Old family tradition handload

[bilmac]

A friend and I will be hunting antelope together this fall. He is going to take his Garand, so I thought I would use a trapdoor Springfield inherited from my wife's side of the family. As I was making up some bullets for the old gun I got to thinking about how I had come by this load.

 When he learned that I had a trapdoor one of my uncles gave me a box of ammo for it, and when I tried them they shot pretty good. He had my grandpa's Springfield and had worked up the load for it. The load was 20 gr. of 2400 powder with a full square of toilet paper for a filler and topped with Lyman's 457124.

I bought a Marlin 45-70 to use for bear protection when I was working in Alaska. I was having trouble making cast bullets shoot in that gun and another uncle told me to try lithium based mechanics grease for a lube and leaving the bullet unsized, and right away the gun started shooting better. When I tried it on the trapdoor load it shot better too. Years later I used the Springfield to win the trapdoor match at the Doc and Judge shoot in Alliance Nebr.

Making up these bullets today reminded me of these great mentors now long gone, and how much they shaped my life.

[wncchester]

"...try lithium based mechanics grease for a lube..."

That's a soap based grease and it does have some good lube qualities.   

I suggest you also try either (or both) the old NRA cast bullet lube of 50:50 Alox/Beeswax or Lee's Alox Bullet lube; you may be even more impressed.

The absolute worst cast bullet accuracy (and leading) rises from bullets being undersized for the bore.  If you can chamber an oversized bullet it WILL be bore size when it travels its own length after firing, and that's often good enough.