If you only had one choice

[Opencountry]

I am sold on a PJ Postell mould, 535 grain. It has a .459" dia. and a .449" dia. nose. Paul Jones doesn't put out anything he wouldn't use himself in competition. It's a shame he's nearing retirement. Maybe of we keep up our orders to him he'll stay in business a little longer.

Robert

[Kurt]

Which bullet would you choose for target work out to say 800 yards, time to try a new load and see if i can improve on my current "money bullet" load

Dave

Dave.

If I was to have just one mould in my drawer it would be like this old original creedmoor design at .444" in diameter cast with a base pour or a nose pour if the meplat was cut small. like a .125" hole in the prue plate.
I would suggest a Gibbs bullet that is very close to this in the photo but I dont think I would get it from KAL because of the large hole he uses in the sprue plate. I did get him to make a new plate for my elliptical bullet with a .120" hole and that solved all the fins and vent hairs and it is not temperature sensitive any more with all sorts of alloys. Rick makes a fine mould but it would be better with a different sprue plate in my opinion.
My bullet is a .4466 swaged it would not be to good for the standard Shiloh chamber unless you want to deep seat the bullet in the case. My chamber in the .45/2.4 has a long lead and it works very good deep seated or using a lead bullet chamber.

[Don McDowell]

In the greaser dept, I really like the old style postell bullet that Brooks made for the 44. I'ld have him do one for the 45 if I needed another greaser, or get the 510 gr creedmoor bullet that BACO offers.
Patched bullets I'm really partial to the original Sharps and Gibbs styled bullets.

[Don McDowell]

Forgot to mention the Saeco 645 bullet, that lil buggers works pretty dang well to the 1k line in a 45-70

[Dave Roelle]

Hi Don, Hi Kurt:

I was seems its still a toss up between Postel and Creedmore----and honestly thats kinda what i expected-------both obviously perform, i'm betting its going to be a matter of what the individual rifle prefers-------sooooooooooooo i'm gonna try the creedmore at 500/520 grains and 0.459 and see what happens.

The other questions are of course diameter and "tapered" or reduced front band diameters-------------a diameter of 0.459 works best with my BACO money bullet (straight paralell shape)----------i pick up some lead ocasionally but i understand that the money bullet being "bore riding" has that drawback.

So tapered or not ? and why ?

And again thanks for all the help and information

Dave

[Don McDowell]

When Brooks made this 44 mould he said he'ld taper the first band, as sometimes these rifles have leading problems and tapering the first band helped stop that. It's a good thing he did or as close as this chamber is cut I would of had to seat past the driving band to chamber a loaded round without a camming tool. And it did stop the leading up until I suffered a moment of operator stupidity at Byers this past Sunday.
So with my limited experience with the tapered band I'll say it sure doesn't hurt anything.
I think the biggest thing when using a 45-70 for the longer ranges is to not get the bullet to heavy/long for the amount of zoom the 2.1 case can put behind a bullet, and that seems to be right close to 500 grs or 1.4 inches in length.

[Kurt]

One thing you might try to eliminate some of the lead problem is have a exposed lube groove right in front of the case mouth so when the bullet expands the lube will get pushed into that .45 degree chamber end instead of the lead. That is the advantage of a tapered front band.
If blowing sand and dust is no problem, a very thin coating of lube on the bore riding portion of the nose helps eliminating lead smears.
My .45-90 pulls lead bad no mater what I use for alloy or lube and the above just about eliminated the lead smears.

[Dave Roelle]

Hey Kurt:

I have been giving the money bullets a "greasy nose" and it does help some with lead problems--------------it also seems that tapered band would let you experiment with both compression and wad column for a given charge weight, i'm not sure the significance of those variables but to some folks they seem to be important.

How about the advantage of getting better "bullet-barrel" allignment by seating farther out ? pro's/con's ??

Don: i understand the length/weight thoughts i'm trying to walk that path

Hope everyone has a great day

Dave

[Kurt]

Dave, the farther the bullet is in the bore the better.
That is why breach seating is so beneficial.

Kurt

[Kurt]

I guess I should have said "for target work"
Hunting I like a bullet that has the ogive radius start at the case mouth. Or a bullet with a bore riding portion reduced so it will chamber in a fouled throat.