cogitating, etc. The more I dig the more intrigued I am.

I've got an email off to Veral Smith of LBT about cast pellets. Didn't know he did that kind of work too. There's a guy or three on the Gateway to Airguns forum that use his molds in their Korean air rifles. Seems like they are shooting 50 +/- grain LBT slugs out of their 25 calibers.

The function of the lube grooves would be to reduce friction more than anything. It sounds like they are using .251" pure lead projectiles in their Sumatra rifles/carbines. My interest is in the Benjamin Marauder and I've not been able to find much about using cast in them. Don't know if they have the same choked barrel set up or not. I'm thinking that a bore diameter nose with a groove diameter reasonably thin skirt should be a good ticket towards accuracy in these guns - but it's just speculation at this point.

I've considered a design (need to draw it out) that would essentially be a bore diameter drill bit drilled nearly through a set of mold blocks. This would give a nose pour bullet. A groove diameter bit would follow it to allow for a pin setup to adjust length of skirt and possibly a hollow base. You'd end up with a flat round nose profile cup shape pellet with a short skirt at the base. If I had a decent drill press setup I'd take a shot at making one myself.

about a 50-57 grain bullet out of the Korean Sumatra 2500. Veral Smith (of all people) has produced some molds for them. So far I've not gotten any feed back from him via email. I'm starting to gravitate more and more towards the Sumatra. About 16 shots at good velocity with the heavy pellets, quarter sized groups at 70 yards. You can dial down the velocity or take it up to full power, it sounds very versatile. Now to see if I can thin the air gun herd here so that I'll have the $$$ necessary for the project. Kind of funny that I might end up with both a lever rifle and an LBT mold down here. The investigation goes on, but things are starting to take shape in my mind. Ranch Dog did a group buy on a 25 acp mold a while back, I wonder what the lube groove diameter might be on them and if they'd bear sizing down to .251 or .250. May have to drop him a note on that, it might be a cheaper route than the LBT, and Veral's not been too anxious to get back to me on it.

after market barrel. Some of the guys are getting good results with solids in the 50+ grain range. Shot count per fill goes down, FPE goes up. In many ways the air rifles are even more interesting than cartridge guns. They can be quite finicky, but taking game at extended ranges with them is a real accomplishment.

At this point in time I'm digging for info. Time will tell which way we go. The Korean rifles seem to handle the heavies much better, even with factory barrels. Cost is quite reasonable as well. They are, however, ugly as a gold plated Roxio, well the Sumatras and EunJins are anyway. The Evanix is at least reasonably acceptable (to my eye) but haven't found anyone shooting heavies out of them yet.