saeco mold

[canuck4570]

Just bought a Saeco mold 4 cavities and with wheel weight it cast bullets of .314 my quiestion his should I return it or keep it .... I find that sezing .314 to .309 ou .310 his a bit too much.... am I mistaken our right.... thank you....it is a 365 gr... 30 caliber bullets....

[Ricochet]

How are you sizing? Are you lubing before sizing? I was having a terrible time sizing boolits down in Lee push through sizers and actually broke my loading bench doing so before I realized it's really necessary to lube them first. As I've posted before, dipping them in water makes it much easier, and slightly soapy water works great without leaving a messy residue.

Can't speak to the Lyman sizers as I've got little experience. The .45-70 boolit that's long been stuck in my #45 lubrisizer was one of the first ones in it. Got to work on getting it out one of these days. But yeah, it can be a bear to size down a hard boolit with one of them, too.

[canuck4570]

I have a RCBS seizer and work great heaven wiht no lube.... I put the gaz check and seize them then heat threath them and with a biggier seizing die lube them.... in bout ways no problem.....

[MT Gianni]

I would keep it. What will you use it in? If it sizes ok to 310 and works in your 30's it should work great unsized in a 303 or various surplus rifles. the other question is, are you sure of your measuring equipment? Is 365 gr a typo or is this a custom mold? Gianni.

[canuck4570]

MT Gianny.... it is a Seaco mold and my Starret was verified by my son ... he his a machinist at Air Canada...... it seize pretty good in my RCBS seizer but I read that every thousand you seize it is a inche lost in accuracy.... I personnaly dont beleive that ... but I would like some opinion.....

[canuck4570]

forgot .... It will be used in a Tikka super varmint.....top with a Nightforce benchrest scope.... 12x42....

[Bullshop]

canuck45/70
I have been sizing down 45 cal(.459/.460 and 50cal (.512/.515 rifle boolits for use in ML at .504" diameter.
Some of the DWB's have shown me targets producing about 2 MOA. Now if what you said were true and I am sizing down by .009" to .011" then in thier unsized state these boolits should be capable of -7 to -9 MOA. WOW! they would have to shoot a SMG (one hole) then close the hole behind them.
How you size make a differance!
bic/bs

[Buckshot]

...............Losing an inch in accuracy for each thousandth you size down is a myth. First of all an inch per thousanth is too pat an answer to be real. Another untruth is that shooting slugs 'as cast' is always more accurate is another myth. Always and never are words too loosly tossed around.

If your mould drops oval boolits, then what? If your mould drops nicely round slugs at a size you can use then there is no real need to size them. And that being the case, most shooters don't. They'll run them into a lube-size die a thou larger to simplify the lubing process.

If you have a nice round boolit and have to size it down .002" in a co-axial situation there has been no change to the accuracy cast into the boolit other then it is smaller in OD. If on the otherhand you bend the nose off a tad when sizing (for example) a Lyman 311284 you screwed up a boolit that may have shot bugholes. I used that Lyman mould as an example as it has a dirt scraper groove ahead of the drive bands, and I HAVE bent noses when using a hard alloy.

http://www.fototime.com/9DDC9AF2291A561/standard.jpg

This is a target shot with the Lee C311-113F over 8.0grs of Red Dot, fired at 50 yards out of my 1903A1 Springfield. Using WW alloy these drop at .314" and are GC'd and lube-sized .309".

I have a M1909 Argentine Cav Carbine (7.65x53) Iwas having a dickens of a time with. It has a .314" groove which I can deal with. Where the problem lay was with it's bore of .303". Nothing I had at the time would go that fat on the nose. After all these loverly 'Fat 30" moulds came out that's been changed. But at the time I decided to try the Lyman 323470 mould which is a 165gr 8mm. It casts at .325" and I lube sized it to .323" so there was a couple thou. Then I ran the poor cringing thing up through a Lee .314" die. There was another 9 thousandths or so.

As it happened, the much mangled Lyman 8mm shot from the Argentine handily managed 1.5" 50 yard groups without a hiccup. People have sized 7mm cast slugs down to 6.5mm and done as well and that was probably a 0.020" reduction! The point remains that if you HAVE to size, and it's done so as to not cause the boolit to deform (other then OD reduction) you should really see no accuracy issues.

If you cannot use that Saeco mould, I'd call Saeco and find out what they say it should drop slugs at. If your's is outside the norm then call them up and let them know. If they say to send it back then include a couple slugs cast from it, and I'm sure they'll make things right.

.................Buckshot

[Char-Gar]

Canuck... All bullets will be sized to the exact groove diamter of the barrel by the time the bullet has moved it's length down the barrel. It doesn't matter is your bullets are .309 or .311 when you load the ammo, they will be the same size when they travel down the barrel.

Sizing bullets before loading, is all about getting a proper bullet fit to the individual rifle, to have the bullet enter the barrel as straight as possible.

Sizing the bullets before loading only harms accuracy if doing so deforms the bullet in the process. How you size bullets is far more important than how much they are sized.

You will find all sorts of information on the "how to" of bullet sizing on this site. I will only say that in general you are better off with a nose first sizing set up.