Edgun .257 Cast bullet Shooter
I have been gathering knowledge and parts for this build since the first of the year and now have most of what it is going to take. I thought I would start a thread to document my successes and failures along the way. Probably more of the later. There is certainly a few in this section with interest and a lot I am sure that do not so please just gloss over this thread if this is not your thing.
I am thinking this will be a 98% benchrest gun for some local competition and entertainment. This will be fairly engaging for me as I have not done a lot of custom gun work so I am anxious to get started.
With that said, I have been getting some coaching from Tedd as he is more experienced in this than I for sure and is also doing the same kind of a build. I am beginning with my almost new Edgun R3M long I received from Tony in December. My plan is to change to a TJ’s .257 hammer forged barrel which came in last week swap the breech to an R3 single load, make modifications to a spare seperate Regulator,spacer and air valve, I ordered from Tony as well. I will hopefully modify the breech such that it can be returned to original .25 cal. pellets w/o having to restore the changes. There is a lot more but that is all for now. I will include a couple of pictures of unique parts I have bought and had made thus far and build on this post as progress is made. I should be fun I have not seen too many build threads lately.
Here is the patient on day one when I first got her, surgery is forthcoming.
Here is the regulated air space increaser that will hopefully give the heavier bullets the oomph to get moving up to the needed speed. I have essentially duplicated the one Ed made for the .30 calibers and I will insert it into my custom reg./valve assy.
Here is another of the TJ’s barrel showing up last week, Kind of blah in terms of fun new parts and needs a little work before it is ready to use.
There will be questions and I have few of the answers so I am in hopes Tedd will chime in with regularity and help out. I already know of another overlooked issue I am going to have to deal with that I realized last eve. but more on that later.
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Hello Oldgoat,
That’s an awesome line up you have there.
Thanks for the detailed write up.
The .250 boat tail looks promising as you say at .259 and with a hollow point.
When milling the base off for some reason I prefer the base to terminate with the groove diameter or boat tail however small in length that is.
Perhaps that leaves a more aerodynamically flat base to smooth out turbulence but then there is always the argument that pellets can be very accurate
with the shearing caused by the rifling in the skirt.
Roland.
As I have stated before, if you folks want to know if your power plant has the “umph” to launch a 50 grainer, load two Kings and run them over the box, if your not in the 850 FPS range, make other plans.
Roland, here you go:
The first cast bullet is the final cut down of the NOE mold. It weighs 54.7 grains when cast in pure lead. The second slug is a half way cut down NOE and I think that it was in the 60-65 grain area. The 3rd slug is a stock NOE and IIRC, it was around 76 something grains. I didn’t record the weight as I knew that it was way to heavy for what I was wanting.
The 4th slug is the cut down Lyman 257420, it weighs 55.7 grains in pure lead. The 5th slug is the stock 257420 and IIRC it weighs around 78 grains.
The last 2 are a 42 grain and 50 grain LBT bullet. I talked to Veral and sent him a detailed Autocad printout of what I wanted for a 42-45 and 50 grain cast slug using pure lead. I got his molds and they cast these 2 slugs. The slugs didn’t look anything like what my prints looked like. I called Veral up and he told me to try shooting them and, if they didn’t work out, I could return them as long as they were in an as new condition.
They shot horrible! I tried to clean the molds up before I sent them back. I soaked them overnight in Dawn dish washing soap and water to clean off the grease sticks that Veral supplies with his molds. The next day, I pulled the molds out of the water and the dish soap pitted the molds so bad that I just threw them in the garbage.
That being said, I am going to order another mold from Veral. It is going to have a .259” driving band version of this mold:
If Veral makes it to the specs, it could be a winner after I send the mold out to Erik, have him cut the boat tail base down to .010” and HP it. It could come out at 45-47 grains.
As usual, I have got a late start on my projects: again! I hope to get my barrels and molds back and be shooting in another 2-3 weeks. I hope to come up with an accurate cast bullet shooting Matador. I will post my results as soon as I have any.
The JSB pellets are beginning to cost way too much. Especially in the 30 caliber!
Been keeping a close watch on your experiments Oldgoat. Looking great!
Mind sharing a pic of the cut down 257? Did you mill off the whole gas check?
How do you remove the sprue plate stopper pin? Or do you mill that out too and insert a new one.
Have similar thoughts but with the cricket and imppu’s RAI.
Thanks for keeping us posted.
I ordered two die’s a couple weeks ago and revived them already.
Erik at hollowpointmolds called me last Friday and asked me a couple questions on the 2 cut down Lyman 257420 molds and the cut down .257 NOE mold that I sent him for hollow pointing. The cut down Lyman molds drops pure lead cast bullets at 55.4 grains, the cut down NOE drops pure lead cast bullets at 54.5 grains.
I don’t need a HP for hunting; I want it for the weight reduction. Erik said that the HP Lyman should be around 51 grains and the NOE HP should be around 50 grains.
Erik is going to make my other Lyman mold have a larger meplat and HP. I hope that it comes out around 48 grains or less. I am going to buy a .260” mold from Veral that is based on this .250” mold only with larger driving bands.
http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=58933.0
Veral will cut .060” off of the boat tail and make a 4 cavity mold for me. When I get it, I will send it to Erik for a standard size HP in 2 cavities, the other 2 will have a larger meplat and larger HP installed. I’m hoping to get something that weighs in the 46-47 grain stage for the standard HP and something in the 44-45 grain stage for the larger meplat and bigger HP.
I want to use pure lead with all of the molds. If the barrels don’t like pure lead, I will try 40-1 lead/tin and if that doesn’t work, I will use 20-1 lead/tin. If I have to add tin, the weight of the cast bullets will drop some more.
Monday morning, I am sending my 24” long and 26” long Hart .257” barrels and my 28” long TJ’s .257” barrel to a guy in Canada. He is going to cut the chamber and crown on the 3 barrels.
Sounds like I could have them back in a little over 2 weeks.
The guy that is doing my barrels offers a custom sized chamber reamer for $20. He says that his custom sized reamer cuts the chamber and then it has a 2 degree lead in into the bore. He wanted me to send one of my barrels with one of my cut down Lyman cast bullets pushed into the bore with my Matador’s probe. Doing that will show him how far he needs to cut the chamber before the 2 degree taper starts.
What he does in kind of like what the powder burning guys call a “free bore”. Basically, the probe just pushes the cast bullet into the .259” chamber until it just starts to engage the 2 degree taper. My 3 barrels are called a .257” but; they all measure .25810”-.25840” with my certified accurate to .00005” Mitutoyo digital micrometer. I want a .259” chamber so the cast slugs just ride the chamber as they are being pushed in. I will let the air pressure seat them and not have to force the probe home.
I also ordered a .259” custom reamer from him. He says that the reamer has a generous pilot on it and that it designed for hand turning and it is easy to use. I might need it sometime in the future.
The same guy is threading both ends of my TJ’s 30 cal pellet shooting (.300” groove-.294” bore) 1 in 26” twist hammer forged barrel 14 mm X 1.25 mm pitch and then doing the lead in and crown on it. I want to see how that barrel does on my 30 cal R3 long but: that is another story! 😆
I have around 20 Lee sizing dies but; I don’t have a .259” and a .260”. I’m going to call Lee tomorrow and see if they are selling them again. They were so far behind on orders that they weren’t taking any new ones the last time that I talked to them. If Lee can’t make them for me, I have a guy that can make them, guarantied to your size +-.00005”, for $30 plus $6 shipping.
I hope to be up and shooting in another 3 weeks. I hope!
How are we doing on this project? Anything to share?
Hey Ride. I got an email from Ed and he is going to ship me 2 complete 25 cal R3 single shot breech blocks and cocking handle assemblies from Estonia “soon”.
I returned the email and asked him if I could also have 2 complete 30 cal air valve/regulator assemblies sent also. I haven’t heard back from him yet.
It would be sweet if we both could get the extra parts and not have to modify our stock parts!
Either way; I am going for it!
I have shot my cast pure lead LBT 42 grain slugs out of my Hart .257” barrels at 850 fps. I haven’t opened up the front 25 cal R3 front breech block transfer port OD up to match the transfer port in the 30 cal transfer port: yet.
The Hart barrels have more bore friction than TJ barrel does. I think that the Harts increased bore friction over the TJ barrel has something to due with the Hart cut rifling compared to the TJ hammer forged rifling.
I really think that I can turn the 30 cal regulator up and get the modified 25 cal R3 long Matador with the 30 cal air valve/regulator assembly to shoot a 45-48 grain cast slug at 885 fps using a TJs .257” 1 in 16” twist barrel.
I really think that I will get at least 20 regulated shots, at 885 fps with a 46-48 grain cast pure lead bullet.
I am sending out my 2 cut down Lyman 257420 molds and my cut down NOE .257 mold to Erik at:
http://www.hollowpointmold.com/
I just talked to Erik and he is sure that he can get my current 55 grain molds hollow pointed down to 45-48 grains without hurting the accuracy. Erik also told me that he could supply me with different length hollow point pins that I could easily swap out and I could see what depth and grain weight worked out best.
Knifemaker is also shooting the cut down molds, without the HP mod and: I hate to admit it but, he is shooting the cut down cast slugs very well! 😆
For the last couple of years, I have been trying to come up with a swaged/cast bullet shooting Matador, without much luck. This year is going to be interesting!
Well the problem I mentioned previously in my plan is real enough to have to deal with it head on so here it is and here is my strategy. I don’t have enough experience so I am going on a couple of things Old Goat has already uncovered as fact. He has determined we need at least the flow and volume of the 30 cal valve and the size of the regulated air space to make our cast bullets go !! You already saw a picture of the the reg. air apace increasers I had made but with no extra 30 cal. valves seeming to be available in country even though Tedd is working on it, ” Fingers Crossed ” I have decided to experiment with using my .25 valve in my 30 caliber gun so that this 30 valve can be used in the cast bullet shooter and still have my 30 gun available to splatter pests. I am hoping that since I have tuned on the 30 previously and have a benchmark of 885 fps, 28 shots from 245 bar down to off reg. it will be interesting as I likely have to work with higher reg. pressure settings and a slower flowing valve to see where I can get back to ??? Any guesses ??? I think it may have a chance since Ed suped up the 30 valve and it gives way more performance when asked to than necessary for my set up so maybe the 25 can do the 885, stay tuned, I am going to find out.
Any guesses out there !!! ???
Mike: Please chime in and help keep me on track, I have no issue dealing with critiquing, hell look at the way :hoot: ridicules me :biggrinn: it is good conditioning for a project like this.
I checked it out well and was aware of how the adjustments all worked before starting, I even preloaded it such that it was not dispensable and worked the sealing rod around while leaking an no luck. It is like there was something in it. I think !! it was that i threw my bent skirt pellet collection in the bottom near the valve (8-10) maybe, and as I was watching they seemed to have a higher melting point, by a good bit. My new lead liquefied and flooded around them before they ever even begin deforming and part of them never got to temp but lodged in the valve. As soon as I determined I could not stop it I shut down. I am going to work with it this weekend possibly.
A shame that teathering is’nt allowed in comp here. It IS allowed in Europe and they are on the leading edge of developement in cast bullet shooting for AG Benchrest. Google Drummen Sinner for some eye opening Guns and performance! Too damed high prices though. 🙁
Tedd and I have both milled down our moulds go achieve lighter bullets for our guns. I don’t know how it is comeing along for Tedd, but I am haveing very good results.
If I can be of help, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
PS, hold the handle up and tighten the screw clock-wise to stop the leaking in your bottom pour. 😉
Knife
Dman, I cannot say but I have ran my .30 tube at 250 bar with no regulator leakby, that is all I can say so far. Ed says he tests air tubes to 450 or 600 bar with his equipment and he comments further but I have to go back and find that video or posting, I want to see again what he was saying. I cannot tether in competition but minimizing to 1 or 2 fills would make things possible.
Ride is the Edgun tube rated at 310 bar like the cricket? and will the regulate hold to them pressures? that would really help :2cents:
Yes on bullets, for now I am going with a Lyman .257 that is known to work with this barrel combination. I have already got my molds and casting necessities and have to learn all that too. So far I have heated lead up my bottom pour pot and had a pound run out the bottom as fast as it could melt, I did not realize at first but done all the things I had read and it just kept leaking so I obviously have a little hill to climb on the actual casting side of things. I’ll warn everybody, sometimes I have moments of brilliance and other times I think I am dumber than owl shit. There is more to the lead melting story but I’ll spare myself for now. I am spending a bit of time over over on the cast boolits forums reading. The real challenge sounds like it will be in getting enough air behind it with an Edgun valve arrangement and the shot count with my 389cc ?? air tube.
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Another 257 variant
1mm gas check lenth/base with 4.76mm meplat hollow point. Looks cool too.