I have never casted muzzleloader bulletts before but I have an Austin Halleck mountain rifle with a 1 in 28 twist an a lee improved minnie mold # 90472 50 cal and i think 360 gr. I beleave you use pure lead or close to it. Do you shoot as cast after lubing it? and how do you lube these bullets? any tips would help.

Albert

I have never casted muzzleloader bulletts before but I have an Austin Halleck mountain rifle with a 1 in 28 twist an a lee improved minnie mold # 90472 50 cal and i think 360 gr. I beleave you use pure lead or close to it. Do you shoot as cast after lubing it? and how do you lube these bullets? any tips would help.

Albert
Shoot them as cast, preferably from nearly pure lead. Can experiment with slightly harder bullet alloys, the deep hollow base of this one will usually exoand to fit the barrel even without pure lead.

The fit of the bulelt to the barrel is still important..should be a slide fit to the bore, riding on top of the lands. IF it is rattle lose, may not get it to shoot well (starting a bullet off center from the bore isn't going to make it shoot well) and if it is too tight and needs to be driven down the bore, it kind of defeats the whole idea of a mini-ball.

Can try other ways of lubing them...but the easiest way for me is still the oldest way: I just grab up a blob of lube and smear it in the grooves with my finger. SHould be mini-ball lube, not commercal smokeless bullet lubricant. Needs to be a soft smearable lube...not just to lube the bullet's passsage throught the bore, but to keep the fouling soft.

At the RANGE, some folks find a bit of lube in the hollow base to be a help. Not something you'd do on a hunt, as the lube tends to melt and diesable at least part of the powder charge, but if you intend to shoot right away, it seems to do no harm. Persoanlly, I'd try not to use lube anywhere but on the lube grooves.

PROBABLY won't find this to be the best bullet for large powder charges...if the pressure at the muzzle is high enough, will "blow the skirt" of that mini. Will expand the skirt as the bullet exits, sometimes even blowing part of it off, and that is the kiss of death to accuracy. IF you were to hit paper with one of these blow skirted mini's, would find an odd shaped hole or LARGER tahn bore diameter.

Start low in powder charge and work up...will most likely find that you're best groups are in the 60-80gr. range.

I shoot the Lee improved minnie in my 54 cal Rem 700 ML. It's around 430 grains or so. I Cast it from pure or almost pure lead.

I swirl lube them with Lee's liquid alox just like all the cast bullets I put down the pistol bores. Set them on wax paper and let them dry overnight after lubing. They are very nice to handle when dry, no mess. I shoot them with between 125 and 150 grains triple seven depending on what I'm hunting. I am really pleased with this bullet.

Be sure and check how it fits the bore. I bought the standard .530 improved minnie and cast up a bunch. when I went out to the range I poured in a hundred grains of triple seven and stuck one of those big buggers in the bore. The next thing I heard was it hitting the bottom of the bore. It never touched the rifling on the way down. I had to order the oversize minnie from Lee, I think it was a .535 compared to the .530 standard. Funny thing is my gun shoots the .530 patched balls just fine.

Minnie's are supposed to load easy, thats the idea, but not that easy. I get groups of around 1.5 inches at a hundred yards when I put the scope on the rifle. This makes a great Elk combination. Just remember you need a really soft lead to get that skirt to expand into the rifling to be accurate. They should go down the bore easy, but have a little bit of restriction.

I've found the combo of liquid alox and triple seven is the cleanest I've ever shot my muzzle loaders. A few swabs of a wet patch followed by a dry patch and then a patch with a little bore butter to oil the barrel is all that is necessary. It also lets you shoot a lot without cleaning between shots.

I've never been into the "period" black powder thing, though I did build and shoot one of the Lyman Great plains rifles when I first got into the muzzle loading thing. The muzzle loader for me is for the extended elk season we have here in Idaho. It does not see much use for much else.

I went to triple seven for the power, ease of use and ease of cleaning. A friend of mine uses clean shot, but velocity is not near as much as pyrodox and the 777 beats everything on the market. I would approach high level loadings with care. I have heard the 777 powder referred to a as a magnum black powder in several places, but I load it at a grain for grain basis for black powder. Some folks recommend loading down from regular black powder loads. If you do use 777 look up Hodgens website. They have a good section on using this powder.

Good luck with your Lee molds, I have used them exclusively now for over 20 years and am completly satisified with them. I cast for 45 Colt, 44 mag, 41 mag, 357 mag and the .54 muzzle loader. I cast the improved minnie and balls for the .54.

I bought the traditional rifle because there is no advatage to having one of the newer stile ML in Oregon. Open ignition, iron sites and no sabot in Oregon.
Albert

I bought the traditional rifle because there is no advatage to having one of the newer stile ML in Oregon. Open ignition, iron sites and no sabot in Oregon.
Albert

Gun laws a like this may be coming to more states, althought the in-line isn't spelled out as being illegal, the open ignition, iron sight, no sabot pretty well negates most of their advantage.

Doscovered in Louisiana the .40cal is a dead duck...small game law spells out .36cal or under, medium game law spells out .45cal. or over. I agree with the ideas reperesented , but there were some nice 38's and .40's made and it would be nice to have the legal OK to shoot a rabbit or squirrel with them.

Cast your mini's and check their fit to the bore. IF they slide in without a lot of force, but there is no "wiggle room" chances are they'll shoot fine once you work out a load.