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I first started casting bullets in 1954 to feed my new (to me anyway) Smith & Wesson pre-number 38-44 Outdoorsman. That gun sadly was sold off during one of my times of unemployment but I now have a replacement that will never be sold. For those who have never seen a 38/44, it's just a very hot factory loaded .38 Spl. that was the predecessor to the .357 magnum. A pretty potent round in it's own right as I did a number on a 250 pound Black bear with mine.
I've used cast bullets in the 30-30 to take quite a few deer as it's not too difficult to duplicate facory velocity with cast. Mostly I used the Lyman #311291 cast strictly of wheel weights and a smidgon of tin to take 15 deer ovr the years, but lately, I've been playing with the RCBS #30-180-FN which casts a 190 gr. bullet in my alloy. Loaded to about 1900 FPS, it duplicates the old .303 Savage rounds and the two deer I've taken with that bullet were solidly smacked down. A very popular bullet for the 30-30 is the Lyman #31141 noq called #311041 but I have two molds for that bullet and a clone by NEI and none of them shoot worth a damn in my rifle. damned if I know why because most of the people I've talked with on cast bullet sites all say they have great results using that bullet.
Currently I cast bullets for cartridges running from the .22 Hornet to the 45-70 andquite a few in between although my favorite cast bullet gun is a Winchester M70 Youth Ranger in .308 Win. I won in a raffle and restocked with a Ramline so it would fit me. On a fairly calm day, I can get 1.5 to 2.0 MOA groups from the bench at 200 yards. If it get windy though, I'm lucky to hit the paper.
I figure I'll cast bullets until I either no longer have the strength to lift a mold or a dipper or I drop dead, whichever comes first.
Paul B.
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