Cast bullet help.

I have a question. After these 24 posts, what are you going to do different based on one post or another? If you go out and buy those pin gauges and you find out this or that, so what? You are still going to have the same boxes of bullets and the same box of cases, are you just going to throw those away because of what a pin gauge tells you?

You can slug the bore and slug the throat of each cylinder and so long as the cylinder is the same or larger than the bore, you are good to go. It will be. The barrel should be smaller than the OD of the bullets, it will be. But if it is not, then what are you going to do about it? Throw them away? No, you are going to load them up and shoot them all any way.

Quit worrying about it and load 10, 20, or 50 and shoot them. If it shoots it shoots. If it don't then you'll have to decide if the "juice is worth the squeeze" and no one here can decide that for you.

Catpop said:

How much of that lube makes it out of the barrel and past the first one foot of its travel?
I think you’re way overthinking the situation now. Just use the boolit weight and shoot them suckers!
Good luck!

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I've recovered commercial cast bullets that had all the lube intact. Not only are most commercial cast bullets way to hard for their application the lube is too hard.

Jack B. said:

I have some other questions about casting bullets. Do you weigh your bullets before you lube them and if so how many grs. dose it add to the bullet weight? Lets say the bullet in question is a .44 cal. bullet.

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Whatever weight the lube may add will not effect the powder charge weight. A few grains of lube does not matter. A few books back Lyman posted the cast bullet weights pre-lube, that's why the bullets where slightly different weights than we are used to seeing like 155gr instead of 158gr.

Like said above, you are way over thinking this now. Don't take the fun out of this for yourself.

Don't fool with the specials. Load those checked boolits into mag cases and have fun.

The .44s....do they look like they were sized before the checks were snapped on?

The conventional wisdom on hard lube and commercial cast bullets is that the purpose for the bullets to survive shipping. This thinking is why the bullets are cast so hard.

My understanding is the there is a pencil scale for testing lead bullets on the net.

Expose at least 1/2"+ of the lead of the pencil (full round diameter). Take a piece of sandpaper and square/sand the lead until it tip is 90*/square & the full diameter of the lead in the pencil. Take the square tipped pencil and hold it at 45* to the lead nose of the bullet and try to gouge the lead bullets nose. If you can gouge/scrape lead from the bullet then test with a softer pencil. If you can't gouge/scrape lead from the bullet then test with a harder pencil. Using pencils to test how hard/soft a bullets alloy is surprisingly accurate.


Those lc 38spl brass are of excellent quality. Used to buy them from the north store @ camp perry for next to nothing.

The .358" bullets remind me of the lyman 358477 bullet with the large bottom drive band/bullet base. I cast/shoot a cramer version of that bullet. Top row 4th from left, the huge bullet base does an excellent job of sealing the cylinders/bbl's quickly. The end result is you get as much as 50fps+ more velocity with the same load compared to other bullets with smaller bottom drive bands/bases when doing head to head testing with the same firearm/load.


The 44cal gc'd bullets are a bit of an oddball. I have a h&g #142 mold that casts a 220gr bullet that looks like the gc 44cal bullets you have. Lyman made a 429215 light "Thompson" design, 215gr. The h&g #142 weighs +/- 232gr when lubed and has a gc installed. Those bullets are surprisingly accurate. A plinking load for a s&w 629/44mag brass using those h&g #142's.


I haven't done much testing with those 44cal #142's with hot loads. But what limited testing I did do was very impressive.

You need to get out there & get some trigger time in. Those really are two good bullet designs.

Mowgli Terry said:

The conventional wisdom on hard lube and commercial cast bullets is that the purpose for the bullets to survive shipping. This thinking is why the bullets are cast so hard—-.

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Yes as said above, it’s a crying shame that almost all economically commercially available boolits are:

1. Too hard to base seal to the barrel
2. Have a bevel base which eases lead shaving during reloading, but promotes leading
3. Use too hard a lube
4. And most importantly- Aren’t really available in the size needed to “fit” the barrel!
(I require .360-.361 and .432-.433, both in brn 8-10)

All in the name, as mentioned above, production and shipping considerations over consumer needs.
Again just my personal experience

Yes.

Looks good to me.

Jack B. said:

I put together a dummy round and I assume this is correct. O.A. L. is 1.632 I checked and it fit in all my revolvers.

View attachment 837084

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You got PLENTY of crimp on it! LOL.

Jack B. said:

I thought it was heavy but since the bullets are gas checked I loaded them to 44 magnum velocity. I've always worry about the bullets walking out and tying up the cylinder on a revolver. I used the Speer manual as a guide line, it was the closest to what I was loading.

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You did good. Shoot 'em.

Jack B. said:

I have no idea.

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Not 100% sure about commercial cast, gas checked bullets, but normally, sizing and gas check application takes place in one operation. Never seen/heard of an unsized bullet with a gas check on it...

Ya shot em yet ?.
If’n Ya have how’ d they act ?.
They looked just dandy to me. ,,,,,

Keep us posted.