Great news! I broke it :-(

[AricTheRed]

So there I am trying to chamber an unsized once fired 44mag that has been 80% filled with pure lead. That way i can hammer a nother bit of pure lead down the bore and hopefully get an accurate idea of the throat dimensions on my new 1894ss as I have been really disatisfied with the accuracy so far.

Anyway, I can't get the case chambered, can't get it extracted. So the great ideas keep coming. Use the soft slug & the steel rod to push the lead filled case out of the chamber while the wife holds the rifle steady. As I'm tapping more and more vigrously I hear a tiny ping, look in that direction see nothing, one more hammer blow and the cartridge comes clear of the chamber.

Back in the garage @ the reloading bench, remove the decapping pin from the sizing die, size the lead filled case and go to chamber it. And that is when I see it, the busted ejector. So that tiny ping was not the house sliding toward the ocean.

Anyhow I got the throat & bore slugged, mic'ed and feel my bullets are prolly a scosh under size.

I then promptly logged on to Midway and ordered a wild west guns trigger and ejector.
I've never really been happy with the trigger either.

So here is the question tgat started all of this.

[AricTheRed]

56495The throat mic-ed out at .4325" dia and .0625" long. My lubed boolits are .4325" dia. but I'm using a Lee factory crimp die so the slugs forward of the crimp are .4333".

Does it sound like these are going to fit this throat or is the factory crimp die sizing the boolit shanks smaller? does that matter if the shank forward of the crimp groove is .4333"?

I'm using a Saeco 433-2 that I have adjusted to drop .4325" with lyman#2 the cartridges are COAL 1.67 with 22.8gr of H-110

Any words of wisdom would be appreciated, the only thought I've come up with so far is to load up a primer only squib and see what the shanks measure.

[robroy]

Lee's typical handgun fcds actually aftersize the case to something resembling SAAMI specs by pushing the round through a carbide ring. This is likely shrinking the lead in your case which is probably not a good thing. RanchDog had Lee make up fcds that crimp with a collet as do Lee's fcds for rifle cartriges. If you can get your hands on one of them you'll be in good shape. If not use a roll crimper or a taper crimper to remove the flare from the case mouth and see what happens.

[Chicken Thief]

Lee's typical handgun fcds actually aftersize the case to something resembling SAAMI specs by pushing the round through a carbide ring. This is likely shrinking the lead in your case which is probably not a good thing. RanchDog had Lee make up fcds that crimp with a collet as do Lee's fcds for rifle cartriges. If you can get your hands on one of them you'll be in good shape. If not use a roll crimper or a taper crimper to remove the flare from the case mouth and see what happens.

Unfortunatly the Dog is out of buiz:cry:

[M4bushy]

I'm confused, .4333 is larger than .4325 so how is the lee FCD shrinking the lead? Or are you saying it is bulging a bit ahead of the crimp?

[wantoutofca]

RD sent me directly to lee when he went out of business. Lee had 50 FCDs in stock so I picked one up- one of the best moves I could have made! Sure beats the carbide ring nonsense. This was a few months ago but I wouldn't be surprised if they still have some.

[AricTheRed]

I'm confused, .4333 is larger than .4325 so how is the lee FCD shrinking the lead? Or are you saying it is bulging a bit ahead of the crimp?

Yes it is bulgung a tad just forward of the crimp. Additionally I pulled one of my assembled rounds & the shank of the boolit that was in the case seems to have been sized down to .431" .

So much for getting the mold to drop oversized. Now I'll have to find the die refrenced earlier, modify my existing carbide FCD, or order a new custom one from Lee.