Below is something I picked off another forum that might be useful to someone with lots of wheel weight lead.
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I use cast bullets in just about everything. The only exception is when I'm elk hunting and deer hunting at longer ranges. But even when deer hunting I keep a cast hollow-point in the chamber for shots at 100 yds. and less. Kill 2 of my 3 deer with cast last year.
I also shoot High Power matches with cast bullets and this month began shooting Military Bolt Action Rifle benchrest matches using cast. So, to answer your questions:
You should use a gas check in just about every case. The only exception is bullets that aren't designed for gas checks and bullets that ARE designed for gas check but run at low velocities as in not over about 1200 fps or so.
A .30 caliber gas check should work on any .30 caliber bullet. I use them on all types of .30 caliber bullets from the "standard" ones sized .309" for my 308 and 30-06 all the way up to the bullet designed for my .303's which are sized in the .316" to .317" range.
Regarding mould quality, like anything else, you get what you pay for. That's not to say that you won't find a really good Lee mould or a really crappy RCBS or Lyman mould. Both Lyman and Lee (and I assume RCBS) make a mould specifically for the 7.62x39. Personally, I prefer Lyman over RCBS because they are a little less expensive yet seem to be good quality. I have dozens of Lyman moulds and they're all really good moulds probably bested only by custom moulds.
Wheelweights (WW's) are the ONLY alloy I use to cast and I've run my wheelweight bullets up to a hair over 2000 fps in my 03A3. Drop the bullets straight from the mould into a 5 gallon bucket of water and they'll harden to about the same hardness as linotype according to my hardness tester.
All cast bullets need to be lubed. Some need to be sized, some don't. I lube all of my bullets with my RCBS Lubrisizer using an oversized die, then if needed I size the bullets using Lee push through sizers in my loading press. I wouldn't be without the Lee sizers.
Probably the powder you're thinking of is Alliant (formerly Hercules) 2400. It's a very, very good powder for .30 caliber rifles; especially the .303, 308, 30-06, 7.5x55, 7.62x54r and other similar capacity cases(NOT the smaller 7.62x39 though). Around 16.0 grs. with bullets from 150 - 200 grs. in any of these cases is a good place to start. Ditto for 13.0 grs. of Red Dot. My High Power match load uses 6.7 grs. of Bullseye and a 155 gr. plain base bullet. This load is very accurate and has almost no recoil.
The beauty of these powders and a few others is that they're relatively position insensitive. This means you don't need to raise your barrel between shots in order to position the powder next to the primer.
Here: <http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=13425> is a fantastic article on cast bullets in military rifles. While you're at the Cast Boolit website, talk to those guys. Those are the most helpful bunch of guys you'd ever want to meet.
Don't get all worried about messy, leaded up bores. It just really doesn't happen. The High Power matches I shoot require 80 rounds fired plus sighters. All I do is once during the match, usually about half way through, is pull a bore snake through to get the powder fouling out. Properly cast, lubed, sized and loaded bullets fired through a relatively smooth barrel won't leave much if any leading.
Don't forget: you really need to slug the bores of your rifles so you'll know what diameter to size your bullets to.
35W
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I use cast bullets in just about everything. The only exception is when I'm elk hunting and deer hunting at longer ranges. But even when deer hunting I keep a cast hollow-point in the chamber for shots at 100 yds. and less. Kill 2 of my 3 deer with cast last year.
I also shoot High Power matches with cast bullets and this month began shooting Military Bolt Action Rifle benchrest matches using cast. So, to answer your questions:
You should use a gas check in just about every case. The only exception is bullets that aren't designed for gas checks and bullets that ARE designed for gas check but run at low velocities as in not over about 1200 fps or so.
A .30 caliber gas check should work on any .30 caliber bullet. I use them on all types of .30 caliber bullets from the "standard" ones sized .309" for my 308 and 30-06 all the way up to the bullet designed for my .303's which are sized in the .316" to .317" range.
Regarding mould quality, like anything else, you get what you pay for. That's not to say that you won't find a really good Lee mould or a really crappy RCBS or Lyman mould. Both Lyman and Lee (and I assume RCBS) make a mould specifically for the 7.62x39. Personally, I prefer Lyman over RCBS because they are a little less expensive yet seem to be good quality. I have dozens of Lyman moulds and they're all really good moulds probably bested only by custom moulds.
Wheelweights (WW's) are the ONLY alloy I use to cast and I've run my wheelweight bullets up to a hair over 2000 fps in my 03A3. Drop the bullets straight from the mould into a 5 gallon bucket of water and they'll harden to about the same hardness as linotype according to my hardness tester.
All cast bullets need to be lubed. Some need to be sized, some don't. I lube all of my bullets with my RCBS Lubrisizer using an oversized die, then if needed I size the bullets using Lee push through sizers in my loading press. I wouldn't be without the Lee sizers.
Probably the powder you're thinking of is Alliant (formerly Hercules) 2400. It's a very, very good powder for .30 caliber rifles; especially the .303, 308, 30-06, 7.5x55, 7.62x54r and other similar capacity cases(NOT the smaller 7.62x39 though). Around 16.0 grs. with bullets from 150 - 200 grs. in any of these cases is a good place to start. Ditto for 13.0 grs. of Red Dot. My High Power match load uses 6.7 grs. of Bullseye and a 155 gr. plain base bullet. This load is very accurate and has almost no recoil.
The beauty of these powders and a few others is that they're relatively position insensitive. This means you don't need to raise your barrel between shots in order to position the powder next to the primer.
Here: <http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=13425> is a fantastic article on cast bullets in military rifles. While you're at the Cast Boolit website, talk to those guys. Those are the most helpful bunch of guys you'd ever want to meet.
Don't get all worried about messy, leaded up bores. It just really doesn't happen. The High Power matches I shoot require 80 rounds fired plus sighters. All I do is once during the match, usually about half way through, is pull a bore snake through to get the powder fouling out. Properly cast, lubed, sized and loaded bullets fired through a relatively smooth barrel won't leave much if any leading.
Don't forget: you really need to slug the bores of your rifles so you'll know what diameter to size your bullets to.
35W
