Lee 45-300 in the 450b

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Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby Rockrat » Thu Oct 14, 2010 9:42 pm

Went to the range today to try out some loads with the Lee 45-300 cast slug. Mould casts a little bigger than some, about .453", so sized them in a .454" size die , lubed wit LBT soft blue lube. Started at 30.2gr lil gun and ended with 31.8gr. Groups shrank dramatically from 31 to 31.8. Might go maybe .2gr more, but close to max in my gun. 20" barrel and velocity was right at 2275fps.
Not too shabby. Only had a 4X scope on the gun. Might have been tighter with a higher powered scope. Shooting at 100yds. Sure smacked the snot out of our 16" gongs (1.25" thick). Maybe 10 mph wind @ 8:30
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Re: Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby Siringo » Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:32 am

Nice round group. Much better than I have seen from others or from mine. Did these bullets have gas checks?
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Re: Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby wildcatter » Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:05 am

Gas checks? I love this, you're getting great speeds for that weight, are you using hard lead and could you post a couple of pics of that bullet? The nature of these questions are about leading at those speeds and of course hard lead and gas checks will go a long way, in the right direction?

..t
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Re: Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby BD1 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 10:32 am

That is a nice round group. I've managed groups from 2" to 2 1/2" with three designs, but I haven't been able to get them tighter than that. Many of my cast boolit groups are 3 shots touching with two flyers, ( the two pics attached are pretty typical). As I haven't experienced that in other chamberings, I'm thinking that it's telling me something. Just what it's telling me is the big question.

If I got the file correct the boolit in the middle is the Lee 45-300. The one on the right is a ranch dog design and the one on the left is the BD 293 which I designed to have a little better BC and a lube groove that aligns with my modified Lee FCD. The Ranch Dog design was a .458 designed for alox tumble lube. When I size it down to .453 it yields the multiple small lube grooves which can be waist crimped anywhere in the grooves. I had a little trouble keeping the Lee at the desired OAL as at that length the waist crimp lands on the edge of one off the lube grooves and squeezes the boolit out a small and variable amount when it's crimped.

As you can see all of these designs have lube ahead of the gas check showing that there is room for a taller check. As the height of a Hornady check is only .06, and the gas port is something like .09, my current thought is that the gas may be getting by the check through the lube as the boolit passes the port. This could be unbalancing the boolit slightly by vaporizing a section of lube, and it may be disrupting the check on some boolits leeding to the flyers I'm seeing. Pat Marlin tells me he's making the .45 plain base checkmakers this week. By using a plain base check on a regular shank I should wind up with a check at least .10 tall, if not a little more. In any event, I'll keep you posted when the checkmaker gets here.
BD
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Re: Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby wildcatter » Fri Oct 15, 2010 3:53 pm

BD is my Hero! That .100+ gas check ought to do something good, how many are you getting in the first run, or, are you getting the maker itself? If you are, longer is better, the biggest gas ports I deal with at .125" and this port size is needed for sub-sonics.

Yesterday I talked to Bushies engineering head and told him you and siringo aren't having any problems in plugging/leading the gas tube, this from memory. I hope I didn't mis-speak ..t
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Re: Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby BD1 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:00 pm

You are correct. With any gas check boolit design I get absolutely no leading at all. I once purposely went 250 rounds of cast without cleaning just to look at this issue. If I shoot 25 or 30 plain based boolits, (no gas check), I'll see a little lead in the carbon build up on the bolt. Still really not an issue, but there none the less. In my experience there is never any build up in the gas tube or key. Whatever is vaporized seems to stay vaporized until it condenses on the bolt along with the carbon fouling.

If I can sort out the accuracy issue, my next research will be toward the .45 Slow, (sorry for the cheap pun on the name), a barrel with two gas ports, one large and close for 400 grainers at 1,050 fps, and one "as issued" for 300 grainers at 2,200 fps. My real interest is in the design of the heavy low velocity boolit in an effort to keep MOA accuracy out to 300 yards. My theory being that a 400 grain .45 LFN even as slow as 500 fps will still kill anything on earth if placed correctly. If you're sitting around without much on your mind some afternoon you might think up a "quick change" external mechanism to switch between the ports to eliminate the need to remove the hand guard and swap out the gas tube. I have a thought on this, but I'd only whisper it at this point.
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Re: Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby Cely1932 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:27 pm

BD1,
Have some ideas for a way to switch ports. My 450 is a 16" so I'm not familiar with how buried the front gas block is in the handguard. PM me and we can talk :D

Craig
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Re: Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby Rockrat » Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:48 am

As shown, the Lee bullet is a gas check design. I use Gator rifle gas checks, designed for .458" bullets. They are taller than the Hornady checks I also have, but fit just fine.
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Re: Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby Siringo » Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:37 pm

Rockrat wrote:As shown, the Lee bullet is a gas check design. I use Gator rifle gas checks, designed for .458" bullets. They are taller than the Hornady checks I also have, but fit just fine.
You might just have solved our cast bullet problem!!!! Can you measure the check height in the .458 style and then try to get a measurement after it has been swagged into place. I am sure they may grow a bit taller. If it measures 0.10 inches in height unsized, that is what we need.
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Re: Lee 45-300 in the 450b

Postby pitted bore » Thu Oct 21, 2010 3:42 pm

Siringo-

While awaiting Rockrat's reply with actual measurements:

Here's a web site with some dimensions for Gator gas checks:
http://www.lasc.us/CheckShankSize.htm

Unfortunately the height (length) of these are given only for .500 and .512 calibers.
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