Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

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Re: Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

Post by pricedo »

Ranch Dog wrote:When I ran the numbers, my calculations indicated that approximately 330-grains would be optimum for velocity, energy, and penetration. I have started looking at 350-grains this morning as I would like to add a lube groove. Doing that would increase my lube volume by 20%+ and the additional seal would be well spent considering the pressure generated with this cartridge.
How many lube grooves does the bullet have now? ........... & it's a safe assumption that you're using gas checks?
If you're not getting any gas leakage, lead fouling or other indications that another lube groove is needed .........why bother?
A 330 grain cast bullet is about optimum for the 454 Casull in a 92.
How fast are you moving those 330 grain bullets past the muzzle?
Maybe the case capacity would better be used to add more powder/velocity rather than a redundant lube groove?
If it ain't broke... :mrgreen:
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Re: Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

Post by Ranch Dog »

pricedo wrote:How many lube grooves does the bullet have now? ........... & it's a safe assumption that you're using gas checks?
There are three grooves on the "330" and four on the "350". It is more than just "how many" as far as lube grooves and their volume goes. It takes a detail analysis of the lube area and volume against a number of factors, more on this in a bit.

Yes, the mold is gas checked. I don't shoot plain base bullets from my rifle as I am looking for jacket bullet performance.
If you're not getting any gas leakage, lead fouling or other indications that another lube groove is needed .........why bother?
The answer is yes, there is fouling above 48.0 KPSI but the answer is not that simple as the pressures this cartridge operates takes special considerations. A tougher bullets is needed to explorer the performance offered. BHN isn't everything either, different alloys at the same BHN respond to pressures applied to them differently. All this must be worked through to get this cartridge up near its max but that is what makes it fun.
A 330 grain cast bullet is about optimum for the 454 Casull in a 92.
Yes, I agree based on terminal projections of bullets from 280-grain through 360-grains. 330 is optimum of any performance criteria.
How fast are you moving those 330 grain bullets past the muzzle?
I believe that they will be pushed out the barrel at 2000 FPS for approximately 2925 FPE. This should make it quite a pumpkin to chuck! :shock:
Maybe the case capacity would better be used to add more powder/velocity rather than a redundant lube groove?
If it ain't broke... :mrgreen:
Exactly, heavier bullets start to rob the case of powder capacity as the OAL is fixed so the additional length of the bullet (the result of the weight increase) must be pushed somewhere.[hr][/hr]
When comparing the bullets I've designed of a like volume (cc) this bullet is at the average of any of number of factors effecting it's lube performance. This would include ratios of Bullet cc to Groove CC, Bullet CC to Lube Weight (grains), Bearing Length to Groove CC, and Bearing Length to Lube Weight. When compared to an index of bullets with a cc volume of 1.900 through 2.100, the TLC452-330-RF sits at a tenth above the average so it is good to go. The group of bullets in this comparison include some of my most successful designs such as my 444 Marlin and 45-70 Govt bullets. I have no doubt this morning that the 330-grain bullet will be a winner.

So that said, I've got to get the drawing to Lee. I'm also casting alloys this morning to testing at the higher pressures needed with the cartridge. More on that later.

I've quietly gone through all of this with every one of the 39+ bullets I've designed. Bring a design up to completion can be costly and getting it wrong even more so. It is something I enjoy doing.
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Re: Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

Post by Arktikos »

Ranch Dog wrote:] I have no doubt this morning that the 330-grain bullet will be a winner.

So that said, I've got to get the drawing to Lee. I'm also casting alloys this morning to testing at the higher pressures needed with the cartridge. More on that later.

I've quietly gone through all of this with every one of the 39+ bullets I've designed. Bring a design up to completion can be costly and getting it wrong even more so. It is something I enjoy doing.
I am glad you are into it! :D So I was wondering about how the best way for us non-casters can get a hold of these 330's and 350gr bullets? Can we write Carolina Cast Bullets to get the mold designs from you to cast some up or would this be a do it yourself project? Someday in the distant future I may have enough time to master another pastime such as casting but it probably wont be anytime soon..
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Re: Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

Post by Ranch Dog »

Arktikos wrote:I am glad you are into it! :D So I was wondering about how the best way for us non-casters can get a hold of these 330's and 350gr bullets? Can we write Carolina Cast Bullets to get the mold designs from you to cast some up or would this be a do it yourself project? Someday in the distant future I may have enough time to master another pastime such as casting but it probably wont be anytime soon..
It will be the 330-grain bullet, I haven't thought that far ahead at this point. I will contact Jerry and see if he would be interested in the mold. As a note this design is not appropriate for revolvers, it is too long I suspect.
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This is bullet engineering at its best

Post by pricedo »

This is bullet design & metallurgy engineering at its best.
You have been doing this (lead bullet engineering) for a long time.
Your theories are not based on wild guesses but are supported by excellent software & years of experience.
I accept your results as fact because of the adherence to the scientific method of thoroughly testing your theories every inch of the way.
The 330 grain bullet will be a winner.
I'm equally certain that the hogs are NOT looking forward to its debut in the field.
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Re: Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

Post by Ranch Dog »

Why thank you pricedo.

I don't have any grizzlies in the bush here on the ranch and no experience with them but I do see the potential this cartridge and rifle offers to those that do. I also see this cartridge as an alternative to large case hog getters like the 444 Marlin, 45-70 Govt. and 450 Marlin. The goal now, especially with the scout setup I shoot, is to refine accuracy once I have my bullet on the ranch to make this combo into a 200 to 250 yard hog dropper. With the backlog in the shooting support industry, it is going to take a several months to see the mold.

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Re: Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

Post by pricedo »

I may seem to be blunt or facetious when I question things but I'm used to an environment where it is not only imperative to produce a good product but a product that can be marketed at a profit to company shareholders.
Profit is what pays our salaries in industry and keeps the "CLOSED" signs off our factory doors.........can we sell the bullet sufficiently over and above cost to make it worthwhile all the while competing with foreign companies that inherently have 1/4 the payroll & social infrastructure costs to contend with?
Something like the extra lube groove would have to be justified in an industrial environment and though it might seem trivial on a discussion forum if that extra lube groove cost added 0.5 cents to the unit production cost if you multiply that extra unit cost over thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of units produced the result is a big bunch of money.
An engineering manager would need to have solid, empirical justification for that groove before he presented the business case for a new product to the bean counters.
It's a brutal, harsh business world out there & getting more so every day.
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Re: Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

Post by Arktikos »

Ranch Dog wrote:Why thank you pricedo.

I don't have any grizzlies in the bush here on the ranch and no experience with them but I do see the potential this cartridge and rifle offers to those that do. I also see this cartridge as an alternative to large case hog getters like the 444 Marlin, 45-70 Govt. and 450 Marlin. The goal now, especially with the scout setup I shoot, is to refine accuracy once I have my bullet on the ranch to make this combo into a 200 to 250 yard hog dropper. With the backlog in the shooting support industry, it is going to take a several months to see the mold.

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I haven't hunted much at all since moving to this part of AK, partly because of not being equipped, partly because hunting here is pretty harsh with the deer staying up in the alpine (no roads up there) until the snow drives them down in Nov. Then when they do get down to tidewater the weather makes hunting with the boat flat out dangerous when the ever increasing storms start rolling in about then. That said, there are some hunts I would like to do in the future, once I get a riverboat to get up some of the local rivers where the moose are. I don't know if a 454 Casull would be a good candidate for a long range moose gun, but you most often can get close to them where I believe they would be pretty effective with heavy cast. For the meantime I am most interested in short range bear defense rounds, delivered from a fast action levergun, with enough shots in the mag tube to finish off the toughest beast. My 45/70 would certainly deliver the death blow easier, but with only 4 in the tube on my guide gun, if you make a mistake you are down to 3, make another and and you may not have enough left to finish it up. Also we have mostly black bears here in juneau which generally seem to be pretty shy and I don't worry about them much and the Rossi would have no trouble with those, but at our other place it is almost always brown bear and they seem to have an attitude to go along with their size. Would the 454 work on them? I don't see why not, especially seeing what you have been working up to, but with the bigger heavier bullets which start dipping into case capacity it starts to push the envelope pretty tight as you work up to max loads, not a good place for any carelessness..
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Re: Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

Post by runfiverun »

the 330 at 2,000 fps would be right in there with the 45-70 it is what was called an express load back when.
generally the express loads were done up with hollow point boolits.
now a round flat point will penetrate and the flat point will mess up some internals along the way.
i put a doe down at 70 yds with a 98 gr rnfp boolit moving along at 950 fps she went 5 halting steps and down.
i was very surprised at the bruising and damage that little boolit done as it passed through her.
i have used a lot of rnfp boolits for hunting over the years,just that little one really allowed me to track the egress and damage easily.
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Re: Your Experience With Tough Alloys?

Post by Wills Point Pete »

I'm late to this party but about that leading you had with lino at 2200fps you might simply try loading some rounds with that soft gas check stuff they've had out for a few years now. I used to get an extra 250 fps from an ally when messing with cast bullet loads in rifles like the .30-06. A twenty to one lead-tin alloy would start leading at around 1300 fps in an old Springfield match rifle, add the soft gas check and I'd get the same bullet at 1600 before it started to lead. And you should know that CF Ventures soft gas check material is indistinguishable from dental wax.

I'm pretty sure you'd see that alloy that leaded at 2200 go as fast as you'd care to push it with that wax lube protecting the base and preventing any blowby.
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