Cast Bullets in 7 x 30 Waters

[Quan Toi]

Recently tried loading cast 145 gr. RCBS sillouette bullets in my 7mm x 30 Waters TC 14" Contender. Won't shoot a tinkers damn. Never had much luck with cast in bottleneck cases. Using #2alloy, flairing case mouths with a Lyman"M' die etc., etc., etc. Been loading and casting for over 35 years so I do have some experience. Been seating off lands, touching lands, etc. Nothing works. 5 - 6 inch groups at 100 yds. is about the best. Good lube - NRA formula or hard lube from a heated sizer. What is the magic or vodoo.TIA
Frank

[Castaway]

What's your barrel's groove diameter and what's the diameter of the bullet you're using?

[Lloyd Smale]

like castaway said we need more info. What he asked and what powder your using what velocity your shooting them at. Is it a gas checked bullet? Only experience i really have with the 7waters and cast is shooting 8 grains of unique and a 145 lee rf to fire form brass and ive put it on paper at 50 yards and it shot into basically one hole. Never saw the use for further testing as im a firm believer that cast for hunt starts at .30 cal. and even they can be marginal. I prefer the .35 cal rifles for cast bullet hunting. One thing i have noticed about contendors and it may be your first thing to try is that they seem to like hard bullets the harder the better. Try some lineotype or if you dont have any try water dropping your #2 bullets and get rid of the hard lube and stick with the nra 5050. Seating dept may help fine tune your load but its not going to turn a 6 inch group into a one inch group. Could be to that you just ran into a bullet your gun doesnt like. Another thing id try for grins is to take some unsized ones and hand lube them and see if that helps. If it were me id try to push that bullet casted hard at at least 1800 fps. The 7 waters has allways done its best for me with 120 grain bullets and that heavier bullet may need a little more speed then your using to stabilze.