Picked up a Little Lyman Mini Sharps!

[rbertalotto]

I picked this little beauty up last week. It's kinda Small Caliber....







Lots more pictures in the Photo Album here:

www.rvbprecision.com

[Shotgun Franklin]

If it's the .38/55, it was considered good for Black Bear in the late 1800s. In smokeless it was at one time loaded up to just over 1700 fps with a 250 gr bullet. That ain't no slouch.

[rbertalotto]

Everything I load in it with lead bullets tumbles.......... Tried three diameters of 250g soft lead. .377, .378, .379. They tumble at 25 yds and hit paper sideways



So I went to the range today and set up a target at 50 yards

Bought some factory ammo with jacketed bullets.

Standing, offhand (the seats were all wet from rain), I shot this 5 shot group.

Dang! That Mini Sharps can shoot!!!!! :razz:

Now I still need to figure out why my lead bullets are tumbling.......... :sad:

[Advertising]

[rbertalotto]

I pulled a bullet from the Winchester factory ammo to measure.



Interesting how little powder was in the case. And it looks like 3031.

The bullet was only .375, but as you can see above, they shot like a house-a-fire!

[Rowdy Fulcher]

Howdy
I had a 336 cowboy from Marlin in 38-55 it needed a .380 in a cast bullet , or a .377 from Barnes . The Barnes bullets in that Marlin was a Deer stopper .

[rickk]

Things that might help with the keyholing, just to at least get a handle on the problem...

-Reduce velocity
-harder alloy
-gas checks

How soft is you "soft lead"? and how fast do you think you are pushing said soft lead?

[rbertalotto]

My soft lead is simply pure lead. No Tin, no nothing.

I'm pushing my loads at 1100fps

I would thing pushing them faster might improve stability as it does in high velocity centerfire rounds (6BR, 6PPC, etc)...

[wildman1]

I had a keyholing problem with a Buffalo Classic in 45-70. I switched to BP and reduced velocity (under 1300 fps) and no more keyholing. WM

[J.D. Yellowhammer]

My first .38-55 was an H&R. I tried some .377 cast bullets and it keyholed like crazy at 50 yards. When I started using hard-cast .380's, the problem went away. Then the rifle went away.

[rbertalotto]

Update!

Went to the range today to try my own cast bullets. It was raining so I didn't have much time.

Put a target out at 50 yards and shot four, three shot groups with two different lead hardness and two different powder charges.

Here is pure lead at .379 with 8g of Unique:


Here is pure lead at .379 with 9g of Unique:


Here is 20-1 at .3815 with 8g of Unique:


And saving the best for last....Here is 20-1 at .3815 with 9g of Unique!!!:



50 yards in the rain with the barrel resting on my range bag and no rear rest......60 year old eyes with iron sights! The cleaning patches were there as point of aim. I simply wet them and stuck them on the paper.....

Can't understand why the store bought .379 bullets tumbled but the ones I cast at the same diameter didn't. Has to be all about hardness as the two bullets are within thousandths of each other in length.

More testing is needed, but to say I'm a happy camper would be an understatement!

[rickk]

From a perspective of the almighty dollar, there is no reason to use pure lead.

Wheel weights, range scrap, Lyman #2 will work better at rifle velocity, and will be cheaper too.

The only reason to use pure lead is if you are stuffing them in from the front side.

If by chance you have stumbled upon an infinite source of pure lead, drive out west a couple hours to he other end of the state and I will trade you some roughly #2 alloy for it... 2 # of my stuff for every one # of your pure stuff.

[rbertalotto]

Hi Rick,

Yes, I did stumble into some very nice pure lead. A whole pile of lead bricks that would be used in a nuclear power plant (but were never used)

I don't like using wheel weights in my barrels because I don't smelt it myself and I'm always suspect on what impurities it might contain that might damage a fine barrel.

The pure lead shoots very well in my 45-70 long range rifles using Black Powder. My Winchester 1885 BPCR will not shoot anything else to the same level of accuracy as it will this soft lead.

I also "stumbled" into a whole bunch of Linotype. About 200 pounds of it......

But I'm not sure what use I'll ever find of it.

20-1 has become my all around lead. I buy it from RotoMetals and the quality is superb. Casts beautifully and with free shipping at $100, the price is right.