Time to cast,

[Distant Thunder]

I had time today to dig up the CAD drawing for what I call my Lodi bullet, mold #EPP 4. This is the bullet I have used in my .45-90 at 1.460" long and more recently at 1.435" long in my .45-70. I believe that every Creedmoor match I have won at Lodi with the exception of the 1st one in 2009 was won using this bullet or the earlier mold, #EPP 3, which casts an identical bullet to this one.

The nose profile is an elliptical identical to the prolate mold I cut for Brent Danielson, but I modified mine by capping the tip with a .125" radius and lengthening the shank a little. I originally modified the design in part to increase the weight in a length that would work in my 18-twist barrels, but it also improves the transonic performance. When I shortened it for my .45-70 and the lower velocity, 1296 fps, compared to my .45-90, 1423 fps, I had to give up the extra shank length it had, that did not seem to hurt the performance any. I much prefer the nose be 40 to 43% of the OAL and this bullet ended up at 49%, but it works anyway.

The only way I know to describe the ellipse that I used for this bullet, and Brent's prolate, is with a major and minor axis and that is 1.500" x .442". The other way I could describe it would be with a diameter and an angle, but that doesn't seem to apply here in my mind. Brent called this form a 411 prolate, but I do not know what that means.

The only difference between a prolate and an ellipse is the prolate refers to the 3-D form and ellipse refers to the 2-D form.