Maximum Sizedown

[newton]

What is the maximum you have found you can size down a boolit without too much trouble? I am wanting to size down from .510 to .501. Do you think this is possible? I have not bought anything yet. I figured I would see what more experienced people have done. Thanks!

[prs]

Not gonna be prudent. If much harder than unchilled WW alloy it will be hugely difficult and may break your lube sizer. The larger the diameter of the bullet the more material those thousands represent and you gots a huge boolit and a very large squeeze down. Traditional thinking is that .002" is the practical limit if I recall my Lyman manual correctly.

prs

[delt167502]

To size dn. say .009, yes you can but it will have a shoulder at the starting at the curve of the point. and if you are shooting for moa.I would not recomend it. I would suggest just buying a cheap mold of the .501 cal.

[454PB]

For .009", you may need to do it in two steps.

Just yesterday I sized some wheel weight alloy .457" boolits to .452" in my Star sizer, but the boolits were already lubed and went through easily. The tougher the alloy, the tougher the sizing. Pre-lubing is very important when sizing that much.

[newton]

Guess I did not include all information. I will be using soft lead, pure mostly, for these boolits. They do not have a mold in that size, or anything close. But I will keep looking. Maybe I'll have to think it through another way.

[0verkill]

I think LEE has a couple of moulds, like 350 and 440 gr I thnk, in the .501 range.

[no34570]

Try Accurate molds,I'm sure he can make it that size you want from the 50cal range

http://www.accuratemolds.com/catalog.php?page=9

Good luck

[newton]

I think LEE has a couple of moulds, like 350 and 440 gr I thnk, in the .501 range.

Yea, I am wanting to use their 50-70 mold. I want the 500 grain boolit. I have thought about the 440, but I am wanting the length of the 500.

[newton]

Try Accurate molds,I'm sure he can make it that size you want from the 50cal range

http://www.accuratemolds.com/catalog.php?page=9

Good luck

Thanks for the link. I might just actually go that route. Not sure though. It looks like it is $75 plus shipping for the single cavity. But I could get it to the exact dimension I am looking for without having to use a sizer...but I have no idea what size I am looking for to tell you the truth. lol

Its going to be an experimentation for me with my .50 cal inline muzzle loader. My land-land measurement is right around .500". My groove-groove measurement is right around .510".

I figured I could size the boolit at .510", then take the .501" sizer and run the bottom half of the boolit in to make it a little easier to start in the barrel. But, if I knew what size would be the best balance between easy to start and tight as I can get it, I would order a mold in that dimension and forgo the sizing all together.

I think that I will wind up with getting the 50-70 mold and the .510" sizer. I know that set up will make a boolit that will fit the grooves of my gun. Then its just going to be a matter of how hard it is to push down the barrel. Maybe that a custom sizer would be a better option at that point to bring the size down to .507" or so.

This is all in the planning stages right now. Trying to think this out from different angles.

[newton]

Well, I sat back and thought some more and I realized that if I went trying to size down a larger boolit then I would run into the problem of decreasing the size of the lube grooves. Seems that plan is nipped in the butt. I think that I am going to actually get the .501 mold and lap it out larger. That way I can achieve the desired goal without having to shell out the big bucks. Sure wish I was rich.

[W.R.Buchanan]

You can easily size this boolit to the size you need. You just have to do it in several steps. .003 per step would work but you'd have to buy or make sizing dies to those individual sizes. If you can make them fine but if you have to buy them you'd be better off buying the correct mould instead of a bunch of sizing dies only good for one thing..

One of the other posters said on a larger boolit a given size equals more material to move.

This is only true to a certain extent. Sizing a .314 boolit to .311 is a lot more than sizing a .504 boolit to .501 If you look at the percentage of of sizing change you'll see the smaller one is moving a greater percentage of the boolit than the larger one is, even though the larger is obviously moving more material. The larger boolit also has more places for that material to go..

That said, the material has to go somewhere, and when you move too much of the driving bands the material tends to smear into the lube grooves. It would smear worse if if you tried to do it all at once.

The whole reason why you size the boolit in steps is so you can keep the perecentage of material moved to a reasonable level which translates directly to the amount of force you need to apply to the boolit to get it to move.

If you look at boolit sizing as boolit swaging (since that is exactly what you are doing) you will realize you can make these boolits any size you want,,, with enough force!

You might need a bigger hammer?

Randy

[Marvin S]

Probalby just end up smashing the nose so fat it will never chamber and look ugly to boot.

[swheeler]

Newton: I size a .327" as cast bullet to .325" lube and gas check at same time, I then run that .325 bullet through a Lee push through sizer of .313" dia. The lube grooves come out the same depth as when sized .325 and the bullets are quite accurate, that's with .014" reduction from as cast diameter.

[newton]

Probalby just end up smashing the nose so fat it will never chamber and look ugly to boot.

I would be using lee sizer, it goes in nose first. But I would want to stay away from messing up the base. Also, I'd be doing it for a muzzleloader. Don't think I'll have an issue with it chambering. Guess I should have made that more clear.

[newton]

Newton: I size a .327" as cast bullet to .325" lube and gas check at same time, I then run that .325 bullet through a Lee push through sizer of .313" dia. The lube grooves come out the same depth as when sized .325 and the bullets are quite accurate, that's with .014" reduction from as cast diameter.

This is very interesting. I wonder how it is the grooves do not shrink. But at the same time it's good to know that it can be done.

Honestly, I think in the end I want something around a .505-.508. But, again I'm not even sure on that. My goal is to replicate the 50-70 or the 50-90 sharps with my muzzleloader. Those rifles came in a lot of different twist rates, but the 1:28 I have is a decent one to work with.

I would be using it for hunting mostly, so I do not want to tote around a bunch of tools to start the boolit. However, I am not looking for something to slip down my barrel so I can shoot one shot after another. I would rather have a tack driver and spend a few extra moments after the shot swabbing my barrel.

So that's where I am just not sure if the .510 sized boolit would work. It would be the same size as my groove to groove. But I know that .501 would be an easy fit, maybe too easy.

Oh well. I guess in the end it comes down to trying something for yourself. Just got to get the funds now.

[Tatume]

I know people who size 375 jacketed bullets to 366 for use in 9.3 mm cartridges. They do it in two steps, and have very good results.

[W.R.Buchanan]

swheeler: have you measured the length before and after. I bet they are longer after.

The lead has to go somewhere.

Randy

[stubshaft]

I've done it with a 580gr LFN for my Alaskan. I pan lubed it so that the grooves were filled with lube then ran it through a .502" die that Bullshot made for me.

It wasn't worth the effort...So, I tried it with the 515142 cast soft thinking that the deeper lube grooves and softer alloy would wok better. The body and point looked pretty good but it had some godawful fins on the base and was slightly off center.

Buy another mold!