Trying to hard?

[leadman]

The Crisco reference took me back to my first cartridge reloading with cast. I was a muzzleloader shooter primarily but bought an H&R Shikari 45-70 and a Lyman mold. Since Crisco worked for the muzzleloader I just smeared some on the 45-70 boolit and loaded it. It worked great, even with a healthy dose of 3031.
As to getting the amount of blackpowder in the 32-20 IIRC the original cases were folded head and had more room in them. The area around the primer at the head was not solid so could contain powder.

[Gunnut 45/454]

I use the "Good enough" Standard. If I get good enough accuracy, velocity,function(AR's) in a cast loads I don't get my panties is a bunch. Usually that means accuracy to hit what I'm hunting! deer/yotes and grouping of 1-2" at 100 yards which with certain loads allows hitting that same game at distance!

[smoked turkey]

This thread is interesting because it forces us to take a good look at the process and ask why do we do what we do. I have been a hand loader for ..gulp..about 45 years. Today because of more knowlege (mainly from this site) I find myself being an excessive compulsive over things that frankly I didn't know were there to "bite" me back then. All in all I think I am having more fun now than I did then. Could be that I just have more time on my hands now that I am older and retired and can mess with things that are interesting to me without so much "production". I have to say that life is good for me. I certainly enjoy the process.

[JoeTheMechanic]

I was just wondering last night if I was trying too hard. I picked up a new used s&w 15-3 (38 spl) a few weeks back, and I had a fair bit of leading at the forcing cone with my 2.5gn red dot/150gn tlwc load. after slugging and measuring things I concluded this was due to my mold being a little small. I have to run it very hot, even with a lot of tin to get boolits that are big enough to go through a 358 sizer and actually achieve .358 all the way around. as cast size averaged .359x.3565. with my k-38 M&P I was shooting these boolits unsized and tumble lubed with no leading and 1" groups @ 10 yards. but the 15 has nearly a .358 bore, and just wasn't having it. so I beagled my mold and sized some boolits, but i haven't fired those yet as they weren't dry in time. so i loaded up the old unsized boolits. however, i went back to my old load of 3.0 grains red dot, but not because i thought the leading would change. i had lowered the charge to work on my rapid fire groups and wanted to "increase the weight", so to speak. and low and behold the 3.0gn load didn't lead! grouping was typical for these boolits, but im starting to wonder if it can be better.

since im using wadcutters with a light taper crimp, case neck tension has a lot to do with ignition, and therefor velocity. at 10yd i probably wont see much difference, but 25yd? 50? might be worth sizing all my boolits, might just need a dedicated long range load with a better suited boolit/velocity.