I lit the fire and started casting with my new Lee TL-430-240-SWC on Tuesday. I was using a soft mix of 50/50 clip/stick wheel weights since these are destined for my CA .44 special.
Last night, I decided to tumble lube and size these boolits. I ran a few through my .430 Lee die to compare how they fit in the throats to a few unsized boolits. It took quiet a push to get the boolits through. A couple boolits looked like they lost 75% of their lube grooves. The die sized them to an exact .430. The boolits fell through my throats effortlessly.
I then pulled out my Lee .432 sizing die. I was fortunate enough to find this die on ebay about a year ago. I intended to use it for my Ruger Super Redhawk, but I never got around to casting for it.
The boolits went through the die with a fair amount of resistance. The type of resistance I usually expect. I could tell that about half of the boolits were being sized, and some just kissed the die as they passed though.
I never thought I'd need a .432 sizer die for a .430 mold. Does this sort of thing usually happen? or is this a normal characteristic of the alloy I used? This was my first time casting with anything but a strict diet of COWW + 1% tin.