Bullet Fit Chamber/Bore

[Themoose]

Fellas, I'm asking for some guidance on coming up with the proper fit of cast bullets in a Henry BigBoy in 44 mag. I was a little apprehensive of doing a pound cast with a lever gun so I thought an easy work around would be to adjust the bullet diameter in .001" increments using the NOE push thru sizer and bushings. It appears that the chamber or throat(which ever is the correct term) is much larger than on my Rem 788 in 44 mag... so please educate me on which is more important in getting bullet fit...chamber/throat or bore? I would offer a hypothetical example(I haven't slugged the bore on the Henry yet).. but say the bore slugs .431" but the throat will chamber .433" and I will be using plain based 260WFN that have been powder coated... I forgot to mention that the rifle is meant for hunting ... should I try .433" and .432" and see which one the rifle likes? I will be looking for a load somewhere in the 1400fps range to begin...

I am new to loading for lever guns... I normally like to develop loads that maximize accuracy, but will still chamber easily...also the OAL of the Henry will come into play... I did make up some dummy rounds and kept the length to 1.1610" and they cycle smoothly.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

Kindest regards,
TheMoose

[DougGuy]

You would likely get the best accuracy with the best fit in the throat. Make a dummy with the largest boolit and see if it chambers. If it were mine, I would use the biggest boolit that would chamber.

There remains the odd chance that it may shoot better with a .432" than a .433" so it won't hurt to try that and see as you say, what the rifle likes but my money is on the .433" if it chambers.

[kungfustyle]

I have a Rossi 92 that slugged out at .432 so I bought the 290g gc fn NOE mold and a .433 sizer. I get baseball size groups at 100 yards with a good charge of 2400. I'm at 1400fps. By the way the rifle lets you know when it goes off, I was surprised by the recoil. Look at Roze bullets too. http://www.rozedist.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=RZD&Category_Code=ZBJ-44MAG That's about $.14 each Good bullets and cheap.

[popper]

Throat size. You can seat deeper to overcome bore (land) jams. Try a smallest sized boolit, tap gently into throat just enough to make sure it is in all the way. Throats are generally tapered so you want the smallest (first) to actually jam in the bore/lands. Cleaning rod down muzzle to see seating depth. Mark rod with tape at crown and tap the boolit out. Go to next size up, repeat. When the taped mark goes in deeper than the crown, you found where the boolit is sticking in the throat. Then load some dummy rounds and verify it works OK. Use your PCd boolits as lands jamming may interfere (nose too big). Don't have a Henry but it's made like the marlin, the bolt comes out. Not as accurate as a pound cast but a lot easier and it is a hunting rifle. As you are PCing, drop your seating depth a few thou. to prevent land jams - PC thickness is not consistent. Mike your sized boolits, hard vs soft alloy are different size and I've got 2 Lee 308s that are 307 and one that is 3085. Miking gives the correct answer. Extracting oversized rounds from an AR is not fun.