Heavy 50 cal bullets

[Azonikcustomz]

been reading through a lot here but time for a question. I love shooting my encore pro hunter 209x50. I generally use power belt bullets but have been shooting cast more and more. I have the Lee molds in all their designs. My rifle really likes the conical design. I got to searching and found someone making 600gr cast bullets for a 50 cal. Well this got me talking to a friend of mine and I found out he has a 725gr 50 cal mold. He bought it to cast 70/30 lead/antimony bars to smaller ingots to dial in how hard his lead pot mix is. Has anyone ever shot something that heavy? Is it possible? Dangerous? I have a thing for heavy bullet designs and would love to try out shooting those

 

[Loyalist Dave]

been reading through a lot here but time for a question. I love shooting my encore pro hunter 209x50. I generally use power belt bullets but have been shooting cast more and more. I have the Lee molds in all their designs. My rifle really likes the conical design. I got to searching and found someone making 600gr cast bullets for a 50 cal. Well this got me talking to a friend of mine and I found out he has a 725gr 50 cal mold. He bought it to cast 70/30 lead/antimony bars to smaller ingots to dial in how hard his lead pot mix is. Has anyone ever shot something that heavy? Is it possible? Dangerous? I have a thing for heavy bullet designs and would love to try out shooting those

Hello and welcome to the Forum,
So we don't discuss inline muzzleloaders nor sabots or powerbelts ; it's in our rules. We DO talk lead bullets though, and we do talk casting. Since this is a casting and bullet question, I'm going to leave it running.

I'd say that the designs for alloy bullets from a mold are for folks shooting modern ammo in cartridge rifles and pistol, which is another prohibited discussion as per our rules. I think that loading a hard, bullet alloy (lead + something that increases hardness) will be problematic in a muzzleloader. IF the bullet is small enough diameter not to need swaging onto the rifling when loaded at the muzzle, the hardness will resist bullet obturation onto the rifling lands within the barrel. The folks that shoot the modern stuff start out with an oversized bullet, that is then forced onto the rifling because the barrel is slightly smaller.

On the other hand, IF you found a mold that didn't cast an oversized bullet (compared to your barrel inner dimensions), and you cast it out of pure lead, it might obturate enough from the ignition of the powder (especially a heavy bullet) so that the lead engaged the rifling. The LEE brand R.E.A.L. bullets have a band located just prior to the coned portion of the bullet tip, that is oversize..., and the shooter swages that band onto the rifling when loading. Hence the name Rifling Engraved At Loading. It's more likely, however, that the molds you mentioned, even with pure lead, will cast a bullet too large, and you will need to find or have made a swaging tool to reduce their size.

Finally, exceeding the current commercial weights offered for muzzleloaders in lead projectiles, means you're going into possible untested territory. So my .54 shooting a 320 grain conical..., I can find data on loads for that. But I can't find anything on my loading two bullets on top of each other, for a 640 grain payload. That's OK because many states say that I can't load two projectiles when hunting.

OK so I get a custom mold made that shoots one bullet of 640 grains. That's a whopping payload of 1½ ounces..., which works OK coming out of a 10 gage shotgun..., so do I use load data for that 10 gauge in my rifle? There is much less friction on the inside walls of the barrel from a .760 sphere than in a very similar weight conical in a .54 barrel. What kind of velocity am I getting, and how much is the drop due to that velocity? IF I don't like the drop at say 80 yards, do I up the powder? How much is too much? I'm already voiding the manufacturer's liability when I do this. I'm sure it can be done, but I see no advantage to it in North America.

Now to be fair to your question..., IF I choose to use my LLP Brown Bess to go for deer, I'm going to be launching 1⅓ ounces in a round ball. I'm doing that not because the deer won't go down well with anything lighter, but simply because I think it would be cool to drop a deer using my Bess. It's a smoothbore, so I'm not going very far, with say a max range of maybe 40 yards. I don't have to worry about stressing the musket, and only need to work up a load that is sufficiently accurate for me to take the deer.

LD

 

[Azonikcustomz]

I will have to find out what size the bullets drop from pure lead. I’ll have to get him to cast up a few and ship them to me. That will tell a lot about what could be done

 

[Greg_E]

Doesn't the pressure go up a lot with heavier ammo? Both friction and inertia are working against you. Recoil is going to be higher.

I can tell you that a Lee mold made for 50-70 in 450 grain weight comes out at around 0.515 diameter, I bought this to size down to 0.510 for an airgun. But getting it loaded into my 50 cal Hawken would be a project! The drive bands are thick enough to require some real force. The only way might be if you taper or cone the muzzle to help form the lead as it get jammed down the barrel. It also is not going have enough grease groove area to keep things working nicely. I think a smaller diameter with greased paper patch might be better. You could get something made from Accurate Molds, they do might fine work and can scale any design you see to the size you want. They are all CNC machining and the finish on the one custom I bought is just fantastic!

And all that said, speed will be your enemy! Bare lead too far above a threshold speed is going to leave a bunch of itself behind. I'd powder coat everything for your use case.

 

[Azonikcustomz]

Doesn't the pressure go up a lot with heavier ammo? Both friction and inertia are working against you. Recoil is going to be higher.

I van tell you that a Lee mold made for 50-70 in 450 grain weight comes out at around 0.515 diameter, I bought this to size down to 0.510 for an airgun. But getting it loaded into my 50 cal Hawken would be a project! The drive bands are thick enough to require some real force. The only way might be if you taper or cone the muzzle to help form the lead as it get jammed down the barrel. It also at not have enough grease groove area to keep things working nicely. I think a smaller diameter with greased paper patch might be better. You could get something made from Accurate Molds, they do might fine work and can scale any design you see to the size you want. They are all CNC machining and the finish on the one custom I bought is just fantastic!

And all that said, speed will be your enemy! Bare lead too far above a threshold speed is going to leave a bunch of itself behind. I'd powder coat everything for your use case.

I love accurate molds. I have a bunch of them. My friends mold is actually from accurate. I have been looking at a bunch of their designs for possible use in different black powder guns. I’m ordering a mold with 2 designs next for 36 and 44 cal revolvers.

As for sizing them, I have a lot of Lee sizing collets. I think I have 501, 503, 510 and 511.

I have never powder coated for muzzle loaders but I powder coat all my cast bullets for center fire.

Maybe I need to do some testing with powder coat bullets in my black powder guns

 

[Greg_E]

Powder coat for barrel contact and grease to help keep the fouling soft. That's what I'm doing for the Lee REAL I'm using.

 

[Azonikcustomz]

Powder coat for barrel contact and grease to help keep the fouling soft. That's what I'm doing for the Lee REAL I'm using.

I might have to try that. None of my rifles like the REAL bullets. Closest I have come is my Hawkins but that shoots 4” at 50 yards