Smoking My Socks?

[RevRich]

I recently slugged the barrel of my 380 auto pistol. Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t the standard diameter for the 380 auto .355 inches? Well, the slug measured .3575 inches at the greatest diameter. Would that be groves or lands? This gun has a 5 grove rifling so it was hard to measure, I hope I did it right.

The boolits that drop out of my 380 mould range from .3565 to .3573 inches. I used to size them to .355 but with the new intelligence obtained from the slugging of my barrel, will I experience problems? I am no expert, but I would think that there would be several problems shooting an undersized bullet. First, the bullet would not seal the barrel and hot gases would blow by the bullet melting the lead and depositing it in the barrel causing excessive leading. Second, the bullet would not engage the rifling correctly and correct spin would not be achieved. And finally, the gases would not blow by evenly and most probably all go off to one side causing uneven pressure on the bullet during travel down the barrel and much more uneven pressures as the bullet leaves the barrel resulting in poor accuracy.

Am I correct in my thinking or am I smoking my socks here? Does a smaller bullet expand slightly to seal the barrel and a larger bullet cause problems instead? What are the physics here anyway? Should the bullet be slightly bigger, the exact diameter or slightly smaller than the bore? I have always though that a slightly bigger (0.001 or 0.002) bullet was desired?

If there is an issue, as I am beginning to believe there is, what can I do to correct or minimize problems? Will it be worthwhile to try to increase the cavity diameter of my mould and size the boolit to .358, only 5 10,000ths bigger than the bore, or am I worrying about nothing and I should keep my meddling fingers off the inside of the mould? What other steps can I take to minimize any problems?

I would greatly appreciate any advice the Boolit Masters can impart.

[Calehedron]

Have you shot the boolits and seen any leading or accuracy issues? .355 is 9mm jacketed and .356 is for 380acp. I just use a .356 sizing die for both my 9 and 380.

[Calamity Jake]

Beagle the mold to make boolets .358-.359 then size .358, assemble a dummy round to check fit in chamber.

[missionary5155]

Good afternoon
My PA-63 .380 is also on the large size.
The lead mix your are using... if you go to a harder mix the boolit size will increase. Such as pure lead will drop smaller than 50/50 WW-lead. and WW will be larger still.
But as Calamity Jake stated... Beagle it... Couple small strips of Aluminum Duct tape on the inside of the mold around the cavities and you get instant FAT boolits.
I generally size all my boolits .002 over bore IF the chamber will receive that fat of cartridge. Most chambers do. And I usually shoot my boolits as soft as possible. That is the enjoyment of casting and reloading. You get to experiment and find THAT perfect load for that need....
God Bless You Mike

[EMC45]

Size all my .380 bullets to .358 for my KelTec.

[Ricochet]

Are you smoking your socks in a pipe, or rolling them in paper?

[leftiye]

Your socks will definitely smell better (LOL) if smoked. I wouldn't stop using tobacco and go to stinky socks (might as well smoke Buffalo chips).

[RevRich]

I have been shooting commercially cast bullets up till now. They are the wrong shape and the wrong weight. But they filled the gap until I could come up with the mould I wanted. I just received my first mould for the 380. I had been looking, a long time now, for the shape and weight I wanted, unsuccessfully I might add. I finally bit the boolit and bought an RCBS. It is not exactly what I wanted but is close enough. Besides, I am sick of searching. I have not shot any of these new boolits yet. I just cast up a couple of hundred and now I need to run them through the sizer/luber. I am trying to decide which lube to use so it will be a while before I test them. My alloy is rather hard. I almost fill a 20 lb pot with 3 to1 linotype to pure lead then throw in a bar of mystery lead. The mystery lead is range scrounged and I need to use it up.

The commercial bullet is sized .356. I misspoke earlier, my sizer die is .356 as well. I am experiencing moderate leading. What is worse, the accuracy is erratic. Sometimes this little gun will shoot silver dollar groups at 50 yards at other times I can barely hold the paper. I am not saying the problem isn’t my fault. It very well could be. Until I slugged the barrel I was convinced it was. But now I have a vain hope that the problem might, in some small part, be related to something other than my poor marksmanship. But as I am little better with other guns, it probably is.

This Beagling, won’t it produce an oblong boolit?

The first known incident of sock smoking is believed to have occurred in Minnesota in the early part of the 18th century when cotton and wool became extremely hard to come by and expensive. Some enterprising spinner woman heard that a fibrous plant that grew wild in the ditches could be used as a substitute for wool. She experimented a little and finally perfected the first socks made from cannabis.:kidding:

[Catshooter]

You have discovered that when it comes to bore size, you don't know until you measure.

I have a S&W 686 that measures .3555, who could guess that?

I would suggest trying shooting a few unsized.

Beagleing may turn out an out of round boolit, but it may also be large enough that when you size it it trues up and shoots fine.

Ya never know 'till ya try in this racket. Good luck!


Cat

[sniper7369]

I size all my .380 and 9mm to .357 now. My P3AT seems OK with anything from .356-.357, but all of my 9mm pistols like .357.
The P3AT is a tack driver for a pocket gun, but it IS difficult to shoot very well. You erratic accuracy is most likely a result of the too small boolit though if you are holding small groups sometimes and other times all over the place. I'm guessing the accuracy deteriorates after a few rounds?

[Bret4207]

Welcome aboard Rev. You are at the place where ya just gotta shoot 'em and see. A Beagled mould may be oblong, but so what? All our sizing and fussing can be completely altered when we load the boolit in an undersized case and crimp the snot out of it. Anyway, the barrel does the final sizing. You're going to have to shoot them and see what your gun says. 4/0 steel wool will remove any leading.

[Will]

My 380 would not shoot better than 10" with factory .355's. I slugged it and found the same thing a .358 bore. I switched to cast .358 and got groups down to 3". A lot of the 380's have 38 bores instead of 9MM.

[454PB]

I don't own a .380, but I do own four 9mm's. I was "gifted" 500 hard cast commercial cast boolits sized .356" and tried them. They leaded and shot 6" 25 yard groups in all my guns. My own cast boolits are sized .357" and shoot well with no leading.

However, if I owned a .380 that could shoot dollar sized groups at 50 yards, I'd stick with that combination!

[RevRich]

However, if I owned a .380 that could shoot dollar sized groups at 50 yards, I'd stick with that combination!

Oops,

I may have typed 50 yards, but I was thinking 50 feet. Sorry.

[RevRich]

Thanks for all the info. I think I will try my new cast boolits unsized. I will run them through my .358 die to lube them though. Might get messy but it should be interesting.

If it comes down to it, how does a guy go about increasing the diameter of his mould by .001. I read somewhere about using a boolit from the mould as a grinding wheel with some sort of abrasive material. Will this work? What kind of abrasive material would be best?

I would like to avoid beagling if possible. Just doesn’t sound right to me. I mean no offence to you boolit masters who suggested it. I’m just not comfortable with the idea.

[leftiye]

Revv, Look in castpics for the articles on beagling a mold, also lapping a mold. Do a search here for those subjects - lots of coverage IIRC.

[rhead]

I would have a lot fewer wories about beagling a mould than i would about lapping one. Once the mould is lapped it is done and cannot be undone. Beagle a mould and cast a batch and try them, then you can decide whether to increase the amount, leave it alone, or undo the job. One is easy to do and is reverseable the other is much more difficult to do right and once it is done it cannot be undone.