My previous best results were with h4895.
I have a bunch of Shooter's World Tactical Rifle, and I've found at least one mention of it working well with the lee 55gr bullet.
Going to test some loads with that this week if I find the time.
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I'm sure I have a reduced load for 155 gr for BCL-2 that I worked up myself from scratch using Richard Lee's formula. HOWEVER, Lee's formula did NOT work. The resulting load made a big bottle-rocket whooshing sound for a second or two with no detonation. Fortunately, the bullet did launch. I ALMOST dropped BCL-2 right then and there, but eventually decided to make one more try with a heavier charge. THAT one worked and I shot a good many rounds with it. If I recall correctly, I used either exactly the same powder charge with 155 gr as well as 125 or 130 gr (whichever it was), or with a very minor adjustment. However since that one is a total wild hair, maybe I shouldn't be giving it out. The other was, I believe, H4198, and I think it was based on a book load but I don't remember the details including even what book (but Modern Reloading is the most likely suspect). I would suggest, however, that you check Lyman's book on cast bullet loads, the most recent edition. At the time I worked up these loads I didn't have it and now that I have it... its probably out of date... and I've never used it. I have a log of every load and every batch of every load I have ever made, but I can't access it right now. I'll get back with you on this when I can access it. It will be a couple of days.
In my Albanian SKS all of my reduced cast bullet loads cut the MOA of my groups by almost half over Russian commercial ammo at 100 yards. I never fired any of it at a target at more than 100 yards..
NOTE: I may not have tried the H4198 load with 155 gr bullets.
Last edited by WinterSoldier; February 14th, 2021 at 09:31 PM.
"Living life in fear isn't living life at all." ~ Winter Soldier
I have the latest lyman cast bullet book, it doesn't have much in the way of "loads that will cycle" for gas operated guns like ARs and SKSs
I'm also working up a load for the yugo SKS I bought from you, I have the lee 160 grain mold. I'm trying 2400 based on some forums I've read indicating some rifles will cycle with 2400. I have a ton of it and use it for reduced rifle loads in most milsurp cartridges already.
No real reason for it, but 2400 is a powder that I've never used. Just before the implosion, I was looking for some just to have it, but there was none where I looked (Kevins). I use H4198 about the same way you use 2400.
Both of my loads cycle that Albanian perfectly. I've never tried them in any other SKS.
"Living life in fear isn't living life at all." ~ Winter Soldier
Besides cast bullets in the 8mm mauser and .303 british, I use 2400 for .30 carbine. 100 grain lee bullets sized to .309 are more accurate than factory/surplus ammo in my m1.
BW, You've seen this I guess?
https://hodgdon.com/wp-content/uploa...cartridges.pdf
AND
https://hodgdon.com/resources/data-sheets/
5G Motorola Razr
I use 4198 for exactly the same, except for the M1 Carbine, but also for Mannlicher and Mosin Nagant, I believe, and possibly others. . I got an M1 Carbine from CMP and also a M1. I sat and looked at them awhile, one at a time, then sold them. They just didn't sing to me. Dad was a medic in the ETO in WWII... but medics were unarmed. The only gun he ever had his hands on was one night only, somewhere in Germany, he got put on guard duty, with a German Commission Rifle. In dad's case, he wasn't a medic because of aptitude or experience... but because he was about blind as a bat. Anyone he might have shot at with that Commission Rifle would probably have been pretty safe. Other folks... hard to say. Dad was drafted under a classification for "Limited Duty", meaning that he wasn't supposed to be sent outside of CONUS. When he heard the unit had orders for Europe, he asked the first shirt about his limited duty classification. The answer was... "Don't worry. We took care of that." It was, after all, a medical unit. Apparently what one doctor did, another doctor could undo. The irony is that first sergeant was a professional NCO who had been busted many times. Apparently HE didn't want to go... so he got himself busted and dad said the last time he saw the guy he was digging "six bys"... a hole 6' x 6' x 6'. You dig the hole, make it nice and tidy and square, then fill that one in and dig another one. Punitive duty... Dad ended up at the end of the war at Leipzig on the Elbe, deep in what became East Germany... where we met the Roosians. He dealt with Russians exchanging prisoners, sent DPs back to their home countries if they had one, etc. Then he was ordered to Japan, but Japan surrendered while he was waiting to board ship at Marseilles, so he just got shipped home.
"Living life in fear isn't living life at all." ~ Winter Soldier