Cast Bullets & the Scout Rifle

[Kenneth L. Walters]

I'm using cast bullet reloads in my Scout Rifle. What I've found is that overall cartridge length is very important. If the round isn't short the bolt will not close. Clearly the cast bullet is hitting the rifling and causing the problem. But if I use jacketed bullets I can make the cartridge overall length much longer and not experience this problem. Why?

When I've loaded my Ruger 30-06 I don't have this problem. Why?

 

[DeletedMember58]

With a name like yours you should know exactly why!

I suspect the ogive on your cast bullets is larger/different from the jacketed bullets. For a given weight that would not be unusual, and even for different weights that is going to be the case.

 

[Kenneth L. Walters]

That's what I think to but it seems odd to me that Ruger would not have taken that into account when they designed the gun.

The reason I'm having trouble with this is that I would have expected Ruger to avoid this possibility. After all they did avoid it in their 30-06 so why not here?

 

[DeletedMember58]

To avoid it, you have to create a larger/longer neck to bore transition, which is not conducive to accuracy.

 

[Pentz]

This problem has been encountered elsewhere. Use a wide-tip permanent marker to black out your lead boolet AND case neck, then try to chamber. One of two things will happen - you will notice that the fat nose of a bore-riding boolit will be engaging the rifling before the round is fully chambered, or the diameter of the boolit is such that it expands the neck sufficiently to impede final seating of the round.

The fix is to properly size the boolit and use an ogive that does not engage the rifling prior to fully chambering the round. I too had to stumble on the cure myself...