I have a new design in hand, will be testing soon

[Dolomite_Supafly]

I am not going to get into a lot of specifics as of yet. Once coated they should be about perfect. The nose and ogive should allow it to easily feed from an AR so long as the magazine will work. Feeding will not be an issue, feeding from a crappy magazine might be. I can almost guarantee these will NOT work with an unmodified Magpul. I have some Hex magazines to try, they claim they will work with 300 Blackout but we shall see.

They leave plenty of room for powder to run at 80%+ fill rate depending on the powder used. IMR 4227 is my favorite powder so I made sure this will work perfectly with that powder. It should also work with all the usual powders used for subsonic 300 Blackout as well.

Testing will be to check stability with 10, 8.5 and 8 twist. If it will be stable in a 10 twist barrel then it will work just fine with all others. The numbers say it will be very stable in a 10 twist at 1,000 fps but as we all know numbers sometimes do not match performance.

Some are a little rough because I am still breaking the mold in. A few more sessions and they should be dropping a perfect bullet.

They are in the oven now getting a nice coat of blue powder coating.

What I would like to find is someone who can cast these using a magma casting machine if these do work out.

[John A.]

Oh, those are pretty.

They remind me of 30mm A10 warthog gatling cannon rounds.

[plant.one]

those look like punishers! ought to pack one helluva wallop!

[dellet]

Oh, those are pretty.

They remind me of 30mm A10 warthog gatling cannon rounds.

Here's your nickel cases:


http://www.brownells.com/reloading/bras ... 81782.aspx

[Dolomite_Supafly]

Feeds perfectly in MY AR using a Lancer magazine.

I started out with my 245 grain load using IMR 4227 and they are now going supersonic. Average velocity using 10.5 grains of IMR 4227 is right at 1,200 fps without any signs of pressure. Next testing will be with 9.5 grains to see how it affects the velocity and stability.

So far these are completely stable in an 8 and 10 twist barrel. I am going to reduce velocity to subsonic levels and see what happens to the stability.

[Dolomite_Supafly]

So these things are going to be awesome. They are even turning out to be pretty damn accurate as well. A bad cast bullet or load will rear its ugly head at 25 yards. I suspect the reason why they are turning out to be accurate is they are not being spun up to max rpms versus the weight.

Unfortunately I do not think they will work for subsonic 10 twist guns. At ~1,200 fps it was completely stable. At ~950 I was seeing some feathering around the hole. Maybe they will be stable at 1,025 but that is way too small of a window for me to trust with my silencer.

I used some thicker powder coating and the bore rider portion is measuring .302". It feeds fine and you can easily extract a loaded round but I would prefer something a little closer to 300". I think once I get my thin powder on the next batch they will be perfect.

They are loaded to 2.18" OAL and my last batch used 8.9 grains of IMR 4227. Out of my 8.5" AR the velocity was 850 and out of my 16" Encore the velocity was 950. Those numbers are give or take 10 fps. I will fine tune it once I get my thin powder on it. I will probably keep that load and fin tune the OAL to get the accuracy tuned.

As cast they measure .310" at the base and .298" on the bore rider. My thin powder coating adds .001"-.002" so it should be about perfect.

I weighed 20 bullets and they averaged 269.8 grains.

[bangbangping]

My wife wants to know if they vibrate.

[Dolomite_Supafly]

LOL, yes they do vibrate in 10 twist, or slower, barrels.

I will put my test rig back together. It is a Savage with a barrel that has proven to be very, very accurate. I will shooting some 25 yard groups to see how well these things do.

The actual dimensions were specifically chosen to work with the 300 Blackout. I might make a few minor dimensional changes with the next version to add some more weight. And, at some point, I might make a single shot only version that will be above 280 grains. I have a few more things I can do to add more weight while remaining AR friendly.

And after I get some more testing done I might see if I can get NOE to make a version of this bullet so everyone else can join in the fun. I am also going to contact a few cast bullet makers to see if they will produce the bullet if I pay for some molds.

[Dolomite_Supafly]

These things are really shooting well. I am getting MOA groups at 25 yards. But before you think that isn't good realize that MOA is pretty good with cast bullets. A bad cast bullet load will show up at 25 yards.

The MOA groups were shot from my Savage with an 8 twist McGowen barrel. This was with the initial load I was testing that was subsonic. I have not tweaked the load at all and it is shooting this well. With my AR the groups opened a little but not by much and it did cycle 100% of the time. I was using Lancer 20 round magazines. These will not, I repeat NOT, work with unmodified Magpul magazines.

Something else is the extra 25 grains of weight means it uses less powder. Not a lot but every grain counts when it comes to noise suppression. And because it uses less powder it is also quieter. I cannot wait to shoot some dedicated single shot loads using compressed Trail Boss, Clays of VV N320. And my Blue Dot AR loads should be amazing as well.

[Overton-AR]

Gordon.......let me be the first to offer my help in testing. I have brand new 8 lb. keg of IMR 4227. I would love to run a test batch through my AAC 1:7 for testing. I can "donate" to the cause. I love my 230 grainers.....but those look awesome.

By the way....did you ever get your mitts on the Lancer 7.62x40 mags.....?? I think they would be PERFECT for these boolits.