Ranch dog 295g WFN

[Texas Sheepdawg]

Hahaha. They will hold together, I have no worries! This first batch is cast hard, WW quenched so up about 18 BHN is my guess. (Lino is about 22/24 BHN) I HAVE SHOT A BUNCH OF MY 295g bullet at 17/1850 fps and its holding up to a foot of penetration into the dirt berm out at 125 yards.

You really should read up on lead bullets my friend!! Your missing out on allot of great information!! Cast Bullet Board has a bunch of good people who have forgotten more than I know.

CW

EDIT; Mine is a Ruger American Ranch bolt gun.

I’ve got 40 pounds of raw pure lead. But never had the time.
But one of these days. Maybe I’ll do it.

[plant_one]

I’m just wondering if your twist rate might spin them apart upon leaving the muzzle. Looks tempting though. Keep us posted.

i have spun cast powder coated bullets into lead splatter - but that was in a 7 twist blackout at velocity's in excess of 1800 FPS - well beyond the design limitations of that peticular bullet (they were intended for 1400-1500 fps loads). i was using jacketed bullet data and getting much higher velocity's than anticipated. they never got to the target and just turned into a spray of lead schmoo....


but that was more of a measure of the RPM of the bullet than the velocity

MV * 720 / twist = rpm

1400*720/7= 144,000 rpm
1800*720/7= 185143 rom
2000*720/7= 205714 rpm


however if we look at rpm vs the common twist rates in the 450

1500*720/16= 67,500 rpm
1500*720/24= 45,000 rpm

1800*720/16= 81,000 rpm
1800*720/24= 54,000 rpm

2200*720/16 = 99,000 rpm
2200*720/24 = 66,000 rpm

you can see that even a HOT load in our beloved 450 bushmaster with a fast twist barrel doenst even break into the 100k RPM window. Now that said, i'm not claiming to know the RPM limitations of the bullets in question, just showing how because of the relatively *slow* twist rates this caliber utilizes that these bullets will be spinning much slower than when i acheived cast bullet failure in the past with my above example. with these being WW thats quenched, i'd suspect they could be run quite warm before failure occurs though as its a good hard mix, generally speaking.

[plant_one]

I’ve got 40 pounds of raw pure lead. But never had the time.
But one of these days. Maybe I’ll do it.

you'll need to alloy that - pure lead is usually considered way to soft for our purposes of casting boolits. little bit of tin & antimony and you should be all set. i alloy'ed my pure lead with some WW"s along with some 60/40 tin/lead soldering bars similar to these that i picked up at an estate sale sooooper cheap.

https://www.rotometals.com/60-tin-40-lead-bar-solder/


as CW noted, there's lot of info over on the cast boolit forums for how to achieve the right alloy mix with pure lead, or which alloy's to acquire that dont need any modification.

watch out for those zinc WW's... those will ruin a batch of lead on you real damn quick like. they're easy to identify, but you do have to sort for them. the stick-on type WW's are usually pure lead, just fyi.



also - yard sales are great places to pickup a turkey fryer cheap... which makes a great tool for melting/alloying lead and casting into usable ingots - especially since you'll want to do so outdoors. HTH

[cwlongshot]

Wow its been a whole year since a update here!!

I am still shootin that plaine base lyman 457191 and its been a stabul and accurate bullet for me. I picked up a Lyman Gould Express bullet. (330g HP) and found with 5744 I could shoot them into 1" @ 100 @ 1500 but no slower. Cast from WW air cooled and a target 1400 vel they preform like the best partition you have sceen. @ 1500... They are likely to start shearing off pedals. BUT they shoot very well!!

Those 300g Ranch Dogs simply never shot well. Ironically they shoot almost touching @ 100 from my muzzle
Loader in a sabot!!!

I have ordered a AR bbl and will be building (assembling) a 450 Upper shortly! Notjj g specail 18" Bear Creek. But I have had good luck so Im hoping it holds.

CW

[plant_one]

ive got a buddy with a BCA 18" upper and his shoots amazing.

cousin also picked one up and did some initial sighting with it fathers day weekend and he said it shot factory ammo well - golf ball sized group at 100 yds off a wobbly wire spool. he said he's still grinning and cant wait to stuff one of them bullets into a deer this fall. he got sold on the caliber after i loaned him my upper to hunt with on our big field and he thumpered a doe at 160 with it after i sent him a strelok screenshot of where to hold on the reticle.

i know.. small sample size.. but seems to be a barrel they're doing pretty good with. here's to hoping yours turns out accurate as well!

[cwlongshot]

Thanks my friend I have high hopes!! As long as its 2" or better it will meet
My needs. I still have the RARR thats a tack driver.

A friend bought a upper on line. Not BCA but he didnt remember the company. He shot about 3" groups with Hornady BLK. All my ammo was too long for his magazines. I loaded him a quick lighter load with #9 and a 250 FTX and immediately he had touching holes. (Happened upon a accuracy node for that barrel.) But #9 has worked real well
For me in the past. Not always top velocities, but accuracy is usually there.

Im hoping it feeds blunter bullets. I dont use many FTX. Im OK if I stuck with them, just hope I can shoot my cast PC bullets as well.

CW