Cast bullets for 8mm Level Revolver

[ScubaSteve99]

Hey y'all, I figured I'd share a neat discovery I made today. I've been wanting to have some cast bullets for my Lebel Revolver which takes a .329 diameter bullet. I have a .356 120gr truncated cone mold, so correct weight but wrong size. Today, I realized that I could reduce my .356 bullets by running them first through my 8mm Ordnance sizing die, and then through a .329 bullet sizer! I will be testing them for function in a few weeks, but I have no reason to believe they won't work! A nice fairly easy alternative to buying expensive and hard to find proper molds for this round.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

What did that do to the lube grooves, as in making them shallower, or are you coating them after resizing them?

 

[ScubaSteve99]

What did that do to the lube grooves, as in making them shallower, or are you coating them after resizing them?

It definitely makes it shallower, but I'm going to load some up and see how they perform. They are only moving around 750 fps, but if I still find leading to be an issue with the shallow grooves I'll powder coat them.

 

[ScubaSteve99]

What did that do to the lube grooves, as in making them shallower, or are you coating them after resizing them?

I finally got around to testing the bullets I sized down, and they performed very well! I had no leading in the barrel either.

 

[Dudedog]

I always like happy endings

We need a picture of the pistol

 

[tightgroup tiger]

I second that, We need a picture.
I almost bought a MAS 1887 French revolver that was in excellent condition but no one could figure out what caliber it was. I should have bought it anyways. I think it was an 8mm. Talk about a tank of the revolver! It was cool as hell.
This is a picture of it.

I ended up passing on it mostly because they wanted $800.00 for it. I couldn't talk them down on it. It must have been worth it because it was gone in less than a week.