Large GC shank

I have a RCBS 357-180-sil mould. It casts beautifully. I casted about 400 boolits yesterday with about a dozen culls. I cast straight air cooled WW, and they fall from the mould ~.359". However, it does have an issue. I started to GC, Size and lube today and noticed that the GC shank is too large to seat the check fully by hand before crimping. I use Hornady checks. I started using the sizer to seat them, but am concerned that the bullet may not start into the die straight with the check not being fully seated. Any Ideas, are other GC's a bit larger? Should I seat the checks in a seperate step?

I think almost all gas checks on the market are made by Hornady, including Lyman & RCBS. You could try some old Lyman slip on gas checks, or maybe annealing your present checks will make them more manageable. I'm sure you already checked your shank for burrs & fins but it's always worth double checking.

measure your shank size, then check here:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=17539

Usually you can get a Gator to fit, when horndy is too small.

Jon

Call RCBS, and I bet they replace it.


I'm Patmarlin and I approve this message... :mrgreen:

That's the way I want them to fit. If I can't fully seat them by pressing the check on something solid with my fingers, I use the sizer to seat them. With the Lyman/RCBS, put a flat piece of metal over the die and push them on before sizing. With a Star, give them a light tap with the punch before pushing them through the die.

You can anneal the gas checks. They'll go on easier without shaving lead from the shank.

I like tight checks and just made a tool to seat them in my press. Nothing worse then loose ones.

I have the the same mold with the same issue.:( To make things worse, my 37-250 RCBS mold suffers from the same affliction. Double :(:(

John

This is the first RCBS mould I have used, and I really like it except for this one issue...I guess I can get used to seating them in a seperate step. BTW I just bought a RCBS 257-120-sp mould, havn't tried it yet, but keepin' my fingers crossed.

Here is a solution to trouble some cast bullet that are to fat on their bases for GC.

Get yourself a swaging die in the caliber and diameter your bullet is be used, the die body would have to be the head forming type that has an ogive taper. You can get these from C-H 4D.com .

Any reloading press will work for this operation which is very simple, put a bullet with its nose upside down on the ram's nose punch, you have to some times hold in position while ramming it up into the swaging die backward.

Now this is tricky part, adjust the swaging die height mounted in the press so that the bullet reaches maximum upward travel in the die body to put a slight taper on the bullet's base.

Now the really good news is...you can do this to any cast bullet, even if it don't have gas check cut...any plane base bullet can be altered to accept a GC using this method.

Jim

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...eckseating.jpg

Thats not a boolt! Thats a mortar round. :mrgreen:

Check out this article. Near the end is how to expand a gas check.

http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting...stingcouch.pdf

Frank

Thanks, That's quite a nifty little fix. Who'da thunk it? Such a simple solution. Obviously I didn't think of that because my IQ was far beyond the necessary level.....That is how you spell IQ isn't it?

One more thing to consider is that it could be the checks. I struggled with a box once and blamed everything except what the problem actually was.

BA said what I was gonna say.

Check your checks, try some others if you have them.

A large ball bearing of proper size placed on GC and a tap of the ball pean hammer also works well.

Here's another idea from Newtire out of the Classics & Stickies:

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/...1&postcount=16