cast bullet weight mishap

[woods]

lead bullet casting for 44 mag
     I ran into a little misshap that I should warn others about. I have a cast bullet mold for 44 mag that is listed as 325 gr bullet mold I looked up loads for this bullet and started at minimum loads in my ruger super red hawk. After firing the first couple rounds I thought it seemed kind of heavy on recoil and blast. So I went back to the load bench to check things out everything checked out except one thing the bullet when weighed was at 345 gr. Checking this load out it was one grain above max for that bullet weight. Thank goodness it is a ruger. Lesson learned weigh your cast bullets before you load, My mistake was my lead mix is mostly pure lead, which is heavier than the #2 alloy used to cast these bullets. So my bullet weight was almost 20 gr heavier than the listing on the bullet mold. A lighter bullet mold may not have this large of a gap but you should allways check the weight of a new batch of cast bullets.

     woods

[stimpylu32]

woods

Very good point , I have just started to cast my own from new molds , so I have been checking the weights of thrown bullets with diffrent alloys and was supprised at the difference that it makes .

The one that shocked me the most was a Lyman 44g in .224 , by using pure Plumbers lead the weight was in the 49g to 50g range . And when using small charges of H110 that will make a world of difference .

stimpy