Best way to slug a throat with existing equip

[7br]

Okay, I generally shoot 7mm and smaller in rifle type stuff. I need to slug my father's 7.65x53. Kind of a chicken or the egg problem. I want a mould that fits, but I need a mould to get the slug first. I can either beg a soft slug from someone on the board, or I can cast up a few pure lead 7mm bullets and swage them up. If I go the swage route, I might as well make a chamber cast while I am at it.

My basic plan of action at this point is to fill a 7.65 case with lead, chamber it, drop a soft 7mm slug down the barrel and swage it to make a chamber cast ala Veral Smith's suggestion. Eject the case, drive out the cast from the muzzle end. Rechamber case, drop 7mm slug, swage it up, drive it from the chamber to the muzzle.

Any suggestions?
How difficult will it be to swage the .285 bullets to .3xx ?

At this point I have a couple of 7mm moulds, .41 moulds and .22 moulds.

[Bass Ackward]

If I go the swage route, I might as well make a chamber cast while I am at it.

Any suggestions?


I have mixed emotions about this. And this is one of those things that you change your opinions on over time. I personally like the slug route if you have a short throat. If you have a longer throat I prefer a cast. Because you can see everything. And even if you are off by .001, you can still fit a bullet well enough. Plus, I get my bullets .002 oversize anyway so I can size out abnormalities. People make a big deal about .001 variance from a cast. But in truth, you get that if temperature is off in your mold or mix changes minutely. And that doesn't count mold tollerances either. So you have to keep everything in perspective.

Somehow telling someone to insert something down a barrel to pound on it just turns my stomach. Not that it can't be done safely, but accidents can and do happen. And the longer the throat, the more pounding and force becomes necessary. If the gun is new enough to you that you don't know what is in the throat, then you probably need to see a complete chamber cast to know what you are working with.

So bottom line, my thoughts and preference now go to a cerosafe cast.

[7br]

Actually, I should have posted this under "How to slug the bore" . In order to keep this under the rader of SWMBO, I kinda need to get this right the first time.

[fourarmed]

Mark, if you can find some lead wool at a plumber supply place - assuming they still use such a thing - you could roll some of that into a stick small enough to drop down the bore. It should be easy and safe to tamp into place with a hardwood dowel. I have some you can have if you can't find any locally.

[Sky C.]

A simple & effective trick suggested to me by my Dad...

Clamp a couple pieces of hardwood together-
Drill an appropriate sized hole for a slug (or number of them) along the joint; not all the way through-
Pour the pure lead into the wooden mould-
Viola!


Best regards-

Sky C.

[7br]

Sky C. Dooooh - That was easy. Will be doing that early Sat AM.

Forearmed's though was pretty good as I have a bunch of lead foil from my friendly neighborhood dentist.

[Maven]

7br, You can also try conical Pb fishing sinkers that are used with rubber worms. (They look like jacketed spire points, but very little of them is straight or parallel sided.) Mine measure ~.316" in diameter, but I think they come in other sizes as well.

[MT Gianni]

I have had good results with inverting a gascheck and letting the rolled rod push on the check not the bore or bullet.Gianni.

[slughammer]

Driving a pure lead swaged 38 forward using a dowel rod can give very accurate measurements of the chamber neck and the throat diameters.

Sometimes when making a pound slug, the lead will actually be bigger than the throat once you knock it out. I would do a couple of 38's to get the accurate diameters and then do a pound slug to get the lengths.

Instead of filling the the case all the way with wheel weight alloy, I leave about 1/4"-3/8" in the neck and then use a pure lead boolit on top. The pure lead will form easy and show the true length of the chamber and the location of the rifleing in relation to your trimmed brass. (I just did a Savage 340 30-30 and found the chamber to be 2.10 long.)

[Char-Gar]

The idea of this whole exercise is to fit the cast bullet body to the throat..right? Lets take a 30 cal for example. Call me a simpleton is you will, but I size a bullet 313, seat it in an empty case and chamber the dummy round. I see and feel if the bullet body is too big for the throat. If the bullet is too big, I do the same with another sized .312, then .311 and .310 and .309. I quit when a round chambers without shaving lead and undue pressure. Das all.

That is close enough for my needs.