44, and 480 help needed.

I have a lee setup for 44 mag I have used it to load some pretty good loads for a 4" Taurus I have. I recently bought a Ruger "old" vaquero and am trying to loose a raging bull for a redhawk. I bought a Lyman 45 lube sizer in order to eliminate some of the lube mess and to be able to size my boolits a little better and seat gas checks. Can anyone help to explain how and why you slug a barrel. I'm looking to get the most out of a pistol as I can. I hope to hunt with the 4" Taurus and the Redhawk but I enjoy small groups maybe even more. The Lyman will take all of the Lyman and Rcbs dies correct? I keep reading about a O ring but the Lyman 45 will not be here for a week or 2 and I'm trying to get my ducks in a row. Also a top punch for a 480 ruger I see some Rcbs dies but no top punches. Any and all help is appreciated and I wish you all a Merry stress free Christmas.:grin:

you push an oiled soft lead slug through your bbl.
you use it to identify tight spots and to determine the actual diameter.
you also want to measure your cylinder throats.
if they are smaller than your bbl they need to be opened.
if for instance your bbl is 4295 and your throats are 431 you will want to try both a 430 and a 431 sized boolit.
you most likely won't need a gas check in your revolvers unless you are gonna walk on the top end only.
if your boolits have a flat nose then i'd just cut off a bolt and use that as my nose punch.

480 Ruger .
I used a RN punch and ground the die flat and presto, perfect flat nose punch for the RCBS or Lyman 4500 .

Sean

Thank you for the replies. Do I not need a gas check for a boolit that has a cut for a gas check??? I'm not trying to be smart,:bigsmyl2: I'm trying to learn some things about casting. I had thought that low spot on the boolit would cause it to shoot bad if you didn' put a gas check on it. I'm not much of a speed demon [smilie=2:around 1000-1300fps is around where my cast loads run seems go be the best grunt and accuracy and the least recoil. I have a bunch of wheel weights cleaned up and some clean lead that are going into the pot as soon as I get a chance, maybe early next week. I may be able to do a little hog hunting late next week, if the moon and stars line up just right. so I'm trying to line my ducks up. I thank you both for the help! William.

Generally you do need a gas check on a gas check design, some have reported decent accuracy without the checks in very low pressure loads.

I have used gas check boolits sans gas check in very low pressure loads in my sons 30-06, haven't done accuracy testing with them yet however. There was no leading, velocity was in the 1,000fps range with 180gr boolits.

The dies are all the same correct 45, 450, rcbs. 475/480 do you have any good looking pictures of some of your cast boolits that you care to share? I bought a 400gr lee mold I cast 20 or so out of just to see what they would look like. Also what kind of accuracy do you get. Thanks William.

My 400 gr. RCBS mold 476- 400- SWC uses a #638 top punch.

It's a plain base mold and accuracy was excellent, even with max loads. No problems with leading in my SRH.