And you can count me as one of the fans of the Lee molds, I have a couple different 45/70 molds, 44, 357, and 30/30 molds. The only ones I have to resize after casting are the 30/30, all the others throw bullets that are fine to lube and load as is (might want to resize if powder coating). The aluminum molds heat up much faster and don't require the preheating or throw near as many subpar bullets before they get up to temperature as steel/iron molds do.

Okie dokie ,...well my aunt decided to stay out there for four hours picking pecans so decided to do some other stuff revolving around this lil project. so decided to get the rest of this brass and try to anneal it to see if I would get better / easier conversions. I really should invest in one of those fancy lol auto annelaing deal but till then ... 12mm deep well socket with a bolt and nut and my drill ..and a lil and torch. pretty sure I over did alot of these honestly






So they definitely where easier to convert and I went ahead and expanded them too while the line was still in them ...but honestly I got the same amount of split cases and crushed necks . just old brittle brass best I can guess ... but hay better now the. trying to load it in the wife's .270 . so something I also wanted to do was to go ahead and set my shoulders back just a hair past where they needed to be from the firefoemed brass ... but well , I really couldn't. funny enough all the .270 brass had shoulders already .005-.008" off of where the brass fire form too. which I found near because usually when I did this stuff I was almost always moving the should too far back...vs here it just far back from the rip. first pic is a fire formed .35 case the other is just a regular .270 out the bag

wolfie how long does it take for you to put together these posts

ok now that's done time to put a lil gas on this thi.g so I don't get crucified for not shooting it fast enough lol.
So I'm just not gonna mess with the traditional cast loadings . For multiple reasons. What I will do however is look at using a reduced load . So H4895 has this quirkly like deal where you can down load the crap outta it for a lot of cartridges, and I just so happen to have two cans of it. so from Hodgon's own side they give you a formula on how to make up a load .... please for the sake of all that's holy do you own research before you do what I do ... should be a given...but hay


And my Hornady manual hair so happens to have a load for H4895 and a 200gr pill. so lil bit of math and I got my staring load for this reduced charge and I can just keep working up from here




So 33.8 for a staring charge gets a hair above half way in the case loading it up same bullet same type cases 50yd everything the same except powder and charge





and our first 5


not bad still about a .223 on recoil but but bumped up 2gr to try and get some more velocity so 35 he and I just ran out of finished brass the second bras was just finishing drying so only three rounds for this and wasn't sure about the velocity here . the magneto can get weird with case bullets



I mean it's ok but wanted at least 1800 on the low side aiming for 2100fps . but brass finished drying , finished prepping them and decided to bump up another 2gr and go for 38.0 gr . five total three for a group and since I was loosing light and really wanted to hear that " Ping" two for the steel... and again idk what withe the velocity. evend up tossing out the two really low ones but still seems odd




really smacking my poor gopher target around . and right now looks to be dropping about 1.5-2" @100yd with a 50yd zero

lol it's honestly not too bad at all. the deal is I use these posts as note books anyways so the more time I take among them the easier it is down the road when I need to look back and read though then again.

but I just do it all off my phone so it's not too big of a deal just take a few second to snap pictures as a go and I'll type it all up and up load when I have a lil break between other stuff if I have a good Internet connection I can usually get a section typed up and banged out in les then 10min... only deal is I have to do it within 24 hr for stuff will get fuzzy and confusing

I ah e a few lee mold too but man them MP brass mold are just too sweet , especially in the HP game

O and a lil super cut in case I never get aeoudnt I editing the whole thing up

Your couple of low velocity readings may be because of a low load density. Large case, small amount of
powder. One shot its back on the primer and the next up against bullet base. Just because Hodgden says so doesn't mean it's ideal.
Really need to work on proofreading - I had to read that 3 times just to figure out what you're saying. Good luck.

If you don't mind cleaning after every range trip or even a single round fired, if you want lower velocity and less recoil, I would try filling the case with black powder. I think you would get less velocity spread. A little more recoil due to the heavier powder charge but certainly a lot less than a full charge of smokeless.

ok quick update. not too much done today , had to have my physical for work and then the wife wanted to go out , then had a AR pistol to rebuild after someone.... well they don't wanna watch a 2min video...anyhow dad came over and let him shoot it and he loved it



anyhow was running out of light and wanted to try 40gr of 4895 just to see . This thing has been doin good at 50yd so decided to just run input to 100yd . interesting deal . @100yd my center aiming dot almost perfectly covers a 2" target @ 6x .. probably not the best thing for load testing ...but if I said I needed a higher mag scope for 100hd load testing im 99.9% sure someone would explain how they shot bench rest quality groups with their 2.5x old. red field scope or something lol.



And the velocity is still being weird . coonlove , mabye I'm just a lil dumb but just seems weird to me that I was getting pretty stable velocites with much lower load density but this getting more erratic as we go up.... it's usually the opposite with alot of my loadings... but I barley load 4895 so. anyhow took off the really low one just to see and better but still somthing don't seem right and had a half decent group...for cast at least , going and ...idk what happens with the last one on the right..I'll see if I have a lil more time to retest this tomorrow

spell check on these new phones has been killing me lol

idk about that , wanna get into black powder loading eventually but not sure about with this

1) Maybe try a little Dacon on top of the powder before seating the bullet.
2) Are your brass all weight or brand sorted?
3) Are you getting the same neck tension on your bullets?
4) to help with the brass forming try a wet lube on the inside of the neck. STP oil treatment works well for me, inside and out, neck brush inside, case lube pad outside, avoid getting too much on the shoulder or you'll get dimples. Not the end of the world if your fire forming anyway.

FUNNY THING YOU MENTIONED THE FIRST ONE !!

Alrighty this was from yesterday and I've been ripping and running doing other stuff so testing is getting quicker. But after a few folks mentioned case fillers I figured I'd try it out in this. Now I done this before but he's been so long I had tossed out the material I had so had to get some more . And what I use is the Dacron poly fill batting stuff. can get it from hobby lobby for next to nothing in a few different types . i ended up getting two different ones because I wasn't sure but found I liked the fluffier one . and I like the sheet Theo because it's a lil easier to measure out and cut . know alot do folks have no issues with just pulling this stuff out and old pillow or what have you but I like this . anyway I just cut a strip about 1' long 1" wide then cut it into lil chunks. you can get really anal and weight then out...but don't really feel like it





so what you do is you charge your case with powder , then take on of these lil chunks , fluff it out and lightly stud it on on top of the powder . DO NOT tamp it down or try to compress it hard like you do with black powder . the whole purpose of this stuff is just to keep the powder back against the primers and to take up space in the case. saw someone explain it as you tricking the powder into thinking it's in a smaller case so it ignites and burns better.




and I don't really need a whole chunk just half

and just to show about how the filler will be in the case



anyway same load as last time



Sun was goin down and was getting a lil hard too see that lil dot





anyhow with his stuff and the better burn definitely some more recoil. Not anything crazy though .. I'd say a hot .243 or hotter .308/ mild 30-06 just enough for a lil muzzle jump now.




and our group and velocities ... no clue what happens with that fourth shot on the bottom left . But velocities look a lot more stable

had three more pieces of brass and I really wants to see if the velocity would keep trending so I tried to adjust and shoot those but at that point it was just too dang dark do see much at all . and had a primer not go off soo



And a lil super cut for those who might wanna watch and rip apart my shooting some way lol

Ok last lil bit of testing for the month . and admittedly it's a bit all over the place . Went through that bag and pull d all the R-P brass out and made a new pile . only messed up three out this batch I think . and pretty sure I got it down pact. Annel for 6 seconds with a torch use imperial for sizing wax. and a Q tip to get some in the case neck. real good straight into the .35 whelen full length die and then expand while their still lube in the case. then tumble trim and prime


Anyhow now that we know the filler helps wanted to go back and try it on some.other loads just to see what would happen so first up is 38.0 gr


and the lil tear in my front rest's bag .... developed ....so we're going with my other bag, which I have to turn on its side because it's too short the normal way



38 gr was alright . I love the recoil but the speed is kinda ....meh . S-D ain't bad for what we been getting though


thought maybe the big target and big aiming. dot coild have been a bit of an issue, not very precise... so decided to try using the tip of the arrow head below the dot and a smaller 1" sticky to see if that helped . and just to give y'all a view of what that would be. about the same as aiming with a Chevron reticle




now 39.0 grains. more recoil but less then 40gr but the group and S-D ..


so I know 40gr shot better then this so thought mabye it just wanted a lil more powder to tighten up.. and also was curious if this bag was messing with something. close to the whole length of the forearm was in contact with it vs just 2" with the bag on the front rest. also the fact I still had my sling swivel stud on .

did an experiment a while back with another gun noticed I go some odd stuff when the stuff was in contact with the bag . still have that target on the wall actually .


anyhow tossed a bipod on it and yeah I don't think it wanted more powder. was also really hard to stay on target after the (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) with a bipod . probably had my legs set abit off looking back . anyhow one of the most interesting groups I've had



so at this point I got curious if the bipod really did anything so decided to try 38 gr again since , well compared to everything else today it shot the best . Now when I was loading these however I noticed something. The first bunch of cases I did I expanded them so I could hand seat them to about mid way on the first driving band ...however this batch was only going right below it



and looking back I nothied the last few rounds I loaded feled like they were taking a bit more pressure to seat and some even had cuts where the seater die pressed on them ... so thought that might be an issue so went and re expanded them all so the bullets would hand seat deeper ... this should equal a straighter seating and less possibly of deforming the bullet some how

still on the bipod and rear bag and first shot went high left for some reason but all the others went in a groups about the same size and the first 38 gr one



But I'm gonna call it for a while , gotta get ready to go back to work . Hopefully my other mold will make it's way down from the FedEx facility in Memphis ( seriously how the heck did it get from Slovania to there in less then 4 days but it's been stuck there since the 28th ?!) by the time I come home . Might trad lube some of these lee ones or something we'll see.. might just order some heavy .357 jacketed pistol bullets and load them up .. things will probably shoot bugholes... anyhow time to swab this barrel a lil and put it up .

really fun lil guns for under $400 would definitely recommend... might have to get one in a more manly caliber next ... .444 Marlin seem cool lol .

Couple things to try when you get back to it.
First I would move back to 50 yards to get a better sight picture with your scope, and use the orange 1" dots.
Looks like 38 grains has some merit, I'd start back there or 39 grs.
I'd load three rounds at either charge, with no Dacron, and seat the bullet to the crimping groove on that bullet. I think the case capacity is messing with you some, and I wouldn't worry about bullet jump at this point. Seating deeper, or where the crimp groove is at, gives you a baseline length, you can always test OAL after you find the powder charge most consistent and at your velocity goal. I'm betting you'll like that MP mould.