Grease Groove Bullets loosening up

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Idaholewis

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As some of you know i was having problems awhile back with bullets loosening up about halfway down the bore from 2 of my Custom Grease Groove bullets (.45 and .54) This was happening with soft Plumbers lead (They started out good and tight, but loosened up pretty badly about halfway down the bore, I came to the conclusion that the pure soft lead was simply giving up, and NOT an issue with my bores) I have been working on a solution to this problem and feel i have found a remedy for this, that being lead hardness. I recently picked up 18 pounds of 1:40 (8.5 Brinell) from Buffalo Arms to try, I poured some bullets with this straight 1:40 BACO stuff From my .45 Cal Custom GG Accurate Mold and tested fit in my .45 Cal GM LRH Barrel (These same bullets got really loose with pure soft lead) This time They started TIGHT, and stayed TIGHT all the way to the powder, NO LOOSENING UP! But in my opinion they were a bit to tight, So I emptied about a 1/4 of the lead pot in to ingots and replaced with pure lead, According to my Cabin Tree lead Hardness tester i am now about 6-7 Brinell Hardness. Since my rifle is already loaded I wasn’t able to test fit these last bullets of 6-7 BHN, I will keep tinkering with this til i get my bullets to load the way i want them, + or - Lead hardness.
 
Here is something else I thought up along the way, this showed promise with the super soft lead but I abandoned it after playing with the Lead Hardness.

.010 Lubed patch I cross cut
 
My bore diameter is .450, I am not sure what the Groove diameter is with this barrel? I bought it brand new 2 years ago from Green Mountain, it is the LRH (Long Range Hunter)

Here are the band diameters for my Custom .45 GG Bullet From Accurate molds. Bottom 2 bands are .455, 3rd band .457, 4th band .458, and the top band .459
Here is a picture of the bullet


One would think these oversize band diameters would hold good and tight with soft lead? But they didn’t! Neither does my Custom .54 GG Bullet with oversize band diameters just like the .45 Above. This CAN be fixed by bumping up the Lead Hardness, I do believe there is a fine line here, if you get them to hard they will obviously be extremely difficult to load, and one must remember that lead will Harden some with Age.

For you fellas that already know this, i am sorry to bore ya! BUT where were you when i was having this problem and i asked how to fix it?
 
It's hard for me to imagine a bullet shrinking. The bullets you speak of are not bore diameter or undersized, so they are engraved into the rifling upon loading and will be the same all the way down - how could they change in size?
 
52Bore said:
It's hard for me to imagine a bullet shrinking. The bullets you speak of are not bore diameter or undersized, so they are engraved into the rifling upon loading and will be the same all the way down - how could they change in size?


The bullet is NOT shrinking, My theory is the Bands of the pure soft lead bullet starts to ‘Give up/break down’ from being pushed down through the rifling, this is when they are cast of pure soft lead (5 BHN) it takes a good push to start them, its a good tight fit, And as you start to push them down the bore they stay good and tight UNTIL about halfway down, and then you can feel a VERY NOTICEABLE change, they start getting loose, and looser.

Another example, I casted up a bunch of TC Maxi balls from this same soft plumbers lead for my Dad’s .54 Cal Renegade, I was out at his place the other day and helped him load his rifle for a Cow Elk hunt, The Maxi started GOOD n TIGHT as Maxi’s are intended to with the oversize front Driving band, about half way down the bore that bullet got REALLY LOOSE, it felt like it almost fell to the powder! No way in HELL i would have trusted it! I am absolutely confident if i was to ‘bump’ the muzzle good and solid on a solid surface that bullet would slide off the Powder charge, My Dad didn’t like it, but also didn’t want to bother pulling it, he chose to go with it, i have had him check it with his Ramrod a couple of times and so far it’s held? There is NO WAY i would trust it!!

Maybe it is this particular batch of Dead Soft Plumbers Lead? I can tell you now it is a problem, a real problem! But by bumping up the Hardness of the lead i was able to make the problem GO AWAY
 
Bubba.50, Have you shot any of those Lyman Plains bullets i sent you? If so, how did they load? Those bullets are from this exact same batch of soft lead. Go load 1 and see if they loosen up?
 
I've never liked T/C maxi's for that very reason. The bearing surface is too limited and the small diameter base and middle bands are far undersized. The paper cross patch is a good band aid with store bought under size bullets or moulds which cast too small for your bore. I use it in one of my .54 rifles. I like 40:1 also because it holds accuracy with stiffer powder charges unlike pure. I custom size for all my .451 rifles. As a hunting example, if the bore actually measures .451" with a pin gauge, the first load on a clean barrel will be loaded with a straight sided bullet measuring .452". This will keep the bullet in place during days of deer driving. If the rifle is fired the reload is with a bore diameter .451" bullet. The powder fouling and bore diameter bullet will load with enough resistance to stay put but not be so hard as to get stuck half way down.
 
admiral said:
I've never liked T/C maxi's for that very reason. The bearing surface is too limited and the small diameter base and middle bands are far undersized. The paper cross patch is a good band aid with store bought under size bullets or moulds which cast too small for your bore. I use it in one of my .54 rifles. I like 40:1 also because it holds accuracy with stiffer powder charges unlike pure. I custom size for all my .451 rifles. As a hunting example, if the bore actually measures .451" with a pin gauge, the first load on a clean barrel will be loaded with a straight sided bullet measuring .452". This will keep the bullet in place during days of deer driving. If the rifle is fired the reload is with a bore diameter .451" bullet. The powder fouling and bore diameter bullet will load with enough resistance to stay put but not be so hard as to get stuck half way down.

Good post admiral!! I started doing this same method with my Paper patched bullets, i have custom sizers for all calibers to adjust bullet fit. The first load on a Clean bore i just wrap my 2 wraps of onion skin paper, twist the tail, and load, No sizing needed, By doing this That first load is GOOD N TIGHT and i am CONFIDENT that the bullet will NOT back off the powder charge! I had custom molds made to drop my bullets in the correct diameter to ‘wrap up to bore’ and slightly over, depending on paper used? My reloads that i carry are sized 1-2 thou under bore for easier loading on a fouled bore. The tricky part is keeping track of all of this when you have as many Muzzleloaders as i do. A good example is my 54s, 2 of them have near identical bores and load the same, the other is tighter bored and requires sizing down 2 thou. As many guns as i have it is an ABSOLUTE must to keep good records of each rifles needs
 
admiral said:
I've never liked T/C maxi's for that very reason. The bearing surface is too limited and the small diameter base and middle bands are far undersized.

EXACTLY! My proven fast twist barrels don’t shoot Maxi’s Worth a hoot anyway. I had the oversize Grease Groove Bullet molds made to Combat/Fix the problem of loosening up when loading, When you look at my band diamters it doesn’t make sense that they would loosen up like a Maxi during loading? BUT THEY DO! In .45 and .54, That is With this soft plumbers lead. But by Bumping up the lead hardness a bit that problem goes away! I am sure this method would help a Maxi a great deal as well
 
I poured some Maxi balls earlier with this same harder lead (6-7 BHN) To try in my dad’s .54 Cal Renegade Tomorrow, I am setting his rifle up with 1 of my Lyman 57SML peeps, Figured while i was at it we might as well try these harder Maxi’s and see if they ‘hold’ tighter loading? Like i said in an earlier post when we loaded his rifle for this little Cow Elk season the soft lead Maxi started out good but got REALLY loose about halfway down, to the point I personally wouldn’t have trusted it. Will be interesting to see if this new batch of lead holds better?
 
Idaholewis said:
I poured some Maxi balls earlier with this same harder lead (6-7 BHN) To try in my dad’s .54 Cal Renegade Tomorrow, I am setting his rifle up with 1 of my Lyman 57SML peeps, Figured while i was at it we might as well try these harder Maxi’s and see if they ‘hold’ tighter loading? Like i said in an earlier post when we loaded his rifle for this little Cow Elk season the soft lead Maxi started out good but got REALLY loose about halfway down, to the point I personally wouldn’t have trusted it. Will be interesting to see if this new batch of lead holds better?

We tried these Harder Maxi’s yesterday, They did better, but stil got pretty darn loose halfway or so down. My dad’s Renegade sure shot them well tho! He loves the new Lyman 57SML Peep, I also installed a Marbles .500 Height fine 1/16” Ivory bead, and a Lace up Recoil pad.
 
I got the chance this morning to test these 389 Grain GG bullets with the Harder lead (about 7 BHN) for tightness and accuracy at a true 100 yards (107 yards to be exact) They loaded TIGHT and stayed tight all the way down, This fixed the getting loose halfway down the bore! I have had this rifle loaded for about 2 weeks now, the cold clean bore shot was from the Straight 1:40 BACO lead, Back when i loaded the rifle this bullet loaded a bit to tight in my opinion, so i changed the lead pot around and softened the mixture up a bit (about 7 BHN) These are stil a bit tight, i should have brought a short starter, but i was able to get them started to the top band with my thumb (I wouldn’t want to do this a bunch!)

I picked a HORRIBLE color target, i was already out there and ready to shoot so i went with it
Can you spot my Target?


Left bank, she really blended in with the snow! I had to stay in my peep sight for a good minute before i set my trigger to get my eye adjusted well enough to see the bull


My cold clean bore shot is left of the bull, this was also that harder bullet I’ve had loaded for 2 weeks, my other 3 are right together, outside edge to outside edge is 1.450” making this a true 1” Group
 
Well you got me good and confused now, I do have a 450/458 GM barrel on my Henrys build, and hope to have it ready for its first round down the barrel with in the next mounth. But being new to this ,it was my understanding that the grease groove bullets should be the the same as the bore or a thousand bigger.I got some .450 520gr. Grease grove from buffalo arms and some .444 520gr swaged for paper patching ready to go. And a .451 volunteer mould. Going to need all the bullets I can get to try so I will be ready as I can be for the Oakridge shoot in March.
 
wildcat2 said:
Well you got me good and confused now, I do have a 450/458 GM barrel on my Henrys build, and hope to have it ready for its first round down the barrel with in the next mounth. But being new to this ,it was my understanding that the grease groove bullets should be the the same as the bore or a thousand bigger.I got some .450 520gr. Grease grove from buffalo arms and some .444 520gr swaged for paper patching ready to go. And a .451 volunteer mould. Going to need all the bullets I can get to try so I will be ready as I can be for the Oakridge shoot in March.

No confusion! For Target/Bench rest shooting i much prefer my paper patch bullets sized about 1-2 thou under bore, they glide down the bore with nearly the weight of my Ramrod alone (my thumb and index finger is plenty to load them) If i plan to hunt with my Paper Patched bullets i prefer a tighter fitting bullet therefore i DON’T finish size, i just wrap my paper, twist the tail, and load. Example: My .45 Green Mountain LRH i use .444 Bullet Diameter, 2 wraps of this particular onion skin paper i am using ads 7 thou to the overall diameter, bringing my .444 up to .451, If i am Target shooting i will run those wrapped .451 bullets through a .449 finish sizer, all i am doing is ‘ironing’ the paper a bit, the finished size after running through the .449 actually comes out at .450 (the paper will slightly ‘bounce back’ hence why they dont stay .449) i find that patched and sized bullets of .450 diameter load really nice at the bench in 2 of my 45 Cal rifles (1:30 twist, and my 1:18 twist) But for hunting i do NOT run them through the .449 sizer, just wrap and load.

This really comes down to a ‘Per Bore’ deal, One has to remember that not all bores are identical. I have a few different sizers per Caliber so i can adjust the fit. You really need to learn your bore, what fits well, and what don’t. I feel safe saying that ‘Most’ .45 Cal bores will be good with a .448-.449 Finish sizer. I have spoke with a few of our Top World Class shooters and was told that ‘Most Of the Time’ you will find best accuracy somewhere between 1-2 thou under bore.

Here is my reasoning for the Large band diameter Grease Groove Bullets i had made, A good friend of mine, Forum member Harleysboss was here to visit this summer and he left me some bullets to try in my .50 Cal, They are Called Bullshop, and made by Dan of Bullshop, They are a large band diameter Grease Groove design, i tried them in my .50 Cal and i was thoroughly impressed, not only with accuracy, but how good and tight they stayed all the way down my bore (AWESOME hunting bullet!) I liked that bullet so well that I contacted Bullshop Dan and asked him if he minded me Copying his design? He told me no problem, to go right ahead. I sent Tom at Accurate molds 1 of Dan’s .50 Cal Bullshop bullets and had him cut me a mold as close to the Bullshop bullet as he could possibly get it. Dan sells this particular bullet, and it’s a GOOD one! I ended up having Tom cut 3 molds for me .45, .50, and .54 Cal off the Original Bullshop bullet.

Here is the original Bullshop bullet, The 2 bottom (base bands) are .504, the 3rd band is .506-.507, and the top band is .508


Here is the Group that i shot with the Above Bullshop bullets
 
Well when I had the barrel blank cut to taper and length, I had them save me the 3 inch drop piece and I was going to run bullets threw it to size for my bullets. Someone told me that it was not a great idea. Again that was a year ago and did not now much, and still wet behind the ears on this game. I hope to learn first hand a lot of knowledge at Oakridge, plus have some great fun. But I would like to shoot and be familiar with my rifle as much as possible before then. But winter has set in here real well and don't know how much range time I can get in. To but it short every thing I know has come from this site ,thanks to all of you .
 
wildcat2 said:
Well you got me good and confused now, I do have a 450/458 GM barrel on my Henrys build, and hope to have it ready for its first round down the barrel with in the next mounth. But being new to this ,it was my understanding that the grease groove bullets should be the the same as the bore or a thousand bigger.I got some .450 520gr. Grease grove from buffalo arms and some .444 520gr swaged for paper patching ready to go. And a .451 volunteer mould. Going to need all the bullets I can get to try so I will be ready as I can be for the Oakridge shoot in March.

For Target shooting I’m sure these Grease Groove diameters you mention will be fine, i am not familiar with them so i can only think they will be? What i am going off of above is a Hunting bullet. For a hunting bullet i want them GOOD N TIGHT from start to finish, I simply DON’T trust a slip fit bullet for my style of hunting, unless i planned to sit on a Whitetail stand. My style of Elk hunting involves a BUNCH of footwork and in far less than ideal conditions, I usually find myself in REALLY rough rugged terrain where our Elk here call home, The last thing i need to worry about is a ‘slip fit’ type bullet sliding off the powder charge, I want a bullet that i have 110% confidence in staying put on the powder charge. If a bullet slides off the powder charge and you touch it off (obviously without knowing) there is a HIGH possibility you will Ring your barrel, you might not see it from the outside, But you will feel it inside with a tight fitting patched jag. Read about ‘Ringing’ a Muzzleloader barrel. Some say this wont happen, but I’ve read plenty of cases where they claim it did. If this were to happen, your barrel is likely a piece of scrap iron junk. I have ZERO first hand experience with this ‘Ringing’ of a barrel, but i have read Quite a bit about it. I am simply NOT gonna chance it with my rifles.
 
Yes ,I lived in Missoula Mt for a couple of years and hunted there before I went there ,very familiar with the rough terrain, there. I did plan to hunt my henry a few times, but would have to be a stand hunt, I will have to much money in this ,and it going to be to beautiful to take a chance of falling and dinging it up. And yes having the possibility of bullet moving forward. I already have another 45cal.fast twist build in the making for my hunting gun.very addictive don't even have a bullet out of the first one and on to another one. Even went out with a side by side 10 bore over my springer ,what a hoot.
 
wildcat2 said:
Yes ,I lived in Missoula Mt for a couple of years and hunted there before I went there ,very familiar with the rough terrain, there. I did plan to hunt my henry a few times, but would have to be a stand hunt, I will have to much money in this ,and it going to be to beautiful to take a chance of falling and dinging it up. And yes having the possibility of bullet moving forward. I already have another 45cal.fast twist build in the making for my hunting gun.very addictive don't even have a bullet out of the first one and on to another one. Even went out with a side by side 10 bore over my springer ,what a hoot.

These things are ADDICTING!! It is funny to me to look back at what got me started in this, My Dad gave me a TC New Englander like brand new, i had never shot a Blackpowder anything, one day i grabbed that little rifle and headed to the local sandpit to give it a try, about 4 or 5 shots i ended up getting the Ramrod stuck in the barrel by dry swabbing, i drove home with the gun propped up against my seat with the tip of the Ramrod sticking out, i poured some water down it and got it freed, i thoroughly cleaned the rifle, oiled and lubed it up well (for long term storage, i had no intentions of ever shooting it again! LOL) I Stewed over it for a few days and thought to myself ‘how in the heck do guys shoot these things over n over as bad as they foul??’ I started reading, and watching YouTube videos on Muzzleloaders
This is how i found Idahoron, by watching his Youtube Videos, i was COMPLETELY blown away that he could hit a kill size target at 300 yards with peep sights?!! That is what truly set the fire in me to continue on, i made up my mind i was gonna have a rifle just like Idahoron’s! (I now have 4 of them, 1 in which Ron Recently gave me the barrel for) I watched every video of Ron’s, from his cleaning routine, Paper Patching, to loading and shooting his rifle, I followed everything Ron did to a T and I had SUPER SUCCESS following him!! I do things quite a bit different these days, But i truly owe where i am at today to Idahoron, Had i not met Ron i have no doubt i would have given up on it, and the little TC New Englander would stil be well lubed and in my closet.
 
Yes I get more satisfaction out of shooting these then my Centerfield and even my inlines. My brother sent me his Cabelas 50 cal just this fall after I joined our local muzzleloader club to shoot. And enjoy our monthly shoots. I do have a double barrel 45cal.slow twist muzzleloader that has been handed down threw the family.it is all my farther used for deer even though he had a couple of fine winchester lever actions. He was a very good shot with it. Going to take it and shoot it at one of our shoots this spring.it's a beautiful gun.yes I have watched IDAHORON you tube videos also. Just didn’t feal like I was muzzleloader hunting with my in line with a scope and all. And I am sure dad was rolling over in his grave. I love the fine English guns that is why I built a Henry alexander. I did not cut any corners on it either.thanks to Rod England who specializes in these guns and builds.it is his lock and breach on it. Putting a kelly soule shight on it ,having mike yazel do the engraving and lee Shaver do the blueing and color case harding. My stock is made from a real American chestnut that was growing in my yard.going to make a nice presentation case out of the chestnut also ,starting right after the holidays and pulling in a few coyote traps.
 
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