use a mould that makes a cast bullet of the correct weight and swage that onto the washer . My die made a Keith nose bullet if I remember correctly . CH also made a two die set 7/8 x 14 thread for half jacket bullets that you can push to higher velocities that makes flat nose and hollow point styles . I sold all that gear to a guy in the Southern Highlands .

[Oldbloke]

Buy 1000 super roos then sell 500. Someone here will buy them, no worries.

[MtnMan]

Recovered a 46gr flat nose that I swaged a hollow point in to. Large fox, Under the hide. Weighs 22grs now.

Not exactly .22mag replica but that's just not possible without bullets built for that velocity.
I think this load is as good as I'll get for under 100m shots. At least they're cheap.
Shout out to BigPete. The flat nose is the way to go.

[Oldbloke]

Recovered a 46gr flat nose that I swaged a hollow point in to. Large fox, Under the hide. Weighs 22grs now.

Not exactly .22mag replica but that's just not possible without bullets built for that velocity.
I think this load is as good as I'll get for under 100m shots. At least they're cheap.
Shout out to BigPete. The flat nose is the way to go.

Velocity?
Bullet brand?

[MtnMan]

2500+fps, speer 46gr flat nose. #1024

[bigpete]

They're good stuff