Thanks! Just two weeks until rifle season opener in Virginia!

I'll be hunting exclusively in Virginia this year, close to Roanoke, only deer season, as I have to come back to Afghanistan afterward. Yes, I will post a full post-hunt review of the gun and round. I've saved notes from your posts and your PMs, and I plan to get into reloading when I'm back permanently. I've got my eye on a 460 grain hard-cast wide-nose load at about 1600 FPS. Stay tuned!

just a tip or two,
(1) use gas check, cast bullet designs, they consistently provide less bore fouling
(2) use 215 fed primers as they seem to be the most consistent in my testing
(3) size the bullets you cast at .459, sized any smaller and accuracy seems to suffer
(4) if you graph out bullet weight vs velocity , and retained energy at 100 and 200 yards,

you get a curve indicating the 350 grain -420 grain weight is about ideal, in the 45/70 and 450 marlin rifles

all cartridges should be loaded to near max length the magazine can handle for best functional durability/consistency
as the loaded cartridge length must be rather consistent, heavier projectiles take up more of the available powder capacity, one reason projectiles over about 420 grains are not ideal.
http://gaschecks.castpics.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_ id=17


heres a few molds I find work well.
http://www.neihandtools.com/catalog/index.html


the 355 seems to shoot well with most powders


the pointed 405 can be used in the browning BLR box magazine but its marginally less accurate than the 355 grain in my experience, your rifle might be different
BTW I cast my bullets from 95% WW alloy and 5% pure tin, sized and lubed to .459 diam


https://www.midwayusa.com/product/63...nose-gas-check

heres jacketed bullets well documented to work well,in a 450 marlin

https://www.hornady.com/bullets/rifl...nterlock-rn#!/

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/16...ain-soft-point

https://www.speer-ammo.com/bullets/r...-350-fn-bullet

https://www.speer-ammo.com/bullets/r...-400-fn-bullet

IMR 3031 and WW748 , and RL7 powders all work rather well.

https://www.hornady.com/bullets/rifl...nterlock-rn#!/

a great many guys seem fixated on the need for a high velocity flat trajectory rifle and cartridge combo,
theres millions of guys who are convinced that cartridges like a 7mm or 300 mag are required to kill deer.
and yes theres certainly advantages to using those in some areas.
magazines seem to be filled with stories of long range shots.
but Id point out that in 5 decades of hunting elk and mule deer ,
Id bet the average range Ive seen and killed elk and deer would be well under 150 yards.
shots over 250 yards in my experience are rather rare
the reasons simple, most of the photos you see in magazines are taken in national parks or taken ,outside hunting season.
deer and elk, are generally smart enough to stick to areas with cover, (like aspen, conifer or oak brush), once the shooting starts
you find you still hunt or even stand hunt in mixed cover, game tends to travel inside cover.
a skilled hunter should be able to get within 250 -300 yards of game in most of the hunted areas Ive hunted
many of the areas that held game looked similar to these pictures.

When I return stateside next summer, I'm going to invest in reloading and casting equipment. I purchased QuickLoad and have been playing around with the program. I'm thinking of the Accurate Molds design #46-460CG. I want a 460 grain bullet with a wide meplat.



QuickLoad shows a lot of promising options for powders out of my 20" Browning BLR in .450 Marlin:

VihtaVuori N120
95% case fill, 37.54 grains, 1653fps, 2791ft.lbs energy, 38159psi, 100.0% propellant burnt
IMR 4198
96% case fill, 37.35 grains, 1659fps, 2810ft.lbs energy, 38700psi, 98.6% propellant burnt
Alliant Reloder 10x
96% case fill, 39.27 grains, 1647fps, 2772ft.lbs energy, 34587psi, 96.9% propellant burnt
VihtaVuori N130
101% case fill, 40.93 grains, 1658fps, 2808ft.lbs energy, 38508psi, 97.5% propellant burnt
Alliant AR-comp
101% case fill, 42.34 grains, 1650fps, 2780ft.lbs energy, 32631psi, 97.2% propellant burnt

that looks like a good option, but until you get to try it out,
with several different propellants,in your rifle,
you won,t know its true accuracy and consistency potential
casting alloy , used, and the temperature, they get cast at is important, to accuracy

How did the rifle work out? In 7 years you must have had time to kill a few deer with it.

I prefer velocity but will sacrifice speed for energy gained by big slow cartridges. Always drawn to the uncommon so I've landed on a 405 Win wildcat that uses a shorter case formed from 30-40 Krag.
Also like making my own furniture, shown here with walnut accented with boxwood
Had a good search for just the right bullet but finally settled on a Lyman 412263 that drops a 288 gr. bullet
Took a decent buck with it's first shot in the field