Sizing Boolits

[terryt]

Hi:

Has anyone shot boolits that were not sized and then shot boolits that weresized. Both boolits having been lubed. Same batch of brass, same primersand powder type and same charge. Was there any difference in accuracy?


I was at the range last week and I was talking to a fellow who said he hasnot sized but does tumble lube's his boolits. He said he slugled thebarrel and ordered a mold to fit the barrel. He said he found no difference in accuracybetween the sized and unsized boolits.

He now does this for all of his guns now.
He was shooting a Model 94 at 100 yards with opensights and his groups were 2-3 inches with open sights.

I always thought accuracy went down if you did not size.

Thanks,

Terryt

[cs86]

I wouldn't of thought it would make much difference with pistol rounds. I size to make sure I don't have a fat boolit that causes problems by not chambering.

[fcvan]

30 years ago is started reloading for what was a caliber new to me, 9mm. Dad taught me to reload 40 years ago and we were casting/shooting .38, .357, and 41 mag. Dad had SAECO equipment, molds, lubrisizer etc. I bought Lee equipment, pan lubed, and used their old style push through sizer. I bought the .356 die because I bought into the '1 thousandth over for cast' hype. As you might guess, the S&W 459 left some lead and was not very accurate.

The mold was/is (still using it after over 500k cast) and drops at .3585 consistently. I started loading as-cast only crimping enough to remove the bell of the case mouth. I figured the case might be resizing the boolit so I pulled a few, and was still .358 diameter. Oh, I only expand enough for the boolit to fit the mouth. After checking the rounds in the chamber, I loaded up a box and headed to shoot. Tac driver, zero leading. Every 9mm I have owned since likes them fat.

When I bought a Lyman 450, I picked up the .358 die for it and it worked great. A couple years ago, I tried sizing at .357 and got horrible key holing so I traded off that die. Since I started powder coating a couple years ago and the Lyman sits idle having transitioned to Lee push-through dies.

i know the original question was concerning shooting as cast or sized. My point is that the way you adjust your dies can effect the boolit size and concentricity. If your dies are set up to 'size down' a bit, and you have some undersized boolits, you will have issues with case mouth tension which will effect pressure and extreme spread. That will definitely have an effect on accuracy. It won't show much at normal pistol ranges but really appears at greater ranges.

I regularly shoot my Glocks (22, 23, both with 40 and 9mm barrels) at a 6" plate at 100 yards. If I do my part at the reloading bench and the firing line, hits are regular. Add one variable like inconsistent sizing and you can forget long range hand gunning.

[scottfire1957]

Well, if you order a mould that fits your barrel with your alloy, why would you size? He did his homework on his guns, and for him, it worked.

If a boolit fits without sizing, why would you size it?

[fcvan]

Ordering a mold to fit and the mold actually casting at that size isn't a guaranteed deal. Some molds come that cast slightly out of round, and granted some sizing dies to. I can vary the size of a boolit by changing the alloy, the temp of the alloy, the speed of the casting and the distance of the sprue plate from the bottom pour spigot. Get into pressure casting and there will also be changes. Most molds are close enough and the loading process can bring things to a standard repeatable size without sizing. Currently, I am working with known projectiles and ASBBDT powder coating where I can get the coating the same thickness batch after batch. I'm close enough now that I can load and shoot as-cast and PCd. For a while there I had inconsistent coating, some thick, some thin. Now I can mass produce a very consistent projectile. Good thing because I was given a 5 gallon bucket of 38 brass and need to top them off, then 200 pieces of .45 ACP, then the 5 gallon bucket of .223, then . . .

[fast ronnie]

For what it's worth, a friend doesn't size because he says it hurts his accuracy. (long range rifle) He claims it distorts the bullet. I don't know if it's true. I have a Star and use it for .38's with 50/50.

[MT Chambers]

Whether you size your bullets or not, you need a larger expander that does not allow bullet seating to size down your bullets, crimping properly should not size the bullets either.

[RobsTV]

Some mold makers actually require you to specify the alloy you will be using as well as the desired size, so that the results will be the correct size as cast. But change the alloy in the future, and it might not work well.

[mongoose33]

If a boolit is the right diameter for your gun, it's the right diameter for your gun.

I'd been playing w/ boolit diameters for my own 9mm; started at .356, went to .357 then .358. Couldn't get the .358 to pass the plunk test in the barrel so .357 it is.

There may be brass with thinner walls that might allow the use of .358 in my 9mm, but for my purposes the .357 works.

[N4AUD]

So far all of my molds have cast the size I've needed and I don't size, I shoot "as cast" and haven't had problems. Right now I cast .44 Mag, .45 ACP, 9mm, .30 Nagant, 7.62x25 Tok, .38 Special and .45 (Colt and .454 Casull). I don't plan on sizing unless there's a need for it.

[rsrocket1]

Even out of round bullets can be shot accurately. Look up "beagling". If the bullets are axially symmetrical when they come out of the barrel, they will spin properly whether round or oval. You don't need to size if the loaded bullet fits the chamber of the gun and is fatter than the groove diameter of your barrel. If the bullet drops too small out of your mold, sizing won't help.

However, if the bullet drops fat and the unsized driving band sticks out above the case rim, you might not be able to chamber the cartridge. With a revolver, so long as it fits in the cylinder, you are good to go. In an autoloader with a tight throat, this will not let your slide close fully shut (sometimes). Sometimes there is enough momentum in the slide to swage the bullet down to where the barrel locks so you might only have an intermittent problem with failures to fire, light off-center primer strikes, etc.

I load my 358-158-RF bullets unsized and tumble lubed in 45/45/10 and they shoot fine in my Ruger Service Six. I've also shot unsized 356-120-TC and TL356-124-2R powder coated to 0.360" unsized and they also shoot fine. I do have to size my 9mm bullets to fit in my M&P barrels which have really tight throats of 0.356" unless I seat the TC bullets deep enough to where the cone is at the rim or the TL grooves are below the rim.

[dudel]

Each barrel is different. You size to get the boolit to the size it needs to be for the barrel. If the boolit is the correct size as cast for the specific barrel, there is no need to size. You do have a thou or two to play with.

The important thing here is the boolit and the barrel. The brass, primer, powder won't matter near as much. Different alloys will cast differently as well, so one alloy with a particular mold may not need to be sized for a specific barrel; but a different alloy may need to be sized.

[gwpercle]

Regardless of what our wives tell us....size matters! If the boolit drops from the mould exactly the right size , then lube and shoot. But guess what, for every mould that drops one the perfect size, 10 will not. And a change in alloy will affect size...so then you may need to size and lube.
I have moulds I use for both 38 special (sized to .357-358) and, same mould , for 9mm (.sized 355-.356 ) sizing lets me do this.
Sizing just lets you do more than simply relying on whatever drops out the mould.
Gary

[rintinglen]

I have repeatedly read this "load 'em as they drop" nonsense. If all you want is a loud noise, if close enough is good enough, then it may work for you. If you don't size your boolits, they will vary in size and your groups will suffer for it.
Back when Lee was first pushing their molds they used to advertise that no sizing was needed. At the time, I was into PPC and burning up 600-900 rounds of WC ammo a month. What a time saving to not have to size everything. But when I tried it, I found my groups were double or triple what they were with my Cramer 16H, which were sized and lubed in an old Lyman 45. And every so often, I'd come across one that wouldn't chamber.
I never tried such an experiment again.

[RobsTV]

I have repeatedly read this "load 'em as they drop" nonsense. If all you want is a loud noise, if close enough is good enough, then it may work for you. If you don't size your boolits, they will vary in size and your groups will suffer for it.
Back when Lee was first pushing their molds they used to advertise that no sizing was needed. At the time, I was into PPC and burning up 600-900 rounds of WC ammo a month. What a time saving to not have to size everything. But when I tried it, I found my groups were double or triple what they were with my Cramer 16H, which were sized and lubed in an old Lyman 45. And every so often, I'd come across one that wouldn't chamber.
I never tried such an experiment again.

That makes sense, but I would think most boolits will get resized correctly anyway as soon as they enter the throat. The boolit will exit perfectly round and sized. Although, I do size drops from 15 out of 18 molds here. But now you have me wondering if that is even needed. If you have one that won't chamber, seems like a mold/alloy issue, not a sizing one, although some could use sizing to correct flaws in there techniques or equipment.

[dudel]

I have repeatedly read this "load 'em as they drop" nonsense. .


I think the best chance of that working is with the Lee tumble lube designs. The tiny ridges created by the TL grooves likely engage the rifling easier than a traditional lube groove design. There are some TL boolits I can shoot well in certain barrels; otherwise they need sizing.

At least that's how it's worked out for me. Your mileage WILL vary.

[blixen01]

To return to Terryt's point, does sizing affect accuracy in *rifles* ?

I have a mold that just barely casts to the size I need in a .314 milsurp.So I just tap a gas check on, bell the case mouth and slide it in. The seating process seems to crimp the alum. GC.
But the beagled boolits are not perfectly round and I hope the trip down the barrel evens them out.
Accuracy is pretty good for an old rifle, (2-3" at 100), but I always wonder if would be better if I bought a bigger mold and sized down to the best diameter.

[fredj338]

That makes sense, but I would think most boolits will get resized correctly anyway as soon as they enter the throat. The boolit will exit perfectly round and sized. Although, I do size drops from 15 out of 18 molds here. But now you have me wondering if that is even needed. If you have one that won't chamber, seems like a mold/alloy issue, not a sizing one, although some could use sizing to correct flaws in there techniques or equipment.Sizing a bullet should give you more consistent neck tension & better accuracy. That would assume same brass, but with mixed brass, probably not as important. If it fits, go ahead. I size all mine.

[.22-10-45]

Some of the most accurate lead-bullet rifles ever made were designed to be shot with as cast bullets..the old masters like Pope, Zischang, Schoyen, etc. included a mould made for that particular rifle in the purchase. Granted, these bullets were mainly tapered..or bore-ride with oversize base band to seal..and were designed for breech seating ahead of charged case..but even the hand-held lube-pumps had custom made inserts to match bullet configuration & only applied lube..bullet being left as cast. The 200yd. groups from these guns have not been matched or beaten until only recently.

[Wayne Smith]

Size matters. What doesn't matter much is how you get that size. If your mold casts a correctly sized boolit for your rifle thank your personal God and enjoy. Otherwise, size your boolits to fit your chamber.

[sparky45]

100% what Wayne says.

[Toymaker]

I'm going to go with the opinion that it depends on the rifle.
I have a muzzleloading Rigby that shoots a .451, 535 grain pure lead bullet. It does well with "as cast" bullets (.451) and with bullets sized with the push-through sizer that came with the rifle. It does not like the lubrisizer (.451, .452 or .453). Therefore, I hand lube the bullets while watching TV.
I have a rolling block in 45-70 that prefers .458, 405 grain, 30:1 bullets as cast. These bullets I pan lube. If sized (.458) the group opens significantly. However, with a .458, 500 grain, 30:1 bullet it prefers the bullets sized (.458) in the lubrisizer.
I consider part of the enjoyment, and sometimes the frustration, of reloading is finding the right "food" to obtain the best accuracy of which the rifle is capable.

[N4AUD]

I have repeatedly read this "load 'em as they drop" nonsense. If all you want is a loud noise, if close enough is good enough, then it may work for you. If you don't size your boolits, they will vary in size and your groups will suffer for it.
Back when Lee was first pushing their molds they used to advertise that no sizing was needed. At the time, I was into PPC and burning up 600-900 rounds of WC ammo a month. What a time saving to not have to size everything. But when I tried it, I found my groups were double or triple what they were with my Cramer 16H, which were sized and lubed in an old Lyman 45. And every so often, I'd come across one that wouldn't chamber.
I never tried such an experiment again.
Well, I guess it just didn't work for you. That doesn't make it nonsense though.

[Litl Red 3991]

Well, I guess it just didn't work for you. That doesn't make it nonsense though.

That's not what makes it wrong ('nonsense' is a bit strong, no matter that it's probably the correct word to use).

What makes "load 'em as cast" bad advice is that it's way too simple. It overlooks a bunch of things that really matter to accuracy. It also reinforces the idea that sound byte wisdom is worth listening to. But that's another story.

There really is no magic to lead that is used as it dropped when it comes to accuracy. And there is some bad. Very few molds cast perfectly round. A perfectly round bullet has more chance of centering the cartridge in the chamber than lopsided bullets. It's also more apt to obturate the same from shot to shot. A series of cartridges that chamber more uniformly are better than a string that doesn't. A lot of reloading advice suggests the same basic thing: uniformity beats everything else. And of course, fitting the bullet diameter to the barrel is a lot cheaper with a little sizing die as opposed to buying/finding a mould that drops 'em the diameter you need. (keep in mind that a lot of us have more than one gun in the calibers we own)

Anyone who has sorted their cast output by weight knows there isn't that much uniformity of weight from "use 'em as they drop" boolits. Will sizing change the weights? Of course not, but it does have a chance of reducing the out of balance caused by whatever caused the weight difference. And rejecting slugs that're too far off weight is a great side benefit but of course, weighing is a different issue. It's also part of NOT using 'em as they drop.

As for lead losing whatever it's supposed to have from not being sized, remember that bullets made from massive "sizing" are accepted to be quite a bit more uniform than cast. Swaging used to be what many of the top shots did back in the era when target shooting was a major sport. And swaging really is some serious sizing.

Shooting suffers from so many shooters passing sound byte wisdom that sounds so simple but is so wrong.

[Blackwater]

The word "fit" is a single word with multiple meanings. In use, it usually means whatever will go inside something else. With respect to fitting cast bullets to a bore (groove dia.) and chamber, we can get into misunderstandings very easily. Proper fit is to the throat, which must be just a tad larger than the groove dia., since it's the little length of taper between the chamber diameter (which has to be larger to accomodate the thickness of the ctg. case) and the bore. Lead bullets have to seal the bore and lock off those hot, expanding powder gasses, so the moment it begins to move after ignition, it needs to seal off the chamber fully. The only way to avoid gasses running around the sides of the bullet while it's between seating depth and engaging the bore, is to make them just a tad larger so as to engage and seal off the throat and thereby prevent gas blow-by, which cause leading and induces additional unpredictable variables into the bullet's trip down the barrel, such as letting some of the lube or lead be wiped/melted off by hot gas blow-by. The only way to do this is to make the bullet just a tad larger than the bore, and just small enough to fit the tapered throat, and then, as soon as the bullet starts to move, it quickly engages the tapered portion of the throat, and seals it off, thereby keeping each bullet's trip down the bore as uniform as humanly possible. This increases accuracy.

Over 100 years ago, the old Schuetzen shooters discovered this, and Harry Pope, the most famous and lauded of them all, and maker of the most noteworthy barrels of his time, said way back then that unsized bullets generally shot better. If anyone has EVER been more demanding of their cast bullets than that crew, I'd like to know who they are. They sometimes went to extraordinary lengths to get a little better accuracy in their old-time pursuit of the ultimate in accuracy. They valued marksmanship, and IIRC, got groups as small as 1/2" appx. at 200 yds. - yes, TWO hundred. And this was with black powder or the early volumetrically measured smokeless powders.

When shooting the old black powder ctg. rifles ("buffalo rifles") of the old west, we literally had to re-learn how to load BP in ctg. guns. The art and body of knowledge that once existed had been largely lost. It took a long, rather involved process to re-learn it, and adapt to the newer chemicals and substances used to get good results. It's good to see more folks getting back into casting. Maybe future generations won't have to go through all the trials and difficulties of relearning the process. Knowledge of any technical endeavor can be, and historically has, been lost from simple disuse or from becoming unpopular, and therefore unpracticed. As anyone who's been casting for very long can assure you, and provide stories to prove it, casting really good bullets and loading really good loads isn't a casual thing, and demands a certain amount of knowledge that is pertinent only to that endeavor. 99% of it makes sense once you get the answer. The hardest part is knowing what to ask, and we have to do some learning initially in order to even know a good, decent question to ask. But that's really part of the fun of it all, in retrospect. What's life without a challenge? The view that everything is, or should be, "easy" is strictly a "modern" view we "moderns" have decided to adhere to. After all, technology has made so very much of our lives easy that we have come to EXPECT everything to be easy, or we tend to regard it as unworthy of our efforts. Old timers used to know every endeavor had its own peculiar learning curve, and they just went with it, never feeling it demeaned them in the least when they were being students of a particular endeavor. Consequently, they learned quickly to do things better, and well. Today, with all the hustle and bustle of our normal daily lives, we too often tend to want our reloading to fit those same parameters, and just ASSUME (and you know what they say about how that word's spelled!) that we can "get away" with some shortcuts, or our initial assumptions (like bullets fitting the bore) and have to learn the hard way. With all the clutter and ado in our world, I sometimes think it's a wonder we can really think at all, but we CAN if we but cast off all the tension and hurriedness and "pressure" of our daily rountines, learn quite a lot. It's those quiet times that we spend reading and researching things that relate to our casting, or any other endeavor, that earns us "personal PhD's" in whatever it is we want to do. Research and coming to understand our actions is never going to be "quick" or "easy," but once we ever get "into" it, we find it can be really captivating. Funny how that works, isn't it? And all we have to do is just sit down and calmly pursue real understanding, and all of a sudden, things start to make sense, and we no longer have to guess nearly as much as we used to. Knowledge is POWER, and power rules the world today, so when you have time, or even get bored (still happens today even in our hurried world), look into the "Why's?" of our sport/hobby, and new vistas and new levels of performance open up. It may take a little longer in our hurried environment today, but we have offsetting assets, like this board here, to compensate. The old timers used to have to learn by trial and error, and THAT took even longer, so really, we OUGHT to consider ourselves very lucky indeed! And all it takes is a little time, enough curiosity to motivate us, and the promise of ever increasing performance - always a very nice thing to experience - and all we have to do is go through the simple steps, and re-discover the pure joy of discovery and the payoff of our efforts.

[Litl Red 3991]

So what to do? what to do?

Why test of course. Shoot some unsized beside some that are sized. Of course, you should also size a couple of batches different sizes. Mustn't forget the universally offered advice that your boolit should be about .001" over groove size, mustn't one. Now that's going to require some to purchase another sizing die. And of course, if your mold doesn't drop boolits one thou over groove, you really should buy one that does, because simply changing alloy to get that thou will unfortunately change a very significant property or two. You'll never know which is what or why if you change more than one thing.

It never ends..... big smile

[Litl Red 3991]

....
Over 100 years ago, the old Schuetzen shooters discovered this, and Harry Pope, the most famous and lauded of them all, and maker of the most noteworthy barrels of his time, said way back then that unsized bullets generally shot better. ............

Keep in mind that when Harry delivered your rifle, the box it came in included a mold that went with that rifle. He also gave you the alloy recipe to start with. Yeah, things were different then. He had his own rifling dimensions for example. There was a huge possibility the mold "fit" the rifle... chamber, throat, leade, bore and groove... most probably without sizing.

A number of guys like Zischang, Pope, Shoyen delivered molds with their rifles. Their reputations were part of it.

Providing sizing equipment might have been the only way to insure the riflemen purchasing your barrels for rifles would size to the best diameter, so it'd stand to reason those smiths provided appropriate molds, and said what they said about not needing to size. Or not.... who knows for sure...

Maybe we oughta work up a test to see..... slight grin