brimic
07-01-2005, 12:50 AM
I bought a .324" Lee mould awhile back and its caused me more trouble than its worth. It was casting bullets from wheelweights at ~.3235" when .324" was about the smallest bullet I might be able to get away with.
I tried the 'Beagle tape' method and started casting nice bullets that were a bit over .325", and the bore riding nose engraved slightly in the bore of even my 'loose' mausers, at this point everything looked pretty swell. I had a Lee .323" sizer (which is just about useless as tits on a boar as-is) that I wanted to open up a bit. I rolled some boolits in valve grinding paste and made about 20 passes through the die using fresh boolits occasionally until it sized to .325." Ok, everything is good so far still.
I try seating my first gas check, and the bullet binds up in the sizing die and finally spits out a boolit with a 'heel' pressed into one sde of the gas check. I figure OK, so I opened up the dimension of the die a bit and the piston is not going to fit as tight anymore. I try 1/2 dozen more, and no matter how carefully I aligned everything, the boolit binds inside and distorts the gc.
To make things worse, the ram on my rockchucker started feeling a little gritty, some valve grinding paste inadvertantly worked itself into the ram. I disassembled the press, breaking the spring that holds the shellholder in place along the way, thoroughly scrub the press and all of its parts, grease everything, reassemble, and it still feels a bit gritty. Now I think I'll disassemble it again and pressure wash it and make a trip to the local gunshop to see if they have a spare spring that I broke.
It also took me a good 1/2 hour to get every little bit of grit off my reloading bench, that crap is really persistant and seems to get everywhere, even where I'm not working with it. :-|
I tried the 'Beagle tape' method and started casting nice bullets that were a bit over .325", and the bore riding nose engraved slightly in the bore of even my 'loose' mausers, at this point everything looked pretty swell. I had a Lee .323" sizer (which is just about useless as tits on a boar as-is) that I wanted to open up a bit. I rolled some boolits in valve grinding paste and made about 20 passes through the die using fresh boolits occasionally until it sized to .325." Ok, everything is good so far still.
I try seating my first gas check, and the bullet binds up in the sizing die and finally spits out a boolit with a 'heel' pressed into one sde of the gas check. I figure OK, so I opened up the dimension of the die a bit and the piston is not going to fit as tight anymore. I try 1/2 dozen more, and no matter how carefully I aligned everything, the boolit binds inside and distorts the gc.
To make things worse, the ram on my rockchucker started feeling a little gritty, some valve grinding paste inadvertantly worked itself into the ram. I disassembled the press, breaking the spring that holds the shellholder in place along the way, thoroughly scrub the press and all of its parts, grease everything, reassemble, and it still feels a bit gritty. Now I think I'll disassemble it again and pressure wash it and make a trip to the local gunshop to see if they have a spare spring that I broke.
It also took me a good 1/2 hour to get every little bit of grit off my reloading bench, that crap is really persistant and seems to get everywhere, even where I'm not working with it. :-|