WOODTICK49

question for anyone who has ever shot Lee REAL's.What Twist rate did they perform best in?
I am going to cast some when/if the weather ever cools of around here.

cayugad

Well I shot them out of my Whites with pretty good accuracy but I could not push them very hard. Also they shot well out of my .54 caliber Renegade and my friends Hawkins. In fact that is all he will hunt with. Although I found that after 75 yards, the accuracy really fell off bad. But where we hunt, 50 yards was a long shot. I also shot them out of my CVA Staghorn Magnum with good results. So I would have to say 1-24, 1-28, and 1-48 seemed to work pretty good for me. I cast them for both the .50 and .54 caliber rifles in both sizes. The slower the twist, the lighter the REAL.

DDMPrecision

I got the REAL mold for my CVA .50 wolf, but was a little hesitant to push so hard on the bullet to cram it down into the bore...
I used tire weights for the lead...
Suggestions?

cayugad

I cast mine out of pure lead. And granted when you first start them they do seem to go down hard. But I put a good solid lube on them, and once I get them started they go down pretty good. REAL means, Rifling Engaged At Loading. So what your feeling is the bullet cutting into the rifling. I am guessing that because you use wheel weights that can be as hard as a 15 BHN where lead is a 4-6 BHN (Brinell Hardness Number) your fighting the rifling more then I am. Try using some pure lead next time you cast them. Although if wheel weights is all you have, you might have to size them.

Semisane

You really want to cast REALs with soft lead DDM. It's pretty difficult to cut the rifling into the top two bands if you use something hard like wheel weights. Also, you want the charge to upset the bullet into the grooves. That's better done with soft stuff.

EDIT: Forgot to mention rate of twist.

Just for grins and giggles, a while back I shot a 50 yard target with REALs out of my 1:70 twist Green Mountain barreled Renegade. That slow twist did better than I expected. You will see from my notes that two of the bullets did not fit the bore well.

(The notes say Bullet #1 slipped down the bore without cutting on the lands, and Bullet #3 cut only the top band.)

Screwbolts

Lee REAL molds in 50 caliber used to be available in 2 different weights. 250 gr and 320s. maybe I misread the first post but I don't recall reading what REAL you are asking about. The 250s were best in slow twists and the 320s will shot best up to 1x48 and as Semi points out, will do well in others also. Also I totaly agree about needing pure lead!!!!!!! They have such a small meplat that with out expansion they will loss a lot of defectiveness. I have shoot thousands of them, both in 250 and 320. basically wore a Wolf barrel out with them both sizes, over 2000 were shot before accracy went south, kept shortening the barrel to get fresh crown and remove worn muzzle, worn from loading.

WOODTICK49

sorry I didn't specify which molds I was using.50 cal is 320gr and the 54 cal is 380gr.my neighbor is a roofer,so all I have is pure lead.I wouldn't use wheel weight for a muzzle loader bullet .Thanks guys. good info as always.

lemoyne

They can be made to work in a lot of twists, if you do the math and experiment a bit you may come to the same conclusion I did as I had the best luck in a 1-38 twist with 90 gr [the most I use with a pure lead bullet].

cayugad

I tried them in my 1-32 twist rifles and while they shot OK.. I really could not find the powder charge that they wanted. Although I was shooting 60 grains of Goex 2f out of a cap lock. The REAL was showing a lot of promise then all of a sudden I would get a flier way out of the group. At the time, I was new to rifle, and its trigger could be better.

My friend with the T/C Hawkins 1-48 twist in .54 caliber shoots my 300 grain and he only loads 65 or 70 grains of Pyrodex RS. He has knocked deer flat with that load. He took a big buck late one afternoon and put that REAL into him and you'd thought he hit it with a dump truck. What a wound channel that thing made.

Also if you read the papers that come with the mold, some of the suggested charges might surprise you at how low, the manufacturer suggests for the powder charge. But them low charges really seem to work.

WOODTICK49

cayugad
What kind of lube did you use on your REAL's?