cast boolit opinions

[Larkbill]

I "inherited" about 50 lbs. of various cast boolits (see, I've already adapted to the local spelling), the ones I have immediate plans for are the 185, 169, and 109 grain .309 dia.


Most of the 185 and 169 are sized, lubed and GC-ed as you see here. About 1/2, 200-300, of the 109's are also ready to use, the rest are about 1/2 and 1/2 as cast or sized and GC-ed but not lubed. As near as I can tell this was all done about 20 years ago. My questions are:

1. Does anyone recognize that black colored lube? After all that time is it still good? It's still pretty sticky feeling.

2. I'm thinking of just buying a Lee sizer to GC the ones without, has anyone used their ALOX tumble lube? Is it suitable for .30-30 or .30 Carbine velocities?

3. I have about 4 lbs. of 109's that are marked "almost pure tin, mix 2-1 with lead". How can I confirm this?

I also have about 10 lbs. of .270 as cast that I may melt to start casting some of my own boolits. My brother and I share a Lee bottom pour pot that I've used for .50 and .32 Maxi-balls. Other than that my cast boolit shooting has always been store bought from Graf.

[O.S.O.K.]

The lube looks like Alox - and should be good if its still tacky.

The Lee Liquid Alox is excellent and you will find the sizer kit to be exceptional.

The 2-1 tin to lead boolits (Hobie will love that comment about "local spelling" ) are interesting.

I guess a lead hardness tester (Lee has a reasonably priced one) would be the way to at least tell the hardness.... but really, those are completely safe and fine to shoot regardless...

Needless to say, don't load those into the magazine tuble - only shoot them single-loaded in your leverguns.

[pokey]

The lube looks like Alox - and should be good if its still tacky.

The Lee Liquid Alox is excellent and you will find the sizer kit to be exceptional.

The 2-1 tin to lead boolits (Hobie will love that comment about "local spelling" ) are interesting.

I guess a lead hardness tester (Lee has a reasonably priced one) would be the way to at least tell the hardness.... but really, those are completely safe and fine to shoot regardless...

Needless to say, don't load those into the magazine tuble - only shoot them single-loaded in your leverguns.

sounds right to me.

[Chuck 100 yd]

Every 50-50 (NRA formula ) Alox I have ever used was brown in color.
Shoot a few and see how they do. The lube can be removed by putting them in a pot of water and bring it up to a hot enough temp to just melt off the lube. The lube will (should) float to the top. Let it cool and the cake of lube can be removed and the cleaned bullets will be in the water below ready to be re lubed.

[Charles]

If I could touch it and smell it I could be certain, but the lube looks like the old Lyman/Ideal black stuff that was pretty much standards for generations. It is a decent lube, but don't push the bullets much past 1.8k fps or so. It is a good pistol lube and a so-so rifle lube.

Not everybody has gone over to boolits. I think it is a little silly, so I still shoot bullets. They are not boo-lits..they are bull-ets.

[76/444]

I would weigh them individually and check for consistency,... never know who did what in their casting. If they only weighed out in two or three consistent weight groups, I would consider them good to go for anything but tube magazine weapons. I don't like shooting leverguns one hand feed BOOLIT at a time. Then I would mic them to double check sizing. If they are good,... they're good, simple as that,... in my opinion.

If they don't meet the above,... just recast or resize, which ever works.

[Larkbill]

Thanks for the replies.

Since posting I also had a friend who casts bullets (sorry, I had to revert) on a regular basis look at them and he also thought it was Lyman's lube. He also gave me a list of some of his pet .30-30 loads for cast bullets. It looks like there are plenty of loads out there, I'm just limited by what I'm willing to spend on powders to play with.

Since I shoot a lot of .30-30 in my box magazine 788 and my Contender the pointy bullets aren't a big problem. Even when I used my 94 to deer hunt I only used one in the chamber and one in the tube. My brother is talking about trying a cowboy match so I may want to use the 94 for that and load the magazine. If I want to flat point some of these what would be the easiest way to do it without distorting the bullets?

[2X22]

... and he also thought it was Lyman's lube.

Yep, Lyman. And smoky!

2x22

[Charles]

Good cast bullet loads for the 30-30 are easy to find. 14 to 16 grains of 2400 behind any good 150 to 180 grain gas check bullet will make you happy.

For hunting you will most certainly want a flat nose bullet or one with a very blunt round nose.

[fordwannabe]

If you don't want to use the alox I have pan lubed boolits in the past with a 50/50 mixture of vaseline and parafin wax(canning section of grocery store). Bring mixture to a liquid state using a pan within a pan of boiling water(otherwise known as the double boiler method) stand boolits up in liquid mixture up to the top grease lube,and turn off heat let stand a couple of minutes and put pan of mixture and boolits in freezer for 1/2 hour. Come back and remove "cake " of wax with boolits in it from pan and then push boolits through the backside...Done. Just a thought. I ain't real keen on alox myself. Tom

[KCSO]

The first thing is what gun and what bore diameter. 309 is about useless for Krags and some early springfields with any but the lightest loads. I have a Krag with a Springfield 03 barrel fitted, the bore slugs 3085 and I get my best accuracy with 311 bullets. Pointed bullets are useless for a levergun unless you are shooting it singe shot. If they were 312 313 you could always size them down, but bumping up is a problem. The old alox is still good. I have alox sticks I am still using that my fatehr in law bought in the late 40's.
A hardness tester will tell you how hard they are but not what alloy, but with the 109's load them over Trail Boss or a light load of Unique and shoot them if they don't lead you are good to go. The rabbits or paper you shoot won't complain no matter what alloy.