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The bullets I’m using for the hunt are cast bullets that I poured about a month ago and these molds are from NOE that I bought a few months ago. These aluminum mold blocks are pretty well made and I have ordered both of these molds to come with a set of pins to make dimple, hollow point or flat nose bullets.
For the first mold pictured left below shows a Ranch Dog design specifically for the 300 Savage. With a Lyman #2 alloy it weighs in with my home made gas checks and using three coats of Ben’s liquid lube (found the recipe on cast bullet forum) it’s around 165 grain +/- .2, sized as cast .310.
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The second mold is a NOE 230 grain flat nose, sized to .360. With homemade gas checks and Ben’s Red lube (not the liquid) it weighs in around 230 grain +/-.2 with the same alloy. The Marlin will be my primary firearm for the hunt so it got to go first.
I spent quite a bit of time doing some research on this round. Since the case volume on the 35 Remington is slight higher compared to the 35/30-30, I felt comfortable using the 35 Rem data as a starting point plus what was nice Quick Loads did have the wildcat round listed so I was able to toggle back and forth between the two and compare. After checking with a few reloading books and QL, I decided to try H4895 and the best one was:
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Charge: 34.5 grains of H4895
HI: 1961
LO: 1934
Avg: 1950
SD: 10.29
ES: 27.16
Distance to target 100 yards and muzzle distance to chrony : 12 feet
In the beginning of loading these bullets up, I did have problems chambering a dummy round if I seated them at the crimp groove. As it turns out there is no throat/lead in the chambers so I had to seat them deeper. I’ve tried 4 different loads using the H4895 and all of them were compressed loads. QL gave the above load density of 102.3%. I was particularly happy with lube I made, no sign of leading with velocities and pressures I was dealing with. Overall I’m pretty pleased with the results. Next up the 300 Savage.
I’ve been eagerly waiting to try out this mold. I’ve been hearing good things about it and plus trying out a new lube to get rid of all of liquid alox that I have. Did some research but some of the powders I wanted to try out no one had in stock so I ended up trying H4895, the results:
![Image](http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p64/Basepin/Guns/20150920_1630441_zpsarchypa5.jpg)
Charge: 41 grains of H4895
High: 2483
LO: 2442
Avg: 2462
SD: 17.8
ES: 41.4
Distance to target 100 yards and muzzle distance to chrony : 12 feet
This load was the last one to try. The vertical stringing was caused by the front stock screw was coming loose and it finally gave, snapping it off inside the dove tail. I don’t think this is the right powder for it but I think if I can repair the front stock screw and fire a few more rounds I think it’ll do just fine. Also the bullet lube that I used held up great at those velocities. Just slight leading the last 4” towards the muzzle but that’s expected since the diameter between the breach and muzzle is close to .003. Someday I’ll fire lap it to get the restriction out near the breach. So there you have it. It was a good day over all, learned a lot, wish I can do more of this.
Mainehunter
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