Commercial Casting Quesiton? Size availability.

[kcinnick]

I am fairly new to casting, been collecting for a while, but haven't done much casting.

Anyway, I am curious to why almost all of the commercial bullets available are "undersized". Most everyone I know recommends .357 or .358 bullets for 9mm, yet almost every commercial caster has .356 bullets available. It is the same for all calibers, with very few offering .001 or .002 "oversized" bullets.

I have never seen a 9mm not chamber a .357 bullet, well I haven't seen one not chamber a .358 bullet for that matter, so why wouldn't they size properly to prevent leading?

[Moonie]

They size to what sells, market driven. Most people that purchase cast boolits do not know what size they really need but know enough physics to know bigger bullets are bad without realizing bigger boolits are good.

[ku4hx]

Check the Lyman manuals and you'll see many of their cast bullets are sized to .001" over "standard" jacketed diameter. I have no idea if this has any real influence, but Lyman has been the business for a long time.

All the jacketed 9mm bullets I have are/were advertised at .355". .356" is therefore .001" over standard. Same for 40cal/10mm. Of course there are exceptions.

But you have to remember, the commercial casters are in the business to make a profit. If they don't make money they go out of business eventually. That's not to say they don't have the shooter's best interest in mind, just that standardization keeps costs down.

[kcinnick]

I guess I thought it was more mainstream to go with .357 for 9mm than .356, same with other calibers. I haven't tried smaller, I guess I have always read going bigger seals better and prevents leading more so than hardness or lube used.

[Danderdude]

Advertised sizing generally means MINIMUM sizes, with a small margin of error of +.0005 to +.0015.

[sqlbullet]

They size to what sells, market driven.

This.

I have sold scrap isotope lead to several commercial casters. I had a conversation one day about lube with one of them.

He and I both favored a softer lube like Felix lube for our personal use. And, when they started casting, the sold what they used and liked personally. And they had LOTS of gripes and complaints. Not about how the boolits shot, but about how messy they were to handle.

So, they switched to a hard lube. In his opinion it was not as good a product, but it was either a less ideal lube or go out of business. The hard lube they have works OK. And he admits that he is lazy and generally just grabs a box off the shelf rather than take the time to lube/size with his choice of lube. But, if he didn't have boxes of lubed boolits handy, he would choose a softer lube.

So, as others have said, it really is driven by the market.

[williamwaco]

I am fairly new to casting, been collecting for a while, but haven't done much casting.

Anyway, I am curious to why almost all of the commercial bullets available are "undersized". Most everyone I know recommends .357 or .358 bullets for 9mm, yet almost every commercial caster has .356 bullets available. It is the same for all calibers, with very few offering .001 or .002 "oversized" bullets.

I have never seen a 9mm not chamber a .357 bullet, well I haven't seen one not chamber a .358 bullet for that matter, so why wouldn't they size properly to prevent leading?

I have a little different idea here.

I think it is because EVERYONE KNOWS that the 9mm has a .355 bore. And EVERYONE KNOWS that a cast bullet MUST be .001 over bore size to work correctly.

About a year ago, I bought a package of 100 Remington 115 grain jacketed 9mm bullets just for loading up some "lead cleaning" rounds. Guess what? They miked .3545. Not only would they not scrape leading out of my 9mm bores, they kinda patterned like #8 bird shot - like 18 inch groups at 25 yards. That is approximately full choke.

I currently own four 9mms. two Kimbers, a S&W and a Browning.
They all mike .3565 to .3570 and none of them will shoot with .356 bullets.

Please excuse the rant.

.