Sizing for pistol?

[dkonrai]

How important is it to resize? Just curious. I got a few nice moulds that drop almost perfect boolits. Might be off .01 plus or minus. Shot a few 38 and 44 and it seemed fine.

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[Tom_in_AZ]

Slug the bore and throats. If you are - thousandth over, good to go.


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[dkonrai]

Slug the bore and throats. If you are - thousandth over, good to go.


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Thank you buddy.

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[Conditor22]

If your boolit is undersized, you could powder coat them to make up the difference

[dkonrai]

If you are under you could powder coat them to make up the difference

Did not think the coating made any difference?

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[Conditor22]

powder coating replaces lube and adds between 1 to 4 thou per coat depending on the powder/color

[JBinMN]

Fit is King!

If they are fitting as cast, & causing no issues, then no need to size or change anything regarding the cast boolits.

If you develop issues, like leading, key holing, bad accuracy, over pressure signs, etc., then it is time to rethink if they are fitting correctly or not, depending on what the issue(s) is/are & where the issues may be located (chamber, bbl., muzzle, target, brass,etc.).

[RU shooter]

If they load and shoot fine there's your answer

[LenH]

I concur with JBinMN. Spot on.

[upnorthwis]

Might want to check the placement of the decimal point too. .01 = .010. And if that's plus or minus, (.020) that's measureable with a ruler.

[JBinMN]

BTW, "If" you were not aware... If they are dropping & fitting fine right now, that is great, but if you change your alloy to something else from what you are using to get those boolits that are working OK, then you will likely need to check measure the boolits made with a different alloy, to make sure they are the same size as the alloy you used that worked OK "as cast", since a change in the alloy makeup may cause a change in the size of the boolits when they drop.

Example - If you are using 100% COWW & they are coming out of the mould and fitting "as cast", but you change the alloy to, lets say, 50% COWW & 50% pure lead( Pb), ( Or whatever alloy change , "if" you make one), you likely want to re-check the measurements of the boolits to make sure they are still the same size as the 100% "as cast" that fit before. Alloys do not all always drop the same size, due to the makeup of the alloy. Some might be bigger, & some may be smaller.

I would check them warm( hot as you can handle) & then check again cold, but if they come out warm/hot & are undersized, they are pretty likely not to "grow" bigger.


"I" check the measurements almost every time I cast a pile, regardless, just to make sure I am not wasting time by making a pile of undersized boolits, and then have to re-cast them again, particularly if I make any changes to the alloy type/content.

(I hope I said that well enough to be understood. Sometimes I have a hard time putting my thoughts into words in the right way for others to understand what I mean.)

Anyway... If ya already knew what I am talking about, Great!
If not, then it is a good idea to keep it in mind & save yourself some time casting, to prevent any re-casting.


G'Luck!

[SteveK]

How important is it to resize? Just curious. I got a few nice moulds that drop almost perfect boolits. Might be off .01 plus or minus. Shot a few 38 and 44 and it seemed fine.

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I've had some occasional feed problems with bullets cast for a 1911/.45ACP using a Lee Mold, which the instructions claimed, "did not require sizing." This was bull. I'm of the opinion that the final diameter of an unsized bullet depends upon at least two factors: The alloy used and how the bullets cool. I am NOT a metallurgist. This is just observation based upon my experiences. Hard cast alloys seem to need sizing - always. Air cooled bullets (as opposed to water drops) seem to be a smidge large too, but not always... and that's the maddening part - size or don't size, which is exactly your question.

Having said this, I now size every bullet I load, however, I no longer use that greazy/waxy stuff to lube bullets anymore. I've switched to a short, 20 minute, tumble in steel balls and bit of HBN (hexagonal boron nitride). This is an excellent lubricant and has virtually no affect on the diameter of my bullets because the HBN is basically pounded into the surface of the bullet and therefore doesn't change it's diameter. Some of my bullets are so slick after a HBN tumble they are actually hard to pick up from the bench. (enough rambling)

Consistency is the brother of accuracy. Consistent alloy, consistent cooling methodology and (hopefully) consistent cast bullet diameter will determine if your bullets feed well and, more importantly, shoot well.

[TimD]

Never heard of hBN. Is it better than molybdenum disulfide? I assume the coating process is similar.

[SteveK]

Never heard of hBN. Is it better than molybdenum disulfide? I assume the coating process is similar.

I've tried moly twice: First time it was a waxy stick that went into the lubrisizer and resided in the bullets lube grooves. It was messy and I read that it is quite toxic. (Wash you hands often.) It did the job but nothing positive or negative stands out in my mind about it. The second time the jacketed bullets I bought were pretreated (I thought they were from Hornady) with moly and came with some special reloading warnings dealing with high pressures so cutting back on the loads by 10% or so was recommended. I didn't have to apply it so I can't speculate on how the bullet was coated. All I can say for certain is that the bullets did not feel slippery in my fingers the way HBN coated lead bullets do and if you tumbled the finished bullet to make it all shiny and pretty the moly coating came off.

As for HBN, google "HBN bullet coatings" and you should find several articles and vendors who sell the stuff. I started out buying a relatively cheep tester package (came with a few grams of HBN, tumbling media, tumbling bottle [pill bottle] and some measuring scoops. A very little bit of HBN goes a long way. It is innert and nontoxic. I tried it, liked it and haven't looked back since.

[dkonrai]

Might want to check the placement of the decimal point too. .01 = .010. And if that's plus or minus, (.020) that's measureable with a ruler.

Sorry .001

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[mdi]

You won't know if you need to resize/size your bullets until you measure them. You won't know if your bullets fit your gun until you measure it. Molds are designed to drop bullets of a certain diameter/weight when used with the same ally, same temp as the mold manufacturer uses. If your temps or alloy is different, you bullets may be of a different diameter/weight than what the mfg. specifies...

Sorta like buying britches. You may get lucky and grab a pair off the shelf that fits or you may have to try several to find some that fit (WAG). Or you could measure your waist and measure the pants (or check the size) and get a good fit right away.

[dkonrai]

BTW, "If" you were not aware... If they are dropping & fitting fine right now, that is great, but if you change your alloy to something else from what you are using to get those boolits that are working OK, then you will likely need to check measure the boolits made with a different alloy, to make sure they are the same size as the alloy you used that worked OK "as cast", since a change in the alloy makeup may cause a change in the size of the boolits when they drop.

Example - If you are using 100% COWW & they are coming out of the mould and fitting "as cast", but you change the alloy to, lets say, 50% COWW & 50% pure lead( Pb), ( Or whatever alloy change , "if" you make one), you likely want to re-check the measurements of the boolits to make sure they are still the same size as the 100% "as cast" that fit before. Alloys do not all always drop the same size, due to the makeup of the alloy. Some might be bigger, & some may be smaller.

I would check them warm( hot as you can handle) & then check again cold, but if they come out warm/hot & are undersized, they are pretty likely not to "grow" bigger.


"I" check the measurements almost every time I cast a pile, regardless, just to make sure I am not wasting time by making a pile of undersized boolits, and then have to re-cast them again, particularly if I make any changes to the alloy type/content.

(I hope I said that well enough to be understood. Sometimes I have a hard time putting my thoughts into words in the right way for others to understand what I mean.)

Anyway... If ya already knew what I am talking about, Great!
If not, then it is a good idea to keep it in mind & save yourself some time casting, to prevent any re-casting.


G'Luck!

Good call. Yes I understand what your saying. I try to get my mix 50/50 lead, and coww. I add a bit of 70/30 solder for tinning usually about 16 to 1. Not exact science as I just count out my ingots I.e. 8 lead, 8 coww, 1 70/30.
From what it seems? I should nust resize em all.
Thanks guys.

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[dverna]

One of the reasons I like the .38/.357 is that in most cases, if shooting plinking/target loads, nearly anything works. There was a recent thread here on using 9mm bullets in the .38....they worked fine. As another guy posted, if they chamber, are accurate, and do not lead, no need to size.

One of my desires is to get a mold that drops .358 bullets with 92-6-2 alloy and use BLL with no sizing for the .38/.357/9mm. Eliminating sizing about doubles the number of bullets per hour unless they have a Star.

[Walks]

So what colors of PC add more thickness then others ? Or what color/brand adds the most diameter to a bullet ? and which color/brand adds the least ?

[dkonrai]

So what colors of PC add more thickness then others ? Or what color/brand adds the most diameter to a bullet ? and which color/brand adds the least ?

Pc I'm using doesn't add much at all. Its grey in color I get great coverage on a single coat.

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