Experiment with making culled rounded boolit base edges sharp

[Tripplebeards]

I do not have a a picture of a before and after. I casted up 10 pounds of lee .452, 255 grain boolits the other day. I found about 8 or so that the bases did not have a completely filled out sharp edge. They were just barely rounded. Did not have my reading glasses on to catch them. I ended up tumble PCing all of the 10 pounds first instead of weighing them and then color coating in one grain increments. All got the same color and then I figured I’d weigh them afterwards. When I inspected the boolits and found the 8 i culled with slightly rounded bases. Since I use these exclusively for 25 yard plinking i figured I’d experiment and give them a chance. Instead of tossing them back into my smelting pot I ran all 8 through my .451” lee sizer. All 8 boolits came out with perfect 90 degree sharp base edges like a perfect pour. The culled bullet’s bases now look exactly the same as the ones that came out of my mold perfectly. Anyone else save a few boolits this way? The PC build up and sizing them down to .451” swaged the bases down to a perfect edge. I don’t plan on doing this as a normal practice but it put another 8 boolits in my shooting bag I would have culled and not needed to.

[OS OK]

Never thought to give that a try before...I take a good look at the bases when the sprue is opened and just prior to dumping the mould & have always taken the needle nose pliers and grabbed them off the drop pan so I wouldn't have to look for them later.

I would imagine that in pistol & revolver rounds these radiused bases wouldn't make much of a difference unless you were a bullseye shooter...never saw a post about what difference they do actually make, especially if they're lube-sized and the radius is still there.

[Tripplebeards]

I never thought about it till I tried to run an over sized boolit through my sizer causing the lube grooves to littlerly disappear and literally swage the boolit longer. It was when I was trying to swage air soft BBS in my HP cavities last year. I tried to swage the BB down with my seater die after heating the boolots. I had a few that grew in diameter from the press stroke. When I resized them the boolits grew longer but straightened right out with uniform bases again. Those all were culled of course. I thought to myself the other day, I wonder if the bases would swage from a round to a sharp edge with an oversized PC build up on it? They did and look as perfect as the boolits that dropped out of my mold with perfect bases. I still will cull in the future as always but if I miss one or two, which is the first time it’s happened, I won’t have an ulcer about it.

[starnbar]

I used to redo em but at 70 years of age I can't see the need and it cuts down on my shooting time so they get shot and at 25 yards not any difference for me but I am an old man and a lot of stuff that I used to get meticulous about doesn't bother me at all.

[mdi]

Logical! The lead ain't removed from a sized bullet, it is just moved to another part of the bullet, the base...:wink:

[Conditor22]

I do the same as OS OK I look at the boolit bases every time I cut the sprue and cull the rounded bases when I dump. (thin mig/tig gloves are adequate for picking up freshly cast boolits)

NEVER CAST/RELOAD/SHOOT WITHOUT EYE PROTECTION so you might as well wear something that you can see with :)