Lee C430 310 RF

[357cyrus]

I've been eyeing up this mold ever since I discovered how much fun it is to shoot subsonic "cat sneeze" loads from my CVA stainless stalker in 444 Marlin. Well good things come to those who wait, and I found a double cavity mold on midway for $18 and change, and yesterday it made it to my front door. I still have to get a sizing die but I should have one in short order.

When I started reloading I never thought I'd have any interest in casting my own bullets. I guess I just had that idea that fast flat shooting bullets were the cats meow, and slow moving hunks of lead dropped like rocks and wouldnt produce the trauma that I wanted. Well over the years with experiences of my own and countless hours, days, months etc reading through forums like this I've come to realize just how much authority a big ol' meplat has on critters at subsonic velocities, and with a mil-dot scope, how far you can actually carry that speed. I do believe this rifle and bullet combo loaded down to match the velocity of a revolver in 44 special or 45 Colt will be the perfect match to teach my kids to hunt deer. Recoil on par with a 223, minimal noise, and plenty of smack down at bow ranges.

Do any of you guys have any on game experience with this bullet?

[Ranch Dog]

It is the bullet I started with but it was too under diameter for use in my Marlin 444T which needs a .432" bullet. My mold, a two cavity as well, did drop .430 bullets with wheel weights and tin. This design is the basis of my 250, 275, 300, and 355-grain 444 Marlin bullet designs.

I shot it with some minimum load of Unique until my first group buy of molds arrived and even hunted with it but lost the first hog that I shot with it and the Unique so I shelved it.

I do think it is a good bullet and if the delivered diameter is what you need and I have read of this mold design delivering from .429" to .433" depending on alloy and the luck of the cut the day the mold blocks were cut. Lee has tightened their production in the last 15 years so it will probably be pretty close to the .429" with wheel weights. What groove diameter is the Stalker?

[62chevy]

That looks like one mean hitting bullet but if it drops to small for your needs you can always try beagling and then maybe lapping the mold. If that fails it was only 20 bucks and maybe Swede Nealson can make you one for about 80 bucks.

[357cyrus]

. What groove diameter is the Stalker?

Well I had to go dig through some old posts to get the specific number, but RD I do remember you raised some concern when I slugged that gun for the first time and got a reading of .428". I appreciate the heads up, and slugged it a couple weeks ago for a 2nd time. Its still the only gun I've ever slugged the barrel on so Im not real confident, but I still believe it's somewhere between .428 and .429. The first time I used a .45 cal round ball and wasn't happy that the bearing surface i had to measure was rather small. The 2nd time I used one of my cast 480ruger bullets... And was able to take as many measurements as I wanted LOL. So anyway, I'll pour a few and hope to see .430 or better so I can size down to .430.

[357cyrus]

That looks like one mean hitting bullet but if it drops to small for your needs you can always try beagling and then maybe lapping the mold. If that fails it was only 20 bucks and maybe Swede Nealson can make you one for about 80 bucks.

Yeah, at that price, I'm not afraid to try a few things if I have to. I've wasted $20 in worse ways for sure!

[357cyrus]

I water quenched them and they ended up being just a frog hair over .430. Got lucky there. Sized them to .430 and got nice shiny driving bands. I had 54 total and put gas checks on half of them. The ones without will be for subsonic. The ones with gas checks I'll rev up and see what they'll do.

For the alloy I wanted to use something repeatable. I had almost a full bag of West Coast #8 Magnum shot laying around. I found that the company claims it's antimony content is 4-6%. I figured 5%. I used an alloy calculator and found that if I used 1000 ounces of the #8 shot, and added 5 ounces of pure tin i would end up 90.5% lead, 4.8% tin, and 4.8% antimony. Thats pretty darned close to Lyman #2 (90/5/5). I'll get a weight of the bullets tomorrow after the alox dries

[Ohio3Wheels]

Sounds like you're on track. You might want to try the maus phart loads with and without the gas checks. Leaving the gas check off will allow gas cutting even in light loads.

Make smoke,

[357cyrus]

I ended up finding a good load with h322. About two grains under what QuickLoad states should be a maximum charge. Still gets 2100 FPS at the muzzle... Which is OK by me! Just to give a comparison .... If you shoot a target w/ a full throttle 44 mag handgun, you could back up 250 yards with this 444 marlin load and put the same amount of energy on target. It really gets my goat when people say the 444 is only good inside 200 yards!

[Ranch Dog]

If you shoot a target w/ a full throttle 44 mag handgun, you could back up 250 yards with this 444 marlin load and put the same amount of energy on target. It really gets my goat when people say the 444 is only good inside 200 yards!

Yeap, quite a pumpkin chunker! I've shot a couple of desert mule deer closer to 300 yards than they are to 200. Both dropped like a rock, didn't even twitch.

I have NOE's mold database and looked but didn't find the Lee clone. That surprised me, I thought someone would have suggested it but he does have a lot of other offerings from .430 through .434 in that weight range.

[mikld]

Notices 2 crimp grooves. Which groove are you fellers using? I'm thinking about some heavier bullets for my .44 Magnums (3 revolvers, one Contender, one Puma)...