30 WCF conundrum?

[stubbicatt]

It's been awhile coming. With the arrival of some nice weather, I loaded up some 30-30 ammo using the RCBS 180 grain RNFPGC bullet and IMR4227 powder.

In all it has been a learning experience. Among the things I learned are that this bullet is longer than the neck of the case. Thus a good bit of it is in the powder chamber of the cartridge. I hope it works well, but I am anticipating a white smoky trail of burning lube following it downrange, somewhat reminiscent of a tracer or something. Anybody have any experience with this bullet in 30-30?

Another learning experience is the Lee classic cast single stage press. Wow I like this press. Nice and smooth and easy. I used it for the first time a couple days ago to load these cartridges. Color me red! LOL. Another first was pan lubing these long bullets. I simply have to find a "kake cutter" or devise one from an old 308 case or the like. Also for the first time I used the Lee bullet sizer to assure that the gas checks were adequately secured to the heels of the bullets. I chose a .313" size, which, oddly enough showed signs of barely sizing the first two driving bands. I didn't expect that. I pulled my old Lyman "M" die out of storage and pressed it into service, and it didn't disappoint.

I put a tang sight on my old Winnie, and removed the folding leaf express sight from the barrel, leaving the standard bronze blade front sight. Now I get to sight it all in, which should be a hoot. I think I'll bring a fire extinguisher with me in case it is necessary to put out any brush fires due to burning lube excursions. I hope my old, fat, self is able to run fast enough to get the job done, should it be necessary.

On a fluke I bought a Lee 2 cavity 170 grain mould that might work. I haven't used a Lee mould in many years, and IIRC it was a gang mould that I never did figure out very well. The bullet from the Lee mould is shorter than that from the RCBS mould. I anticipate the next time I cast I will try it out and see how I like it, but I'm not expecting much.

I'm really looking forward to my outing this morning. I'll also take my 1909 Winder musket and see if I can get it sighted in appropriately.

ETA: Well, I have returned. It took maybe 8 shots or so to get pretty close to a zero on the tang sight. I can use it as is, with the blade front sight, but I'm thinking I might do better to get a globe and post front sight installed. I shot 20 of my cast bullets, and they shot well. Oddly enough, the bore condition seems to have improved quite a little bit as a result of my experiment. There was a roughness in there that would fray out a patch as it was run down the bore, and now the bore does not exhibit any of this roughness. I wouldn't have expected anything like this, that shooting 20 cast bullets would smooth out the bore. I haven't shined a light in there yet, but I will, just to see how it looks.

ETA2. Looked down the barrel. That is a nasty furry bore.

Neat rifle. Odd how full power 30-30 loads sort of back up and say hello, yet these IMR4227 loads don't. Feels about like shooting a 357 magnum in my Uberti 1873 clone. A little recoil, but nothing objectionable.

 

[Unclenick]

Interesting tale. You could try dipping the bullet noses in Lee Liquid Alox only far enough down so none emerged below the neck inside the case. As long as it smears back over the bullet, it should do its main job. You could also apply a harder higher heat lube like White Label's Carnauba Red, which has to be heated to flow, then cookie cut it.

As to the bore getting smoother, I would suspect lead filled in some rough spots. It can look and feel smooth where it glazed the bore. A lead dissolving cleaner, like Sharp Shoot'R's NO-LEAD will tell you it that's the case, as it comes out black where it has reacted with the lead. If you have one of the old Outer's Foul Out machines, that will tell you even better, as the lead comes out on the center rod.

For the Lee mold, in his book Modern Reloading, Richard Lee mentions that Ed Harris tested one of the early Lee molds and had a lot of trouble and called Richard who suggested reading the instructions carefully. Ed did and called back to report it was actually better than other molds he had after following them carefully. Don't skip the pre-cleaning (ultrasonic is good for that) or the smoking or lubing or pre-heating steps.

 

[stubbicatt]

Thanks Unclenick. I wonder, there has to be a way to smooth that bore.

It surprised me how well it shot. I've been applying Wipe-Out foamy bore cleaner each day since, and I get some seriously blue patches. I think I may have a veritable copper mine here.

I heard somewhere that I can take my cast bullets, roll them in some Clover valve grinding compound, and shoot them, and they will remove the roughness. I've also thought to get the bore relined.

As it is, I think it still holds promise. Even rough as a cob, it seems to shoot ok. I think today I'll roll by the indoor range and shoot at 100 to see how she does. If she holds a decent group, i'll just shoot it as is.

--But that scabby bore is a real irritant.

 

[Unclenick]

It sounds like you have some work cut out for you.

Get a small bottle of KG-12 bore cleaner and a spray can of Gun Scrubber or Berryman's B-12 Chemtool at the car store. Use the spray to remove traces of your existing bore cleaner and any oils or other crud. Rn a dry patch and let it dry completely. Plug the bore and fill it with the KG-12 and let it sit for 20 minutes. Drain it into a jar to save it. KG-12 has huge copper capacity and that same liqud will do many more cleanings after that.. The only problem with it is it doesn't turn green or blue. Just a slightly darker brownish-orange. So use your Wipe-Out to check to see if you need another application of the KG-12. If you have lots of copper it is possible.

Wipe-Out is made by SharpShoot'R, same as the NO-LEAD. In fact, I think the full name is Wipe-Out NO-LEAD. If you have traces of lead in the bore, one hour with that will react with it and remove it, in my experience.

The abrasive smoothing is called firelapping. There are several approaches. I was an early adopter of NECO's kit using multiple grades of laboratory grade abrasive. Both Veral Smith (LBT) and Marshall Stanton (Beartooth Bullets) like a single grade of about 320 grit, but you have to shoot more of them to get finished. The NECO kit uses 220, 400, 800, and 1200 grit in sequence, but they are laboratory grade abrasives with narrower particle distributions than standard grade, so the largest particle in the grade is smaller than in the commercial grade and they also have less finer dust in them. The result is they cut about twice as fast without the finer particles filling is spaces. What takes 50 rounds to finish with the NECO kit can take up to 200 rounds of commercial grade 320 grit. It all depends on the condition of the bore and use of good technique.

Basically, you roll the bullets in the compound between two flat plates to embed them with the abrasive. Each abrasive grade has a range of particle sizes, and softer bullets let the larger particles embed deeper into the bullet sot you get a smoother surface. However, the soft bullet bumps up under pressure and narrows easily, tending to taper the bore from wider to slightly narrower, which is generally considered desirable. So, to shave down high spots you want very low pressures. Basically you want to shoot these at airgun velocities. Harder bullets are springy and tend to make the bore more straight. But hard bullets don't cut away constrictions as quickly because of that springing, which causes them to tend to expand past the narrow spot and keep cutting. So there has been a lot of discussion about the best hardness for firelapping and the general consensus is BHN 10-12 or so. Your bullets are likely harder than that.

The most common method is to shoot the embedded bullets with a very few grains of Bullseye or Unique with polyester wadding over the powder and adjust so the bullet is in the 400 fps range for a pistol and a little more for rifle, but not a lot. Every 5 rounds you clean the barrel and slug it to check progress. With the single grade abrasives you can slug every 20 rounds, but you still need to clean every 5. Once the constrictions are gone, the graded system does 10 each of the 400 and 800 grit and 20 of the 1200 grit to polish. The single grade system applies abrasive to a bore mop at the end for final polishing with a cleaning rod. The bore mop brings the cutting action down to leave a finer surface.

Some folks hold that polishing is bad. They say there is more frictions with the smoother surface. I can only say that the cleaning patch count I got from fouled to clean when firelapping surplus military Garand bores kept getting fewer as the polishing progressed.

I have also firelapped successfully with jacketed bullets pulled from surplus military ball ammo. These bullets were collet crimped and narrowed in the middle of their bearing surface so they had just a couple of very narrow bands of copper that picked up the abrasive, fore and aft of the narrowing. This is important. If you shoot a long bearing surface jacketed bullet, it tends not to fill the corners of the lands until the pressure is high. That's why David Tubb's Final Finish system is fired with jacketed bullet starting loads. That does do a nice job of surfacing the bore, but it will not tend to narrow constrictions well because of the pressure keeping the bullet upset outward against the bore. The narrow bands on the pulled bullets I had do much better about filling the corners at lower pressure and they seem to cut constrictions out quickly.

Where I have diverged from normal practice is I clean after every round for the first five lapping rounds with coarser abrasive. I think I would do that with a single-grade, too. My thinking is that I don't want anything grabbing bullet metal and protecting the sharp parts of the bore from the next round early on. Once I have abraded the roughest spots a little, I proceed as above, cleaning only every five.

 

[stubbicatt]

I've got a pot full of 20-1 alloy, which, although I haven't tested it for BHN, is pretty soft. I use it for my schuetzen bullets. I think I may contact NECO for their kit and give it a whirl.

I presume that I lube and size the bullets as per usual, before imbedding the cutting compound.

So in a 30 WCF, Unclenick, what do you recommend, maybe 5 grains of bullseye or something like that? If I'm going to employ the abrasive program, do you still recommend the copper solvent regimen prior to doing this? As one who is ignorant of this process, it would seem to me that the abrasive alone would be sufficient? I am reluctant to use the poly material over the powder, having read elsewhere that this might ring or bulge my chamber. If you don't mind, Unclenick, help me out here. I have read of fellas using 1 grain of Dacron sort of fluffed up and pushed down inside the case with a pencil so that it is lightly stuck over the powder, the purpose being to assure the powder is situated at the primer for uniform ignition.

I just visited NECO's site to check on this fire lapping idea. The kit for 308 caliber is $69, not a bad price I don't suppose. I reckon the instructions alone are worth probably half that price.

Years ago I bought one of their excellent concentricity case wall gages. I have no idea what happened to that tool. I must have misplaced it somewhere. I understand that perhaps the founder of that company passed many years ago, but I really enjoyed and appreciated his writings on concentricity and "banana shaped" cases.

Thanks in advance Unclenick.

ETA: Oh. BTW Unclenick, thanks a whole lot. I just ordered the "economy" kit. I intend to update this thread upon receipt of the kit, and after attempting to use it properly, to pass on my results.

 

[stubbicatt]

Update: Kit arrived

Well the NECO kit arrived. Read the instruction booklet twice. To paraphrase the instructions, they suggest that cast bullets will obdurate into the bore to spread the abrasive perhaps a little more effectively, to include the throat area, which may recede somewhat. The jacketed bullets are not as likely to cause throat recession.

The instructions don't mention whether one lubes the cast bullets as per usual.

I reckon cast, lube, size and install gas checks, and then imbed the compound, and go shoot 'em, 5 at a time and clean, until I begin to see some improvement in the bore.

Based on the description of the small amounts of metal even the coarsest grade of abrasive will remove, this might be a long and drawn out ordeal. -Oh well, at least I shouldn't end up with a smooth bore!

 

[stubbicatt]

update Reprise

So. I had what I thought was a hasty zero for 50 meters yesterday at the silhouette match, tried to verify it, and ended up not hitting one single chicken, and going through all of my sighters and half of my match ammo, so ended up not competing.

Frustrated I came home, cleaned the bore (as much as can be called clean with such a rough bore... I guess I got the big chunks out) and sat down to think it through. Either there is something wrong with the rifle, or something wrong with me, or something wrong with the ammo.

I had printed out from JMBallistics a come up chart, having estimated my velocity at 1650 fps. and a 170 grain Winchester silver tip, which shows less than 4 MOA come up from 50 to 100 meters.

Went to a local indoor range which goes to 100 yards this morning. My 50 yard zero was ridiculously off. Ended up with a windage setting of about 3 MOA left windage and a solid elevation zero. First two shots were touching after adjustment, so I was pleased.

Using my 50 yard zero, I sent the target down to 100 yards, and shot 4 shots, which grouped at about 1 ½ inches. Mind you this is the 180gr. RCBS cast bullet with a gas check and 15 grains of IMR4227. Unfortunately the 100 yard group was all of 6 inches low on the target but maintaining perfect windage.

Conclusions: 1) Even with a horrible bore, the rifle is capable of sub 2 MOA at 100 yards shooting a cast bullet. 2) The come-ups are way off. Either my velocity estimate is significantly off, or the bullet profile I chose for the ballistics program is not even close to the Winchester 170 grain Silvertip, or both. 3) The narrow front blade sight is really hard to see, even using a tang sight. I think I'll get a MVA windage adjustable globe front sight.

Question: Since the 6 MOA bullet drop at 100 with a 50 yard zero is ½ again as much as was suggested by my print-out come up chart from 50 to 100, would I be safe in adding in ½ again as much come ups as estimated on the print out to my 150 and 200 meter sight settings?