For Mauser98

[Lead pot]

It finally warmed up here and the rest of the snow melted a couple days ago.
Mauser I know the 120 can be a beast with it's recoil.
I would not use a filler with black powder, Yes I know some use it, but I feel it will spell disaster sooner or later.
Use 1F powder and with the 1-30 twist which sounds slow for a modern rifle, you didn't say but I assume it is that 430 grain bullet should work with that twist ok.
I'm going to assume your using a lube that is made for black powder, like SPG, DGL, Black Magic, and not a lube made for smokeless powder. If you dont cast and buy the bullets get them with lube designed for black powder.
You say your lead is 7% I feel you cast, I use alloy with 1 part tin to 25 parts lead, 1-20 to 1-40 works for me.
Dont compress the powder with the bullet it will deform the bullet and accuracy will go south. Get a compression stem made for your expander die and use it for compressing the powder.
Work up a load start with .300 compression if your using Goex and work up from there till you find the group tighten up.
Only change one component at a time, like type of powder, primer, were you seat the bullet and so on and keep a good record .
I compress my 1F Goex .380 and place a .030 fiber wad on the powder and seat the bullet just so it engraves the land slightly, you might have to back it off some with your rifle or seat it harder. You will have to find were it works the best in your rifle.
The use of the drop tube is ok, I like a 36" tube.
Your fouling control needs to be changed some.
Make a plow tube and blow after every shot, long slow blows and inhale through the nose between breaths you will get more moisture.
Or run a damp patch followed with a dry patch down the bore if you dont want to use a blow tube, and run a dry swab in the chamber to remove the moisture, you dont want a wet chamber. A way to tell if your blowing enough is check the muzzle after blowing and if you see dry gray fouling your not blowing enough it will be black just make sure that thing aint loaded !!!! or push a dry patch down if its moist enough you should be able to get it through with ease with out tight spots.
Doing it the way you do you will get lead build up in the barrel and south goes the accuracy.
You might want to run a tight patch down the bore soaked with a penetrating oil a few times before you go to the range to see if you have a lead fouled barrel once. I like Kr-Oil.
I know this sounds like a lot of work but once you do it it is standard procedure (SOP).
One more thing if your using one of the older Import rifles, that rifle might have some free bore some times as much as 3/8" and if that is the case with your rifle it will be another ball game. We will have to change a few things.
One more thing I will mention. If you ever shot a jacketed bullet in that rifle you will have to get all the copper fouling out or you will never get the accuracy potential and you will pull lead.
I hope this will get that beast to shoot better .

Kurt

[Mauser98]

 Well Kurt...... This is where I posted it to start with.   I thought it had been removed because I mentioned that "Pyrodex" word, when lo and behold I find it re-posted in the other forum. Made sense to me to be in this one. Thanks for getting things back on track.
 You offer a healthy dose of reality. I'm getting frustrated enough with this high wall rifle that I may have to do the unspeakable....and sell it. Let's all hope it don't come to that.
  It is about a 3 year old Uberti, although i can't say how long it was on the rack before I bought it. For a replica I can't figure out what they replicated with the 30" twist. I have read of a "45 winchester express" that used 320 grain (i think) bullets and slow twist, pehaps they patterned it off of that. I'm not sure.
 A freind figures that 430 grain is on the ragged edge of being stable, particularly if the velocity is down. I don't own a chronograph so have no idea of how fast they are going.
  I'm still a little spooked by the "case full o' powder" idea, since i split that one case head with pyro. Everyone i talk to, though, assures me that I cannot harm a modern replica with black powder, no matter how much I stuff in the case. I have HDS brass, and some BELL. It's the BELL that split. Do you think I should anneal the whole case, not just the neck?
  Yeah, I guessed that I wasn't cleaning enough, or the right way. Where the first shot landed was anybodies guess, then the 2nd, 3rd and sometimes 4th would show promise. Things rapidly fell apart from there.
  What else.....I use Black magic, haven't used a wad, and have been using the bullet to compress the powder. (More things to change)
 You're right, The copper was a real bear to remove. I would think it was clean but it would lead something fierce, and back to scrubbin' I would go.

 As far as recoil being a beast, I don't find it bad at all.........shooting offhand, that is.  Off the bench, that steel crescent plate turns my shoulder a rainbow of exotic colors. And I wouldn't have it any other way!!!
  Thanks for your help. I'll let you know how thing turn out.
 

[Lead pot]

I think the reason it got deleted is because of the black powder substitute, they just want the real stuff here.
That 30" twist is slow I don't know of any off the shelf moulds you can get, you might have to go with a custom.
As far as the brass goes anneal just the neck about 3/4" down but dont over head it, if you see red your to hot.
You must clean the cases in and out either scrub them out with a nipple brush or wet tumble them with ceramic media, you don't want any of the fouling on the inside of the case for the powder to grab a hold of, and back off your sizing die so you just neck size so you  dont work harden the case. That 3 1/4" case is more prone to split if your chamber is on the large side, so just neck size it.
I use both Bell and HDS its good brass. If you can find Norma .45 basic that is good brass.
Dont give up on it, with the light bullet you will end up with and get some of the Goex or Swiss 1F the recoil will not be to bad, or pull off the but plate and see if you have a bolt hole or not measure how deep it is and get a Mercury buffer ind stick in it, that will tame it down some.

Kurt

[Mauser98]

I'm too stubborn to give up!
Moulds are a bit of a problem. Lee makes one at 340 grain, but i've never had any luck with aluminum moulds.
At the risk of complicating things even more, What about patching .452 pistol bullets?

[Lead pot]

No!
Measure the paper you want to use add .002 to four wraps and subtract that from .450. You want a patched bullet .002 under bore. Nother words you want patched bullet .448.
Unless that rifle has a lot of free bore say .280+ then you can get by with a patched bullet of .457+ - .001
Kurt

[Mauser98]

Yeah...I don't know what I was thinking. I kinda forgot that the paper needs to go around the bullet more than once.
I've slugged the bore at 0.4562 diameter.
  If I understand right the bullet should measure .454 over the patch, and have four turns of paper, right? Suppose the paper is two thou thick then the bullet should be 0.438 naked. Yes??
 The fella's in the tool room say they can build moulds easy as pie. (lathe bored, not cherry cut) I'm going to take them up on it some day.
  Now.....this blow tube thing. Is that for real? I'm not gonna have the boys at the range laughing their butts off at me as I try to kiss the breech end, am I? Why not wet patch after each shot?

[Lead pot]

Mauser with all respect I question the .4562 bore diameter, the bore diameter would be the smaller of the two.
Use only two turns, not 4.
As far as the blow tube or wet -dry patch is a personal choice, and if they laugh at you at the range when your using the blow tube, Just grin back at them and tell then I get personal with your rifle 

Kurt

[Mauser98]

 
Many thanks, Your advise is helping already.
Fired 5 rounds into 4" this afternoon. I won't score too well on the rams with a group like that but at least I can see the light. The only things I changed are the cleaning routine, [Got nice and personal between shots ], and built a compression stem this morning. Still using the same 85 grain charge of swiss, same bullet etc. I'll get brave and step it up to a case full of black yet!

 You are right to question. The Bore diameter is spot on .450, the groove diameter is .4562. I made the assumption that the rifling should engrave a patched bullet the same way as lead, and therefore figured you were talking groove diameter. Soooo... by 2 thou smaller than bore, I take it we are counting on the bullet slugging up 8 thousandths of an inch into the grooves. If so, I can see where free bore and case length are going to be a factor.

  I think I'll stick to getting GG bullets to fly straight first!!

 Cheers!

[Lead pot]

It sounds like you're on you way.
If you insist on using a case not filled, DONT USE A WAD ! Good luck Mauser.

Kurt