Slugged my bore

[292]

I came up with .4285. Not sure about the uneven number of grooves on my M29. Looking to buy some cast boolits and reload some with my new press, then I'll know which mold(s) to buy. Should I buy boolits from y'all or commercially? Keeping it simple is a good thing.

[PacMan]

Will those .4285 fit thru. your cylinder throats? If so you are on go and a .4285 or larger bullet may work fine.
If they will not fit then you will have to open the throats most likely.
But to cover the bases i would check throat dia of all six cylinders and use a bullet with a dia. that will fit tightly in the largest throat. Some like them .001 over throat dia. and i use .0005 to .001 for best results.

[bobthenailer]

I would try several types from members of this fourm . just enter a post in WTB section or bullet swap section.
I have the saeco # 944 200gr wc , #420 200 gr tc , #441 240 gr swc , & rcbs 240 sil gc.
the bullet i use 99% of the time is the #420 200 gr tc
Reading the dia of s&w barrel slug is very tricky ! but what you really want to do is measure your cyl chamber throats with a pin guage or driving a oversized slug through the cyl and measure slug with a micrometer ,but clean the cyl very well before measuring [ not a dial caliper its not accurate enough] after determing cyl throat size size bullets at cyl throat demnsion not bore size .
Ive had 6 s&w 44 mags over the years 4 shot bullets sized at .430 excellent they had 429 to .430 cyl throats, the other 2 had .432 & .433 cyl throats in thoses a bullet sized at .433 was alot more accurate that the ones sized at .430 dia .

[Moonman]

A S&W Model 29, you should check the cylinder chamber sizes. The chambers get the first chance at the bullet alignment and my 29-5 the 6 chambers all MEASURED .433 (Both with a Telescoping Gage/ and Micrometer reading of it and I also verified that with a set of Sized Gage Pins.

I plan on a mold to make larger Boolits and size down to .433/.434.

[williamwaco]

Before you go nuts measuring everything, try it with some .430 bullets.
I have owned and traded well over a dozen M29s over the years and I never saw one tht would not shoot .430 bullets.



.

[Char-Gar]

292.. A couple of thoughts on your question;

1. That .4285 figure is wrong. While early Smith 44s often had .429 grooves, most 29s ran .429-430. Those five groove Smith barrels are tricky to measure.

2. The groove diameters really does not matter anyway as the cylinder throat is the significant number and will most certainly be larger than the barrel groove diameter.

3. Depending on the age of your Model 29, the cylinder throats will run from .430 to .433. Find out what you have.

4. Once you have that number, use bullet the same size plus or minus .001, and you will be happy.. well providing you have a bullet with the right temper and a good lube and the moon phase is correct.

[Moonman]

+1 for the Char-Gar advice, the .430 bullets will shoot but the cylinder sized bullet should shoot even better.[smilie=w:

****S&W with the 5 grooves in barrel makes it hard to measure a barrel slug.:veryconfu

Uneven groove number has no opposite groove to measure over like an even number of grooves would have..[smilie=s:

[mdi]

292.. A couple of thoughts on your question;

1. That .4285 figure is wrong. While early Smith 44s often had .429 grooves, most 29s ran .429-430. Those five groove Smith barrels are tricky to measure.

2. The groove diameters really does not matter anyway as the cylinder throat is the significant number and will most certainly be larger than the barrel groove diameter.

3. Depending on the age of your Model 29, the cylinder throats will run from .430 to .433. Find out what you have.

4. Once you have that number, use bullet the same size plus or minus .001, and you will be happy.. well providing you have a bullet with the right temper and a good lube and the moon phase is correct.

Thanks Char-Gar, my thoughts exactly. My S&W 629 has throats of close to .431" (pin gage) and groove diameter of .429" to mebbe .430". I size/shoot bullets .431" and have no leading probs and my gun is more accurate than me (ww alloy, air cooled, plain based bullets, mostly Lyman 420421)The same "rules" apply to all revolvers of all calibers; size to cylinder throats for best shooting...

[leadman]

Use a thin feeler gauge (.001" or so) and wrap the boolit with it, measure, deduct double the thickness of the feeler gauge.

[jandbn]

Slug the bore, if you haven't already. If that slug slides through each cylinder throat with light thumb pressure and the throats are uniform in size, things should go really well for you. As mentioned, if slugging the throats, use a micrometer, not a caliper.