When to size

[youngda9]

I know that bullets harden over time after casting. I'm casting with straight WW. Should I wait a couple weeks prior to sizing, or size right away?

I'm not sure if it really matters. Do boolits shrink or expand as they are hardening at all? If so then this would mean that I should wait to size em.

[1bluehorse]

Right or wrong, I don't know, but I generally size and lube mine a day or two after casting. I figure the longer I wait the harder the bullet becomes (to a point) and the harder it is to size. Harder on luberasizer and sizing die and me...another point for me is, I only cast when I'm running low (or out) so I do a bunch at one sitting and get every thing done as soon as possible. Works o.k. for me, but I'm far from being an expert..

[plainsman456]

I waited 2 months to size some wc hard lead I cast with a hard alloy.
Almost broke the sizer handle,now I try to get it done in 3 or 4 days after casting.

[runfiverun]

if working with a harder alloy or waterdropped i like to size within a day or two.
often times casting on saturday and sizing on sunday.
for aircooled ww's and such i just cast away, throw them in 5 or 7 gallon buckets and then size when i need more.
many of the water dropped gets sized at a later date also, they are just getting a gas check and scuffed in the sizer so don't take much effort.
this wasn't a happy coincidence i ordered the sizer to do this.

[youngda9]

Thanks for the feedback.

[Iron Mike Golf]

It also depends on how much sizing you're doing. My 44s just kiss the die in a few spots for maybe .0005 or less of sizing, so I don't wory about timing on my water dropped boolits.

[41 mag fan]

I've got some .502's I cast back in Sept...Oct?? Tried sizing them down 3 weekends ago....almost impossible...they hardened up more than I was thinking they would.
I wont wait that long from now on.

[Char-Gar]

With straight WW is does not matter when you size. Some years back, I did hardness testing on the bullet alloys I use (ACWW straight and with various amounts of tin and Lyman #2) at one week intervals for three months. There was some hardening, but nothing to make an issue about.

Water dropers may have some issues, but I don't do that.

[mpmarty]

I size my boolits when I shoot them. the barrel is the sizer.

[williamwaco]

Two things:

Bullet hardness changes slightly for about six weeks then settles down.

BUT.
In my testing, if you size them soon after casting, the hardness change is so small as to be irrelevant.

Bullets do not expand or contract after the initial cooling. I read about this all the time and I have done thousands of measurement trying to see this effect. It simply does not happen.

See:

http://www.reloadingtips.com/pages/exp_110921a-cast-bullet-expand.htm

for results for the first 87 days.

This test is now going on six months and there has still been no change in either diameter or length of any of the bullets.

I also have some bullets I cast in May 1972. They measure exactly the same today as they did then.



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[leftiye]

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