Here is a different way of looking at PC boolits

[Phantom30]

When making jacketed boolits, you first cast a core and then apply the jacket to produce a boolit. Instead of thinking of PC as a lube process, something that protects and prevents barrel leading and replaces Alox etc. What if we think of the process in terms associated with a jacketing process. What you want to do is create a core which is cast, dropped, and then gets a jacket of PC yielding a boolit that would be equivalent in size and shape to a normal cast or jacketed boolit. We have mountains of molds with lube groves etc., for cast boolits. Well why not use that investment to make a jacketed PC boolit. What you have to do is make your mold drop a core with the correct size and shape. Something between 0.001 or 0.0025 reduction in outer diameter of the entire boolit. Somebody recommended using engine paint and spray coat the inside of the mold cavities creating this reduction. When the cores are PC’d the effect creates a result exactly like original boolit exterior ready for sizing and loading. It would eliminate nose sizing and all the other cast boolit problems with chamber interface that PC can potentially create when using old molds. The next step forward is to design new molds that are explicitly setup to drop PC cores. You get rid of all lube groves and make a slick core just like for any jacketing process. Accurate Molds has an inventory of ideas like this which can be made or roll your own boolit core mold design. This eliminates the painting of the old mold and cleans the process up as we go forward as jacketed PC boolit makers. OK what do you think is adjusting the conversation so it is not about PC lube but PC jacketing as the right way to look at this process? Over.

[OS OK]

We have been thinking along these lines for a long time now. Getting the PC jacket on even is the trick, getting it on thick requires a two PC coating. Can't put it on in excess because it'll run down and cause a skirt at the base.
I haven't seen where the PC is cut by engraving in the lands so I haven't seen the need to coat twice yet.
My process is to cast with normal mold of choice, size, PC, size the final time and load. My jacket is an average of .0015" IIRC'ly but it is smooth and even all the way around.

The guy you will want to PM and discuss the thick coating process with is named Dragonheart...

[runfiverun]

PC can be applied up to about .004 thick.
a copper jacket is about .0010-.0015 thick.
a paper jacket is about .008-.0010 thick

this means you still have to treat it [PC] like a lead boolit if your gonna take advantage of the powder coat.
that's why it's important to do a smash test with the newly coated boolits.
the jacket and core move around together as they flow through the throat.

[bkbville]

I've been wondering the opposite - maybe we should be treating PC more like jacketed.

One of the first things that got me excited about PC is it gave me an easy way to fatten cast boolits that were dropping small and gain a few thou. Wonderful when thinking lubed lead. Also had the side effect brushed on by Phantom - big noses that can hurt COAL.

I'm now wondering if maybe I should be sizing PCs to bore (like a jacketed) as there is no risk of leading?

Even things like true spire points (rare for cast designs which seem to favor maximum bearing surface) can now be used with PC?

(Dreaming of a cast/PC boolit in the GP11 bullet form... K31 OAL issues gone...)

[OS OK]

My PC'd .45's for the 1911 are sized @ .451" & same as barrel (no leading and it is more accurate than I am), for the Colt SAA I size them @ .4525" <( I honed out a Lee push through sizer) for a cylinder that measures .4535-.454" ,(hard to tell without a pinset) so I just pushed through different rough cast sizes until I found one that was snug but not tight and measured the one that fit like that.

[Phantom30]

I had some molds made by accurate and converted to HP that basically are 0.002 lees than normal all the way around so that they would be in effect a core mold. Then PC brings them back and I end up with a PC jacketed RED boolit which looks very much like a colorful sierra BTHP at about 7 cents per load. Perfecting this can bring us to the point where we actually save money rather than shoot more for the same bucks. (there is always the gas check thing which I just ignore for now)

[Phantom30]

PS getting it thick, see Dutchninja's BBDT standem up technique. Also I prefer ESPC and a spike board because I doing HPs. Both methods do thick single coats and can also do double coats if necessary.

[NoAngel]

I haven't seen where the PC is cut by engraving in the lands so I haven't seen the need to coat twice yet.



I have for ONE application. I was trying to coat UP an already undersize 30 cal (.3085) to .314 for a Mosin. Looked like poop and shot about the same.

Powder coat has let me put a few Lee molds to use that were on my "to do" list for lapping open. That's been nice cause I hate lapping molds. But, six thousandths is a bit much for coating. I don't KNOW if that had anything to do with the poor results on paper or if the rifle just didn't like the bullet but I'm suspect of coating that thick now and refuse to do it again.

[fredj338]

I think of my PC bullets as home made plated. The thickness of mat'l is sim to a plated bullet. The vel range is also about the same, maybe a bit higher with the PC. There are already mold makers, like Accurate, that make smooth bullet designs & Tom will make you just about whatever you want. I am fine with my conventional molds though, not looking to reinvent the wheel.

[OS OK]

If I have seen one You Tube video of someone doing the ESPC method I'll bet I've seen fifteen. Some for instance place HPs on a jig of nails and the casts lean to one side. Next they may have the jig on a lazy Susan or they just walk around the jig and spray. I have not seen a method that applies the PC evenly.
Either they spend longer on one side than the other or they don't use a method that doesn't give all the cast equal exposure during the ESPC method. That translates into coatings that vary in thickness in an unpredictable way. Too, I don't know of a way to measure thickness on the finished rounds. That being said, I think that this uneveness will show up in concentricity of your core within the jacket and at the high revolutions they spin I think it will translate into larger groups out beyond around 300 yards. That's just my thinking as I haven't tested this concept.
If I wanted thick I think I would want to build it using thin coats evenly controlled and applied. Since I haven't seen leading from the PC coating being too thin as of yet I have not seen the need for them.


I'll see if I can get ahold of Rich (Dragonheart) and get him to chime in on this.

[Phantom30]

187059 this is Dutchninja's results with a 31-240A Accurate mold with HP conversion. He PC'd with Neon Orange and fired them into a berm that was sand and tires, therefore, all the black rubber marks. Notice that the rifling didn't cut through the PC.

[LAKEMASTER]

i view PC as a jacket, but its only as strong as what it is made of. i was under the assumption that PC was a jacket and as strong as a jacket, until i saw the treebranch scratches on my offroad truck parts.

if wood can scuff PC, a barrel can, so i then started viewing PC as a Barrier between soft lead and gun metal

[Phantom30]

[QUOTE=runfiverun;3937537]PC can be applied up to about .004 thick.
a copper jacket is about .0010-.0015 thick.
a paper jacket is about .008-.0010 thick
QUOTE]

Thickness means the layer on the boolit not the change in diameter correct. So a 0.001 thick PC on a .222 core should yield a 0.224 boolit, right

[reddog81]

Powder coating is what it is. It's not a lube in the traditional sense and it's not a jacket in the traditional sense, however its does have some properties of both.

You could produce new molds without lube grooves and you could use undersized molds, but I don't really see that as being necessary or even a good thing. Most people would still size their bullets, and getting rid of lube grooves isn't necessarily a benefit. Powder coating opens doors that didn't exist before but going out and replacing all the tried and true mold designs that have existed for decades surely isn't necessary.

I've have a couple of molds that work really well with powder coat and where sizing isn't necessary.

[runfiverun]

yes.
but the trick with the other two is to keep the lead from contacting the barrel entirely.
or in the case of the Paper the lead just barely touches the rifling.
they both fill in the lands area and take all the engraving pressure.

you also have to control the concentricity of the entire thing.
the unevenness of the P/C is part of it's down fall here.
shooting naked lead accurately is best done by observing a few rules.
making a good boolit is number 1.
starting that boolit straight into the barrel is number 2.
fitment is King of course, but there are different types of fitment, mechanical and static.

right now the biggest hold back is the control we have over the coating process.
if we could lay down a coat like they lay down the paint on our cars we would have a better chance at making the next step towards higher speeds.

now the PC coating might be able to take and hold the rifling even if it is .001 undersized to the groove diameter like a copper jacket can, but once it's free it will spin around it's true center.

so backing every thing off, getting an even coating, filling the groove depth, finding a easier launch, and allowing the boolit underneath to move and find the static fitment under acceleration would more likely allow both a speed and accuracy improvement.

[Phantom30]

Think Arsenal Molds (thanks R5R) is going to be able to make a four cavity 222 core dropper for around $90, like the one designed in the '223 Rem vs 556 NATO' thread put out a while back. One good PC using the BBDT process and stand up baking should produce an accurate subsonic and supersonic 80gr+ boolit. Have been using aguila 60gr SSS 22LR with a CMMG conversion kit in my 6.5" 1:7 AR pistol with a muzzle less than 950fps. This mold will allow me to get control over the velocity and run up to 1050fps and double the ft-lbs performance. Also allows me to use my PMAG D60 instead of the conversion mag. Then you also have the flexibility to load it out at 2650fps. That turns my pistol back into an AR instead of a Gaza plinker

[reddog81]

Regarding the concentricity of the powder coat - I would assume the shake and bake method would be fairly uniform. I place each bullet base down on a tray when cooking so I'm assuming the powder would flow downward in an even manner.

I've have noticed some bullets with light spots that would cause concentricity problems but I'd think even the smallest wrinkles in the bullet would have a larger impact on the balance of the bullet given the density of lead vs density of PC.

[runfiverun]

voids and bubbles in the boolits are the biggest problem. [that's why we weight sort the fast stuff]
the cast bench rest guy's bump swage all their stuff to not only match the throat better but to force the lead to flow and fill in all the tiny air gaps.
it also makes sure everything is actually round.
the ones that know alloy will also use a grain modifier to help tighten everything in the matrix.

I wish Arsenal would be a bit more involved on the site, we could put him together some pretty good designs that would be popular here.
all it takes is asking the right questions then putting up a design that works.

[Phantom30]

voids and bubbles in the boolits are the biggest problem. [that's why we weight sort the fast stuff]
.

Lets say you have a 240gr HP, so what weight tolerance would actually be applied to fulfill your sort?

[Phantom30]

I assume that the sort is on the castings is prior to PC, but what about after PC and sizing?

[Smk SHoe]

I think Arsenal molds does pay attention here. I have a question into them for a 6.5mm mold right now. Also they have a few molds that are smooth sided. I have one for .223 and just ordered one for my SIL's 40. .223 mold shoots pretty good. Havn't done much in the long range with it. Mostly for transition drills and steel plates.

[OS OK]

Weigh each cast, group sort by .1 grain. You'll have groups that are more numerous in the middle of the overall variance. As they weigh more or less the numbers in each group will be less and less until you get out to the extreme high and low of the group.
If you line all of the same weight cast in a single line horizontally and do this for all the weight variations from the highest to lowest the sorting of the weight groups will make a parabola.

239.6 XXX
239.7 XXXXXX
239.8 XXXXXXXXXX
239.9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX
240.0 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ....< your cast lined up side by side , the shape is a parabola, a bell curve.
240.1 XXXXXXXXXXXX
240.2 XXXXXXXXX
240.3 XXXXX
240.4 XXX

Depending on your Pb and its temperature when it was cast you can have a wide variance from high to low extremes.
If you don't want to discriminate in .1'ths you can sort by including .2 or .3'ths per line...it's up to you.

The groups of the same (target weight of the mold), will likely have less inclusions than the lighter/heavier ones progressively...they should potentially group tighter depending on how well your fitment to the platform is and how well your load workup and loading accuracy is done from one load to the next.

We are out here very close...if not in the middle of...that 'land of the OCD!' . . . . :bigsmyl2:

[Dragonheart]

An excellent discussion, but all the points here have been made and previously discussed in other posts. i think we all agree PC is a jacket; if you don't agree then argue with Federal.

To provide adequate protection of the core and resist spin up the thickness of the PC needs to be approximately .003" or more and properly cured. The hardness does vary between the types of polymers and colors due to additives to the polymer.

Due to the short range, for handgun bullets you can achieve excellent accuracy without difficulty. The real challenge for casting is achieving accuracy at or close to full power loads in a rifle. You might want to review a post by Bama "Accurate PC 350 Yds."

To summarize our problems are not at the end, but the beginning. When we cast we have an imperfect projectile for high velocity; our bullets are not concentric. If you rotate a quality jacked rifle bullet on a concentrically gauge the needle stays in one place whether the gauge is set at the band or on the body. Our cast bullet can be sized and the bullet's band should be perfectly round, but not the body as it is still exactly like it dropped out of the mold. The apparent answer is to also size the body of the bullet. The problem here is the only tool on the market I am aware of is the nose bushing sizer from NOE. It's a great idea, but it just doesn't work, because there is no provision to keep the bullet perfectly centered as it enters the nose sizing bushing. The nose sizing does create a perfectly round body, but like laying a nickle on a quarter you can have two perfect circles, but that does not mean they are concentric to each other. The simple fact is a bullet that is not concentric is unbalanced and is going to wobble in flight.

Bama has achieved success by making a die that is producing the most concentric sized cast bullets I have ever measured. Additionally, the nose rider bullet design he is using is sized to the rifle lands and the band is .002" over bore size. So the PC answer appears to be what you guys have already figured out and that is we need molds and a sizing system that no one has marketed, short of custom order.

[OS OK]

Thanks Rich for your comments but, could you further comment on your method of PC coating when you double coat or more?

[popper]

Actually I have tested and strive for a 0.002" thickness (HF red or smoke's black) for HV rifle. I sized, measured, coated, measured again and resized. They shot very well @ 2100 avg PB in 1:10 BO. 308 are GC so harder to verify @ 100 yds.

[OS OK]

popper...have you ever measured a cast that has been PC'd before it was sized for the last time on several points around the perimeter?
What I mean is use a micrometer and roll the cast say 45* and re-measure over and over until you get about 4 or 5 measurements of the same cast...to determine whether or not there is a measurable difference in the thickness of the coating alone? I'm asking about a cast that was sized before the PC coating...

[Love Life]

A concentricity gauge would go a long way for anybody wanting to go down this rabbit hole. A comparator will be mo' better. Gempro even mo better.

[runfiverun]

I don't think of weight groups in exactness for weight I try for a variance of weight percentage.
my 223 stuff is in .1gr weight groups.
my 308 stuff is in .3gr weight groups.
outliers on both sides of a variation go back.
the 165 actually makes mid 166 weights. [nominal]
so anything under 166 and anything over 166 is out.
1-2-3 go into bucket 1.
4-5-6 go into bucket 2.
7-8-9 go into bucket 3.
the 4-5-6 weights are by far the largest group of boolits I end up with.
and are also the more accurate of the 3 groups.[yes, I can tell]

I know Jared watches the site and is a member here, but I think we could utilize them a bit better to do some group buy's.

as far as what P/C is I personally don't consider it a jacket.
I think of it as a Barrier.
'the core' is not concealed or totally protected from the disruption of the steel it is shoved through.

[Dragonheart]

Thanks Rich for your comments but, could you further comment on your method of PC coating when you double coat or more?

Lead is a unique metal as it has an affinity to attract a negative charge and a reason the low static charge generated by the shake & bake works. However, I have found that you are only going to get so much powder to stick. The spraying method gives a more uniform coating and a higher charge and a ground to earth will help in getting a thicker coating. But the only way I have found to get a really heavy build up is to preheat the metal. A preheat of under 200 degrees works with shake & bake method; at 250 degrees you will have a sticky ball of bullets. Preheating at a higher temperature works with the spray method also, but whatever the bullets are supported by is going to get coated too.

When I am PC objects other than bullets I typically heat the item to 400 degrees then quickly remove the object from the oven and spray. The powder melts on contact and you can actually see your finish. After the object has cooled enough to move I cure it the usual way 10 minutes at 400 degrees. What makes this work so well is the powder has hardened so it can be handled without damaging the coating.

Hope this was the answer you were looking for.

[Phantom30]

Well the Elvis Ammo preheat DT method has some advantages. However, The spike board method where the foil bed is placed over the board makes a solid electrical contact with all the spikes. The casting cores are placed on the spikes using the HP cavity. Since the spikes were machined to match the HP cavity they standup straight (basically the same shape as the spikes in the mold which make the HP cavity). A good electrical contact can be transfer to the boolits through the spikes so the ESPC goes on fairly uniform. During the baking phase the flow is toward the tip and down onto the foil so that when you break them off the spikes after cooling you can trim up the tip and have a fair smooth coating across the entire boolit with a good thick coating on the base (pseudo GC). The HP cavity and its nose edge are not coated. Once mounted I suppose, as Dragonheart suggests, you could put the mounted board of cores into a pre heated oven at 150f for about 4 minutes (Elis Ammo's Heating receipt) and then ESPC and bake as normal. Uniform application is the ESPC is still a potential issue to generate a concentric round. One would hope the baking process would allow enough flow to equalize the coating. My current mold project has a 222 core drive band for a 219 rifling, and 224 bore, sizing would be 224.

I know distributions and their shapes fairly well, but how do you correlate the distribution of weights caused by voids or metallurgical porosity to the measured distribution mean. Seams like if you cast a lot of air in the boolits then your mean can be off as easy as it could be right.

Somebody please confirm that the term PC thickness applies to the coating thickness and not the increase in boolit diameter. i.e. a 0.001 PC thickness would raise a .222 core boolit diameter to .224 for example.

[runfiverun]

that's how I look at it too.
whatever you add to the boolit is the coat thickness.
.002 is both sides added together.

[Dragonheart]

Yes, the thickness is measured from the base metal, so if you increased the diameter by .006" then the coating would be .003" thick. BTW the .003" or more thickness is not something I just pulled out of the air. This number was suggested by a retited PHD chemistry professor and specailist in polymer physics as what was needed to encase the core because you are making a polymer jacket. Since typical rifling is approximately .004" deep it makes perfect sense to me.

As far as preheating hollow points on a spike board (I call mine bed of nails) as long as the temp is below the melting point you can heat much higher than 150 degrees if you want a thicker coating, but PC is really hard and if the coating is too thick sizing becomes a problem.

If one is using quality molds the extremely small variation is weight should not be a problem. As already stated I have found it is the lack of concentricity and bullet design to be the major casting & PC problems with high velocity at range. This is the reason so many may get good groups at closer ranges then the wobble gets worse as the distance increases. I believe Bama has found the answer; make a concentric bullet (easier said than done) and fit the bullet's body to the rifling lands if you want accuracy and velocity.

[Phantom30]

Yes indeed PC thickness can be hard. At times I have had to sequence size to keep from jamming the dies, stepping through .314, .311, .309, .308 is one of the reason I like the idea of a sub caliber core mold, if I start with .306 lead core then it gets easier. And I believe that it doesn't compromise functionality if the PC coating is a smooth 0.0015+. But concentricity, and perfect longitudinal symmetry for the ogive, the only manufacturing approach which has an extremely high probability of that is going into the Barnes business or CNC machine ( lathe ) your own solid copper bullets.

Lets say I want to find a PC cast core substitute for my 230gr Berger hybrids for my 300 WIN MAG. (you can save some money if you figure this on out). Frist I have a metallurgy problem, getting the core hard enough to take the 1:10 twist and muzzle around 2500fps without a GC. The next issue probably would be concentricity if I want to get out to 1000 yards, but that's my goal. I have an Accurate mold 31-240A HP which I was hoping to use a base to get there. Nice smooth, no lube groves, BTHP, the nose is shortened some because of Accurate' s tooling limitations. Where is Bama's technique recorded on the site? Trouble with a lot of the collective wisdom here is its embedded in so many different threads you never know where to look. Might be nice to have a lexicon category, then if you want to look up BBDT techniques for example you go there and find the best links that address BBDT. Tried that with the search function here, its OK but when you get 2348 answers, well... and then there is the sticky with 200 pages, really...

[OS OK]

I'm curious if there is such a thing as a single swage type die that is matched to a particular mold where you could swage a raw cast to press any of the anomalies out of the body of the cast, make it concentric nose to base and at the same time size the nose and drive bands. Have a top piece nose plug that you could smack with a hammer to drive the cast back out of?

Never having swaged before I have no idea whether this would work or not...

[runfiverun]

you can.
except I prefer to use an auto ejector.

I have both a 308 and a tapered 3115-310 point form die. [ordered it that way]
I also have a 306 push through die.
unfortunately if I push a 310 boolit through the die it gets umm misshaped.
you need to start undersized and swage up.
if I could get AL to cut me the XCB boolit undersized I could find all this out.
I have been thinking a 306 mold, coated to 308-309 sized to 308 then re-formed and squished in either die to square everything up.

I could also just start with a blank canvas and squish a core into shape and powder coat it.
I would have to start with some lead wire then swage it to weight in a core die, then shape it like the sierra pro-hunter, only with a flat on the nose in the 308 PF die.
then clean the lube off 100% [something I have been working on anyway] before P-coating the 308 boolit/core, then a final squish in the 311 die to shape the whole thing.
and a final size down to 310.

the issues I run into are the lead will be quite soft after all the work softening, and the coating thickness is something I cannot totally control. but should get close to .002 with the shake method.
if I could get the coating to say .004 and fairly even, the squishing would then form a jacket [more even hopefully] that would protect the core from the steel.
it's just where in the process of diameter control do I get it from?

I could make the core [which has a semi bullet shape] and coat it then try to punch it up to diameter but I don't know if the coating would take that much up sizing without striations.
it comes out at about .286 after weight squishing.

[OS OK]

"OMG . . . Are we morphing into 'bench-rest' shooters now? I've heard that this quest for accuracy will do it to ya!" . . . :bigsmyl2:

[Phantom30]

The 31-240A HP dual cavity mold I have drops .306 drive bands as a core for PC. Unfortunately its with my gear at my alternate site which I don't plan to occupy for a couple of months, or I'd drop you a few to work with.

[runfiverun]

in a few months the range might not have 3-4' of snow covering it.:lol:

I went over the other day and was locked in 4wd all the way down.
I bailed on going to the rifle range and went over to the pistol side and shot some PC's in my 357.
I pretty much stepped out of the truck and launched a soda can with some snow in it about 25 yds out and shot at it from the road.

Charlie..... you need tools to do stuff.
I make almost all of my own jacketed bullets, there is just something about being able to big game hunt [and varmint hunt] with a bullet you made yourself from scratch.
one you can tailor to do exactly what you want.
I also seem to have a thing about being cheap by spending money to get there :lol:

[Lloyd Smale]

if you want to think of it as a jacket consider this. Bullets like sierras nos ect that are made for accuracy and not hunting have very thin jackets. The thinner the better. So much so that with to much speed they can come apart due to to fast of a twist or even air pressure.

[OS OK]

On these NOE nose sizers...do you have to watch how far the nose is sized each time? ?-Is there a mechanical adjustment stop-?
I can't see how the die is / or could be, adjusted so that the bottom of the press stroke would limit upward travel into the nose die.
Also, will these die bodies fit the LnL bushing and slip through from the top?

I think I'm going to place an order today for the .308 and 8mm. Any suggestions?

One other thing, I found a post from last Dec. by Dragonheart explaining the problem with concentricity...could the nose size portion be made custom to include a skirt on the bottom that would engage the drive band (Pre-sized) diameter before the nose starts to size? Possibly use a little longer base push post assembly to accommodate the longer die insert?

[flyingmonkey35]

Pc is in my op is NOT a jacket. But more on par with copper plating.



Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk

[runfiverun]

possibly.
but depending on the boolit design you might not even need to size it that far down.
the shape of the throat leaves some open area near the base.
a parallel sided boolit like the rcbs 165 silh doesn't even come close to needing sized that far back.
now one of the MP hunter designs, my HS design, or the NOE's cut like the 7mm thor, would need a copy cut into a die to bump everything back.
that's why I was talking about having a undersized version cut then coating back close to diameter and doing a bump up.

mimicking a jacketed bullet design probably isn't the right way to go, and a slow speed cast boolit design probably isn't the way to go.
getting somewhere in the middle with a fitted design so the lead can do it's job and the coating can help it hold the rifling would [IMO] give you the best chance at accuracy and velocity near jacketed speeds.

[Dragonheart]

On these NOE nose sizers...do you have to watch how far the nose is sized each time? ?-Is there a mechanical adjustment stop-?
I can't see how the die is / or could be, adjusted so that the bottom of the press stroke would limit upward travel into the nose die.
Also, will these die bodies fit the LnL bushing and slip through from the top?

I think I'm going to place an order today for the .308 and 8mm. Any suggestions?

One other thing, I found a post from last Dec. by Dragonheart explaining the problem with concentricity...could the nose size portion be made custom to include a skirt on the bottom that would engage the drive band (Pre-sized) diameter before the nose starts to size? Possibly use a little longer base push post assembly to accommodate the longer die insert?

Hi OS, Hopefully this will answer some questions, if not email me and I will answer the best I can.

The NOE nose sizing bushing is made like the standard sizing bushing so it is interchangeable in the same die body that holds both bushings; one at a time. The bushing are about 1/2" thick. It appears the nose bushings are reamed same size through the bushing. The band sizing bushings appear to have been reamed with a slight taper since they are push through.

There is no stop on the nose bushing, it is all by feel as to when you hit the band against the edge of the bushing. This is where the concentrically problem lies. Once the bullet is pushed through the standard die the band is sized as good as it gets. Unlike the Lee push through dies the NOE bushings are right on. If NOE says .308" you get .308" not .3085" like my Lee die. But when the band sized bullet is now pushed into the nose bushing there is nothing to hold the base of the bullet, so the perfect circle of the sized nose is not concentric with the perfect circle of the band. What you now have is a lopsided bullet and a bullet that will never be consistantly accurate at distance.

A swag die reforms/sizes the entire bullet would be the obvious answer, but most are not going to fork out a grand for custom dies for every bullet they want to try.

I think you are right, the simple answer might be combining a band and nose bushing together so the band and nose would be sized in a single operation. Obviously that would entail a number of changes to the NOE system as the band would no longer be a push through tapered bushing and the die body would have to aline two bushings perfectly, but I believe it could be made to work. As an experiment I tacked two bushing together just to see if the idea would work and it appeared that it would.

At the present it appears the only way to make this happens is to copy Bama's lead and make your own die to acheive a band and nose sizing operation. Unfortunately, most lack the equipment and possibly the knolwledge and time to take on this type of project.