Does sizing remove tumble lube rings?

[ghh3rd]

I haven't tried sizing any of my tumble lube boolits yet, but wondered if sizing them removes any of the lube rings or mashes them closed?

Randy

[GrizzLeeBear]

Depends on how much you size the boolit. .001 - .002 probably ok. .004 - .005 good chance of loosing the grooves.

[Down South]

I agree with GLB. A lot of folks shoot TL Boolits as cast. But if you need to size then depending on how much you have to size down will determine how much of the lube grooves are left.

[Pepe Ray]

When it's necessary to size them several thous, you can prevent much of the obliteration of the grooves by lubing them UNSIZED first. THEN pass thru the reducing die.
The lead MUST move somewhere. By filling the grooves first the lead must go to the ends and surfaces.
Of course there will be SOME reduction but it will be minimized.
Pepe Ray

[Shiloh]

Pepe has good advice.

I could never get them to hold all that much lube when I experimented. They do mash down though.

I like TL boolits. I like not having to run 'em through a lubrisizer.

Shiloh

[Larry Gibson]

Only TL bullet I size down more than .001 is the TL314-90-SWC. With WW + 2% tin the bullets drop at .315-.316". I routinely tumble lube them and size to .314 through a Lee sizer. The lube in the grooves does not compress thus the grooves stay pretty much the same. For use in .30 cals I then further size them in another Lee sizer to .311". The lube again keeds the grooves intact but the bullets do elongate. I push them through this last sizer base first to keep the base square. That's .004-.006" sizing without a problem. I have further sized to .309 just for S&Gs. Now that was a bit too much as the bases weren't square (either way pushed through) and the grooves were almost gone.

Larry Gibson

[les265]

I use the TL358-158-SWC. They drop at .359-360 and was too big to chamber in my revolver once they were loaded. I ran one through the .358 sizer, but it looked like it mashed down the lube grooves too much. I ended up loading them lubed and unsized and then ran them through the Lee factory crimp die that post sizes them during the crimping step. This seems to have worked quite well.