Hello, I was wondering if .001 over groove is a really hard minimum bullet size or if it just needs to be bigger than the grooves and .001 is just the standard amount. The reason I ask is I have a marlin 1894 in 44 mag that slugs out at 0.4315". 0.432" bullets aren't too hard to find, but I can't find any decently priced 0.433" bullets. I want to get the best I can out of the rifle, but the only 0.433" bullets I can find are almost 3 times as much as 0.432" I can find(not because of the size, but just the standard cost from those sources). Adding that much to the cost of reloading would mean I wouldn't be able to shoot nearly as much.
Also I did run about 50 0.432" swc-hp bullets through it this weekend and didn't notice any leading, but I was shooting steel so I don't know how accurate they were. The rounds I were firing were just under max load for unique powder so probably around 1400 fps out of the rifle. I didn't bring a chrono so that's the best estimate I have.