So i'm headed down the rabbit hole. Bought a Marlin Dark and want to develop a good cast load for it, and ideally a good subsonic load (mostly the subsonic). I've been shooting some Berry's 350gr plated bullets to play with for now, but picked up an older Lyman 457406, pretty sure it's around 480gr GC bullets. My plan is to shoot the rifle with heavy bullets, subsonic loads.
I see that many people like the 400-405gr bullets, like the Lyman 457193, but wondering if there is anyone else shooting cast subsonic 45-70 bullets and what is working for you (bullet and powder used would be nice to give me a starting point!). I was thinking of ordering the Lyman 427125, their 500gr RN plain base mold and trying that one or the 457193 (405gr).
I will be powder coating the bullets (have some PC I got on CastBoolits from Smoke a while ago) and would probably prefer to not have gas check design). So if you have a mold you like and it does well or you shoot them subsonic, I'd love to hear about them..
So far to figure out some techniques, I powder coated some old 44 mag bullets i had around that i will probably throw in the smelting pot but for now I coated 20-30 of them, toasted them and resized them and they seem to be pretty good. Photo below (they look rough, probably a bit too much powder in the bowl when I was shaking them?). diameter after resizing (Lee APP press with bullet sizer) was exactly .4295" for all of them. will probably shoot them just for fun I think they were around 260gr each?
I see that many people like the 400-405gr bullets, like the Lyman 457193, but wondering if there is anyone else shooting cast subsonic 45-70 bullets and what is working for you (bullet and powder used would be nice to give me a starting point!). I was thinking of ordering the Lyman 427125, their 500gr RN plain base mold and trying that one or the 457193 (405gr).
I will be powder coating the bullets (have some PC I got on CastBoolits from Smoke a while ago) and would probably prefer to not have gas check design). So if you have a mold you like and it does well or you shoot them subsonic, I'd love to hear about them..
So far to figure out some techniques, I powder coated some old 44 mag bullets i had around that i will probably throw in the smelting pot but for now I coated 20-30 of them, toasted them and resized them and they seem to be pretty good. Photo below (they look rough, probably a bit too much powder in the bowl when I was shaking them?). diameter after resizing (Lee APP press with bullet sizer) was exactly .4295" for all of them. will probably shoot them just for fun I think they were around 260gr each?
