Forrest r, thanks for the great reply. All my rifles are old war horses mostly like my Russian M44 & M91/30 which have basically 1:10 twist bores but they didn't see much action so the rifling is strong and the leads in excellent shape. My SKS rifles are all about the same as well. I don't really expect to get real HV out of any of rifles although they all shoot the Lee .312" 160 gr. TL bullet pretty close to MOA accuracy closely followed by the Lee .312" 185 gr. RN bullet.

The two rifles that might show some promise is my old Sav. 170 30-30 pump gun which has a 1:12 twist groove bore. I don't think I will have to much of a problem matching factory J bullet velocity with the Lee or RD 170 gr. FN molds I have. I have a Sav. 99 as well in 300 Sav. I will have to get out the stick and find out the twist of the bore but I think it's 1:12 as well. It shoot the Lee .312" 160 gr. bullet in nickle size groups as well sized to .311" but I haven't tried to push it yet.

As far as casting alloy I have pure lead, Wheel weights, Lino and Mono type as well as some range scrap and a good bit of tin. I also have access to some babbitt chips that have around 3% copper that I might try mixing in to toughen up my bullets. I need to do a bit of study on that.

Bullets that I can cast for rifles are the Lee .312" 160 & 185 gr. RN bullets, Lee 150 & 170 gr. .310" FN and a Arsenal clone of the original RD 170 gr. FN with traditional lube grooves as well as an Accurate 215 gr. FN bullet I had cut to fit the throat on my 91/30.



Not sure where I will end up with all this but I have to give it a try just to see what I can do. After all it's a hobby and I enjoy a challenge.