I am having an issue with Lee 44 special die and .432 cast bullet

[Chill Wills]

Do what ever you think works for you. I will too.

[gloob]

A Lee Universal Flare die will work for most reloaders in most calibers, just fine. Standardization is so good in most calibers, firearms, brass, and die makers that the case is barely smaller than necessary, right out of the sizing die.

So w/e you think will work, it probably will.

But if you need an expander for a specific bullet because you have problems with boolit swaging or concentricty in seating in that caliber (thick cases, tight sizing die, soft boolits), you are wasting your time to go 2 under bullet diameter on purpose unless some of your boolits are 2 thous undersized and that's just how you roll.

With cast, you want to fill the freebore as much as you can to limit blowby. Any swaging of the base will allow more blowby before the bore gets plugged. If a plug 2 under fixed an actual problem, one that is 0 under would have fixed it a little more. Maybe if you worked your load up a little more, you'd see the difference. Maybe if you shot from a bench, you'd notice the difference. Maybe you never will. But you bought a plug that is 2 under for no reason at all, if your boolits go through a sizer and you're going to screen out undersize boolits anyhow.

9x19 (due to the thick tapered case and large tolerance in chamber/bore sizes) and 308 (due to chamber/bore sizes in some rifles) are 2 calibers where casters often require more than a mouth flare or stock expander to get boolit seated without swaging. In most revolver calibers it doesn't even matter.

[onelight]

Something to consider with a lever gun , the stack of cartridges in the magazine and the power of the mag spring are trying to compress the whole stack particularly when cycling and under recoil , this can force a bullet deeper in the case and raise pressure so it is important to have the right combination of expander length , neck tension and crimp.
Better safe than sorry . Hope you find a good safe solution.

I got to thinking after posting that your gun may be a single shot so this would not apply .

[bcraig]

I experimented a little last night.

First I dropped a round with a chamfered case with the bullet seated by hand to the crimp groove and if I eased the round into the chamber there was no movement of the bullet in the case,If I just lined up the bullet and dropped the dummy into the chamber then it moved just a hair.

Then I used an unchamfered case that had been sized and finally got it right where I wanted it in the crimp groove ,then Loade the dummy in the Tubular Magazine and worked the lever very
very fas and it loaded just fine ,then reloaded it in the tubular magazine and worked the lever very slow and although it loaded it felt like there was a small glitch .

I ejected the dummy and noticed that I could feel and see the top of the case where it met the bullet.

Will a small amount of inside of case chamfer solve that issue ?

[gloob]

Not sure you even have an issue. If I were you, I'd chamfer all my 44 cases, once. Then you won't get any shavings when seating. You don't have excessive mouth flare with a 2-over step. Even if you have a couple thous too much flare, it usually can't stop the cartridge from chambering. It would normally just takes a light push to send it home, beyond gravity.

If your chamber is super tight right at the case mouth, then you'll have more problem where some of your cartridges won't quite fully chamber unless you put a slight inwards taper/roll crimp on the case mouth so that they fit. This means your boolits will be swaged when they are fired, because that crimp doesn't have room to open back up. Removing small amounts of brass from the case mouth will stop that, but a chamfer tool probably won't do the trick unless you actually shorten the cases a few thous.

You should be crimping into the crimp groove, because you're using a tubular magazine. But I would test to make sure cartridges will fully chamfer, even without any crimp. Because you mentioned before that your boolits can't fit in your fired cases, so you know it's pretty tight.

Be sure to clean any carbon out of your chamber, if it hasn't been cleaned in long while.

[bcraig]

Not sure you even have an issue. If I were you, I'd chamfer all my 44 cases, once. Then you won't get any shavings when seating. You don't have excessive mouth flare with a 2-over step. Even if you have a couple thous too much flare, it usually can't stop the cartridge from chambering. It would normally just takes a light push to send it home, beyond gravity.

I did chamfer the Cases tonight ,I flared one too much and it would not go onto the Seating die so I resized it again and then took the expander die and flared it less that time.

If your chamber is super tight right at the case mouth, then you'll have more problem where some of your cartridges won't quite fully chamber unless you put a slight inwards taper/roll crimp on the case mouth so that they fit. This means your boolits will be swaged when they are fired, because that crimp doesn't have room to open back up. Removing small amounts of brass from the case mouth will stop that, but a chamfer tool probably won't do the trick unless you actually shorten the cases a few thous.
No problem with Round chambering .

You should be crimping into the crimp groove, because you're using a tubular magazine. But I would test to make sure cartridges will fully chamfer, even without any crimp. Because you mentioned before that your boolits can't fit in your fired cases, so you know it's pretty tight.

I put a pretty good roll crimp in the Crimp groove.

Be sure to clean any carbon out of your chamber, if it hasn't been cleaned in long while.

I dont think that there will be much carbon in the chamber as I have not shot it over 10 times or so with HSM 240 grain semi-wadcutter's but will check it for sure.

I have not shot it at all with any reloads,and this is the first I have reloaded for a Pistol round for about 35 years