Yugo 24/47 should have slugged it first.

[GrizzLeeBear]

Got the Lee C324-175-RN mold and a .325 sizer for the 450 this week. Cast up a bunch. Man, I forgot how finicky their 2 cavity molds are. I've been spoiled by using the 6 cavity Lee and Lyman molds, but after a little while got to know its quirks and got a couple hundred good boolits. Dropped out at just over .325. Gas checked and lubed 50 - 60 of them with Lars BAC in the .325 die.
Loaded one so the base was at the base of the neck and then eased it into the chamber. Was a fair amount of resistance, so I knew it was pushing the boolit into the case. When I pulled it back out, the boolit had been pushed in almost to the crimp groove. Also, I could see where the front band was sqeezed into the throat and even shaved a little. So, I decided to slug it.
Using a couple egg sinkers that I squeezed in a vise to fatten up, I drove one into the throat and one about 6" into the muzzle. The throat measured .324 and the barrel measured slightly under .323 in the grooves and .312 on the lands. No wonder it didn't want to chamber a .325 boolit! Lesson learned. Slug your barrel BEFORE you order your sizing die!:groner:
So, I ordered a .323 die from Midway today. That's OK, I wanted to order the Redding file trim die so I could turn some more of this LC 69 30-06 into 8mm anyway.:mrgreen:

[jonk]

Try seating deeper and just off the lands and see if it chambers. If so the .325 should still be a good bet. Most of my 8mms are sized as such.

[Linstrum]

Jonk has the right approach, see what that does for you.

I have three 24/47 Yugo K98s and they are all right at 0.323. I have one 48/52c Yugo K98 and two Nazi K98k models and they are at 0.3235. I use 0.325" gas check boolits in both bore sizes with no problems. I had trouble finding a sizing die that was 0.325" and I honed out one to the right size, an easy job with an electric drill, a 3/16 cotter pin, and some 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper.

I haven't had any trouble getting them chambered from having the necks a little large, though. In other rifles that I have had a hard time getting cartridges chambered because of necks being too "fat" I sometimes run the loaded cartridge back into a sizing die with the primer punch removed to squeeze the neck a bit. I know perfectly well that this also changes the boolit base diameter plus crimps the beejeezus out of the boolit into the neck but I have not had any untoward trouble because of the mild cast loads.

rl392

[GrizzLeeBear]

Well, I got the .323 sizer yesterday and ran the boolits through it. I would have had to seat the .325 boolits to the crimp groove wich would have put the base a fair bit down into the case and the nose well off the lands. Sized .323 I can seat the base of the boolit at the base of the neck AND the nose at or just off the lands. Pretty much a perfect fit. Since the barrel slugged just under .323 I'm hoping it works OK. Loaded up 15 with gas checks and 18 gr. of 2400.
After reading an article about it at surplusrifle.com, I also want to see if I can find an accurate subsonic, cheap (no gas check) load for plinking and 100 yd. practice. So I loaded up 10 with no GC and 9 gr. of TrailBoss. According to the article this is kind of a "The Load" or "Universal Load" approach. This load gave 1050 - 1100 fps in a bunch of 303, 30-06, etc. milsurp guns. They were also using GC boolits w/o GC's.

[missionary5155]

Hello GrizLeeBear
How hard a mix are you casting ? At those low velocities you do not need any Gas check and a 50/50 wheelweight / pure lead mix would work real good. I use 50/50 up to 1500+ and then maybe think about a bottom patch IF there starts to be some leading. Pure wheelweight can get moved right along before checks are needed.
"Vise squeezed sinkers"... that poetry floating on a breeze...

[GrizzLeeBear]

Missionary, just using air cooled WW. If the boolits fit the bore correctly, I'm hoping they will shoot well with no leading. Stay tuned.

[Linstrum]

I'm tuned in, ready and waiting for your results!


rl397