Boolit Diameter for .454 Casull...?????

[Southern Shooter]

If each chamber throat measures .454 and the bore measures .451 .........

What should be the diameter of your mold/boolit ??

[rbertalotto]

I shoot .452 20-1 lead out of my Casull with superb accuracy. Either .451 or .452 in Hornady jacketed bullets work great.

http://www.hornady.com/store/XTP-XTP-MAG/?page=4

[enfieldphile]

Agreed!

I have four S&W .45 cal guns. Three are .45ACP / .45 AR, one is .45 Colt caliber. The chamber mouths are all average .452. I have a Colt Anaconda in .45 Colt. It has romier chamber mouths, about .454. It shoots boolits sized .452 just fine.


I shoot .452 20-1 lead out of my Casull with superb accuracy. Either .451 or .452 in Hornady jacketed bullets work great.

http://www.hornady.com/store/XTP-XTP-MAG/?page=4

[Southern Shooter]

So, there is no concern with .452 cast lead boolits being fired through a .454 chamber throat? Leading?

[dubber123]

I always try to size to the throats, sizing dies are cheap, and it is the right way to do business in my opinion. Out of curiosity, what make and model is the gun? .454" seems generous for a modern gun like the .454 Casull.

[Southern Shooter]

Ruger SRH Alaskan

[dubber123]

How did you measure the throats? Ruger made some seriously oversized throats years ago on their Blackhawks, but I was lead to believe they had tightened them up considerably, sometimes too much. If they do indeed measure .454" I would size to a snug fit in the throats, it will give the best alignment, and the least chance of hot gasses getting by a boolit. Many of my .45 molds don't cast much over .452", so that might be the determining factor for you.. :)

[Southern Shooter]

I am going to slug the chamber throats again, tonight. Wondering if I made a mistake. I hope not...Or, maybe I hope so??

[DougGuy]

If it's a Ruger, I doubt they are .454" in all honesty but they could be. Do you have a known good .452" boolit there? If so, you can simply use the boolit like a pin gage, really no need to slug the bore and measure, that's where people make the common mistakes, because you have to consider spring back if the ball or slug you use is not dead soft pure lead, and if it is, it's near impossible to mic a dead soft round ball without the mic anvil and jaw making a tiny flat spot on it where they touch. That alone can throw your measurement out the window, that's why I like to use the boolit as a gage.

Will the boolit slide into the front of the cylinder throats? In a .454' throat, if you slide a .452" boolit into it, there should be almost no "drag fit" at all, and the boolit should fall right out of it's own weight if you point the cylinder downward with a boolit in one of the holes. That's IF if really is .454" in diameter.

If you can slide a .452" in there with a light drag fit and you can turn the gun and point the cylinder downwards and the boolit stays in the chamber throat? It is very close to the size of the boolit, maybe .4525" which would be perfect.

In a perfect world you would want the boolit .001" to .002" larger than groove diameter, and the cylinder throats .0005' to .001" over boolit diameter. For the throats to be .002" over boolit diameter won't hurt anything, it might want to shave a little lead off when it hits the forcing cone but it will be such a small amount it likely won't hurt the accuracy or promote leading.

If they are loose on a .452" boolit, like others have said, size the boolit to a light drag/snug fit in the throats and you will be fine.

One more thing to consider, if your alloy is not super hard, if you use 50/50 or 20:1 for example, and you are shooting full house Casull loads, heh, you won't really have to worry about sizing, by the time you shoot a .452" in front of 50,000psi of pressure, it won't be a nanosecond before it's slugged up tightly in the cylinder throat!

[jrayborn]

My Ruger .454 Casull throats are also right at .454. I size at .454 and letter rip! Great accuracy so far!

[MT Chambers]

My Freedom Arms .454 Casull uses .452" bullets because ammo loaded with .454" bullets will not chamber.

[Whiterabbit]

if it were my gun id have no qualms sizing to .454 and having at it.

[bigboredad]

I agree with what has been said about shooting a .454. Why size smaller and give the hot gas a chance to get passed the base and start gas cutting nyour bullet til it leads when you could save yourself a headache and size to .454. If it chambers it'll shoot

[Southern Shooter]

Ok, the box of .452 Cast Performance boolits have a little drag when put through the chamber throats. And, the boolits sized with my Lee .454 sizer have a little MORE drag but still fit fine and pass through the throats with light finger pressure.

[dubber123]

Ok, the box of .452 Cast Performance boolits have a little drag when put through the chamber throats. And, the boolits sized with my Lee .454 sizer have a little MORE drag but still fit fine and pass through the throats with light finger pressure.

Sounds like you are indeed larger than .452".. The only points I could add are to make sure the cylinder is perfectly clean when doing the boolit trick, even a piece of lint will cause false drag, and are the boolits from the .454" sizer truly .454"? If your mold is casting smaller than that, sizing won't tell you much, or conversely if the sizer isn't really .454", (undersize), it won't tell you much either. I have gotten several mis stamped sizers over the years.

All that aside, I am betting you are measuring correctly, and are narrowing down the correct size for your gun.

[Southern Shooter]

I have wondered if the sizing die is undersized, too. Will need to mic things and check that out.

[RobS]

My Ruger SRH 454 also has larger throats than one would think being .4545. I size .454 or even .455. .455 only works though if the boolits front drive band isn't too wide and keeps the round from going fully into the chamber.

[dubber123]

I have wondered if the sizing die is undersized, too. Will need to mic things and check that out.

If it does turn out slightly small, it affords you the opportunity to hone it out to precisely fit your gun, so that might not be a bad thing. What diameter does your mold drop at?

For the Ruger I just worked with, I had only 1 mold of the many .45 molds I have that cast even close to big enough to fit the .455" throats. It luckily shot the best of all I tried.

[DougGuy]

If you cast and then run boolits through your sizer die, and it goes in the front of the cylinder throats with just finger pressure and some degree of drag?? Heh.. YOU are THERE bro! Doesn't matter a whit what the numbers say it is, that drag fit in the cylinder throat is what every revolver needs but so few actually have.

So now if you load those .454" sized boolits and they chamber fully, i.e. the crimp hasn't distorted them any, that's the bees knees right there. Good snug fit in the chamber, boolit snugly entering the throat from the rear, even if you gotta push it lightly the last 1/16" it's perfect. Load 'em and shoot 'em!

[Southern Shooter]

If you cast and then run boolits through your sizer die, and it goes in the front of the cylinder throats with just finger pressure and some degree of drag?? Heh.. YOU are THERE bro! Doesn't matter a whit what the numbers say it is, that drag fit in the cylinder throat is what every revolver needs but so few actually have.

So now if you load those .454" sized boolits and they chamber fully, i.e. the crimp hasn't distorted them any, that's the bees knees right there. Good snug fit in the chamber, boolit snugly entering the throat from the rear, even if you gotta push it lightly the last 1/16" it's perfect. Load 'em and shoot 'em!
DougGuy,
You have exactley described the fit with my 360 grain RF boolit even down the having to lightly push it in the last 1/16".
103581

[DougGuy]

DougGuy,
You have exactley described the fit with my 360 grain RF boolit even down the having to lightly push it in the last 1/16".

Cool! Couldn't ask for more precise fitment..

Nice boolit! Don't know if you have ever fooled with soft checks or not, I use them on my PB boolits, ebay for some sheets of .060" dental wax and cookie cutter the charged case then seat the boolit on the wax check. They seem to work in my Rugers. They also leave the bore seasoned between shots.