Best way to size .323" to .316"?

[Blackwater]

The grooves on both my Moisen 44 and Brit no. 4 are going to be .314" or so. My Lee C312-185 only casts at .312 plus a smidge. I have an RCBS 8mm. 175 gr FN that I'd like to try, but need to size down to .316". What's the best way to go here? Would one of the Press mounted Lee sizers be the best way to go, reaming it out a mite from .314" I think it is that they offer? Any suggestions will be welcome. May have to ream out the neck section of the rifles' 'chambers, but I know that. Just want them to shoot, and will likely be doing a friend's rifle as well. Any comments, experience and observations will be welcome.

You do have to lube first to do this, don't you? To keep the grooves from colapsing? Danged if I don't think you guys are actually teaching me a thing or two! Maybe?

[felix]

The very best way is to size 0.002 at a time. The Lee push throughs would be perfect. However, you figured correctly by must having the boolit lubed up front, and then making sure the lube remains completely intact after a sizing operation. You are running a risk sizing down in one fell swoop, but it likely can be done good enough for 100 yard tin can ammo. ... felix

[Buckshot]

............Blackwater, I did that for a fat Argentine that was .303"x.314". I didn't have a mould that would match the bore so I used the Lyman 323470 mould for 8mm's. It drops a 165gr RN Loverin slug.

I lube-sized to .323" and then sent them up through a Lee .314" push through size die. Worked like a champ, and I was able to get the rifle shooting. After reporting about it Maven tried it and also got good results. Over sizing is supposed to destroy a cast boolit's accuracy, the results didn't show it.

The thing is, sizing without distorting the boolit doesn't do anything bad. ANY sizing that distorts the boolit in some way is bad. A Lube-sizer press whose ram is out of whack and pushes the slug off to one side will easily wreak any accuracy a person might have expected. I've seen it happen and have done it myself. Very easy to see on a bore rider.

Maven wrote it up as an article and the Fouling Shot published it. I had no problem at all sending the .323" lubed slug up through the size die. Of course with the compound leverage in a Rockchucker you probably wouldn't expect any.

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

[Blackwater]

Thanks, gentlemen. The Lee sizers are cheap enough I may just get two of them, and try to do it as a two step process - maybe .319 and .316 or so? I'd really like these overbored rifles to shoot well with cast, and if that's what it takes to get them to do that, then that's just what it takes, I guess. A buddy's working on a REALLY nice stock design for a pattern to have some stocks made up for the No. 4 and No. 1, and as soon as he gets the pattern finished, I'll be one of his first customers. I'll have a lot of work to do on it, but .... man! Will it ever more be WORTH it! Aint nothin' like shootin' a rifle with a really nice stock, is there? That Brit is slicker'n owl stuff, and with a stock that really fits, and makes the gun handle like a fine Brit hunting rifle .... well, what real shooter COULDN'T love THAT, right? Then too, I've got a personal copy of the movie, "The Ghost and the Darkness," and a real fan of that movie just HAS to have a nice Brit rifle, don't they? Even if it IS made in the good ol' US of A in the end?

That Moisen will hopefully wind up being my "truck gun," and with some stock work I've been doing, I'm thinkin' I may well get that little rifle to handle like a real rifle oughta', and that'll be real nice too. Besides, that front sight is big enough I can SEE the darn thing, which is nice if you want to actually HIT something now and then. I want some .357 handgun level loads for that one, and I may well dedicate them both to cast bullets exclusively, if I can get the accuracy I want, which I think I'll be able to do if I just work it all out. The barrels are pretty good, so it ought to just be a matter of getting everything to work together, I think. May have to resort to a MM to get the right dia. and all, but don't have a .32 now and would really like to see if this RCBS mould can be pressed into service.

I know it's conjecture and a SWAG at this point, but do you think sizing it in a 2-step process would work any better? Already have a .314 Lyman sizer for the 3 lube-sizers I have, but it seems to mike out at .313 and a little. Ain't this a wonderful game to play?

[StarMetal]

In my opinion that's a really nothing step down in sizing. Of course Buckshot forgot the master of sizing down ME. I brought .284 bullets down to .264 in one sweep. My .284 sizer dies just merely lubes them and crimps the gascheck on so I don't concider that a first stage. I did this in a Lyman sizer in one step. No bending of the bullet, nothing. I took my bullets down .020 of an inch. You're only talking going .007. That's not alot to me. And yes you do have to lube them first as the lube keeps the bands from distorting into the lube grooves. You sized bullet will grow some in lenght from all this.

Joe

[kenjuudo]

Blackwater, PM sent.

jim