Casting for .223/5.56

IMO it isn't worth the effort.

I am going to lurk here to see what the wise ones say. I have had many of the same questions but I was always concerned about non-jacketed bullets at fairly high velocities. Then I looked into acquiring bullet swaging equipment (until I saw the price)

There's a caster here who does them.

I tried them, (his ) and they worked.

Not as accurate as jacketed in my M4- but certainly more accurate than any 7.62x39 semiauto variant "I" have ever held.

They were gas checked.

If I could have changed one thing, I would have used a very hard fast lube- not a soft fast lube- but the bullets still fired fine. Bout 23-2400 FPS by the book ( but this was before I had my chrony, so its just a math estimate- nothing more.

Very little/no leading- the GC took care of that. There was a little lead and lube residue in my gas tube.

I cast for 223 and mine seem to work fine, like blarby said, not overly accurate but cheap easy and fun, kinda like Vegas but you don't have to worry about what can come home with you

I bought my mold from in NOE. It is a RCBS clone. 225-55, with gas check and lube the bullet comes out to about 60 grains but it feeds and loads just fine and shoots about as well as can be expected for a cast bullet. I don't have any ledding issues with this but I don't push the bullet very hard either. When I first got into Casting I bought some inexpensive Lee molds and they work just fine. But now the only molds I buy are from Accurate and NOE.

Yes I use a Luber Sizer

DZ, 11/11/13

I cast and reload for a number of pistol, rifle and shotgun calibers including the .223/556 for my LMT-1:7 twist AR carbine.

Cost-wise it's lot cheaper than buying during the recent great hoarding times- 0.4 cents for each boolit cast. Time-wise it's a lot of work. The specifics are as follows.

Boolit mold is the NOE 70 grain dropping alloy at 72 grains (2.2% antimony, 0.4% tin and the rest lead which approximates many present wheel weight alloys). After culling the rejects I size and gas check them on a Lee push-through sizer and then heat treat them to 465 degrees for 60 minutes and water drop into 70 degree tap water giving me a BHN of 16 (vs. 8-9 prior to heat treating). Then I pan lube in small bread-tins from KMart which hold about 36 boolits per tin. I pour the lube in till it just covers the lube grooves, then let it sit for about 20 minutes when the lube starts to gel. Then it's into the freezer for 20 minutes and then I use a cookie-cutter to pull them from the lube and stand them upright on a tray covered with a paper towel. This way I get no lube on my hands.

They air dry for a day or more then I load them into the cases. The cases must be trimmed so they're all the same length as they will be run through a Lyman m-dye which slightly enlarges the neck and puts a slight flair into the mouth so the boolit is not swaged smaller with boolit-seating.

I used 4064 powder as it was all I had and could not get more. It drops well if you give a bit of a pause at the top of the powder-drop stage. I also clean the inside-necks of any leftover lube so the dropped powder doesn't plug up inside the neck and spill over the shell plate. The inside necks must be chamferred to prevent peeling of the boolit as it is seated in the case.

You have to figure out what COAL loads best into your AR. I started with the longest that would fit into the magazine (20 round Brownells GI mags and PMags) 2.250" but would get severe boolit nose "dinging" when chambering. I loaded them progressively shorter till 2.190" fed with almost no nose damage.

You also have to figure out what powder load works best for you. When chrono-ing I would get decreased accuracy at velocities over 2000 ft/sec and the nose would spin off the bases at 2200 ft/second. At speeds of 1950 I get good accuracy- 2.4 MOA. One other problem was the action short-stroking at the lower velocity cast-boolit loads compared to the FMJ speeds. A Wolf reduced power buffer spring from Brownells solved that problem.

I've got about 800 rounds of cast lead boolits through my LMT now with no issues. No leading of the chamber, barrel or bolt/carrier. It's boringly reliable now.

To be honest now that FMJ bullets are appearing at reasonable prices I've switched my Dillon 650 back over to the store bought variety (I just ordered 4000 55 grain jacketed bullets from Grafs for 9 cents each including shipping). So at least for the present I'll put the lead cast-boolits in .223/556 on the back burner. Good luck.

best wishes- oldandslow

PS- you can get harder boolits by increasing the antimony content but it also makes them brittle. Adding copper can make them a bit tougher (resistant to fragmenting) but I did not get enough benefit to justify the time and expense.

This is a perfect use for the dip, dry, and bake lube that bayou bullets is selling.

http://www.bayoubullets.net/Coating.html

I bought the Bator mould from Mid South last year. Haven't tried it yet, had other projects. For plinking, this is probably the way to go...

DZ, 11/12/13

Glad I could be of help. And if you're starting a medical residency you definitely won't have any free time for casting (I finished mine in 1985 at the County Hospital in Phoenix). Good luck.

Best wishes- oldandslow

Granted it is a fair amount of work (but you cut off other steps of lead), but have you looked into the swagging dies that turn spent 22 cases into jackets for either FMJ or SP round that you then fill with lead? Bit pricey to start with but the 22 cases are stupidly easy to collect at a range and you hardly have to use any lead.

I ventured briefly into this and was using a flat point bullet, which did NOT cycle well in an AR. The ones that did make it into the barrel were skint up pretty bad. Not being that interested in casting anyway, I didn't try to improve upon it. IMO the cast bullets are best left to the bolt and single shot guns. YMMV

If you want to fill your gas tube with lead, why don't you just buy a .22 conversion kit? It will cost you a lot less in the end and you will be getting just a bit less velocity. You just won't get as heavy of a bullet. You can get some hyper velocity 22lr stuff that will shoot pretty dang well at 100 yards. And it won't take a bunch of work and money to do it.

I am glad to have found this thread. I am thinking about casting .223 bullets to use in my .223/20 ga. over under. I plan on using it for small game hunting so I would load them to .22 lr to .22 mag velocity. Then I could also carry full power .223 loads for what ever might require it. I have searched for molds but have had no luck so far.

Have you looked at NOE's web site?

I think what it comes down to is whether not you enjoy Casting. if you enjoy Casting you will figure out how to make it work as old and slow pointed out there's more to it than just melting lead into a mold and seating it into a bullet case there's some trial and error and some science to it.

If you enjoy it and take the time to figure it out you will be able to produce some quality ammo that is inexpensive and fun to play with.

Here is the mold I use. http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/produc...ucts_id=301&osCsid=3le0fq0ioghl70so034lp57ua2

Again if you like casting you won't have a problem figuring out your lead alloy and powder combo so that you get something fairly accurate that does not lead your barrel or gas tube.

There are many casters over at Cast Boolits who report good results in the .223...specifically INCLUDING the AR-15 type semi-auto rifles.

The subject is very active, and I've seen posts about it just in the last few days.

Go to the "CB Loads/ Military Rifles" forum at Cast Boolits and see what you find for the .223/5.56 with cast bullets. There are many pages of threads there, and some directly address the topic.

www.castboolits.gunloads.com