onondaga
01-11-2011, 08:00 PM
My .458 Win Mag Colt Sauer slugged out at .4570" Previously sizing my cast bullets with a Lee .457 push through die had no effect on accuracy with the fine shooting Sauer, so I put the die away for quite a while and kept shooting as cast bullets. My Lee .457-340 RN-F mold drops bullets at .460" and the rifle groups those un-sized bullets <1" at 50 yards all day but over 1610 fps the groups open up. My plain base CheckMaker 45PB from Pat Marlin will hopefully be here soon. I decided to open up the sizer to .459 before I start to gas check this bullet.
I never did this before. This has been discussed in topics here many times so I gave it a try armed with a slotted wood dowel, strips of 320 grit emery cloth and oil and an electric hand drill. This is a lot slower than I had expected and took over an hour of spinning the dowel with the emery cloth and oil and checking diameter by running a bullet through the die periodically. I sure didn't want to over do it and then have to order a new die. It took 11 bullets used for checking until I finally got the die to size my bullet at .459" I cleaned the die with a couple of dry patches before each run through of a lubed bullet to check size.
If you are going to try this you will have better progress by not running your drill at high speed. I started at fast speed for 5 minutes and had no change so I slowed the drill down to about 1/4 speed and noticed immediately that the die got warm with the lower speed. I was right, the next measurement check showed progress. The slower speed cuts the metal better. I finished up by putting a new label on the die and box-- reamed .459" so it would be properly identified.
A Starrett micrometer was used to check sized bullet diameter, The same micrometer was used to check my slugs from slugging the Sauer rifle.
I am hoping to work up a new load for the Sauer with the 340 RN-F gas checked and No filler at a velocity of 2,000 + fps. My current load requires filler or I get squib rounds with 53.3 grains of H4895. I will go back to Accurate 5744 to work up the new gas checked load and try no filler.
Gary
I never did this before. This has been discussed in topics here many times so I gave it a try armed with a slotted wood dowel, strips of 320 grit emery cloth and oil and an electric hand drill. This is a lot slower than I had expected and took over an hour of spinning the dowel with the emery cloth and oil and checking diameter by running a bullet through the die periodically. I sure didn't want to over do it and then have to order a new die. It took 11 bullets used for checking until I finally got the die to size my bullet at .459" I cleaned the die with a couple of dry patches before each run through of a lubed bullet to check size.
If you are going to try this you will have better progress by not running your drill at high speed. I started at fast speed for 5 minutes and had no change so I slowed the drill down to about 1/4 speed and noticed immediately that the die got warm with the lower speed. I was right, the next measurement check showed progress. The slower speed cuts the metal better. I finished up by putting a new label on the die and box-- reamed .459" so it would be properly identified.
A Starrett micrometer was used to check sized bullet diameter, The same micrometer was used to check my slugs from slugging the Sauer rifle.
I am hoping to work up a new load for the Sauer with the 340 RN-F gas checked and No filler at a velocity of 2,000 + fps. My current load requires filler or I get squib rounds with 53.3 grains of H4895. I will go back to Accurate 5744 to work up the new gas checked load and try no filler.
Gary