HELP!!!!

[TimSr]

For the time being cold swaged ball is all that is within my risk tolerance. While hubby would enjoy casting, I would be worried about my contact to the lead particulates on his clothing.

I take it you are swaging your own bullets?

The gas checks should help a lot.

Did you happen to notice if your barrel rifling is full of lead streaks?

 

[BCRider]

For the time being cold swaged ball is all that is within my risk tolerance. While hubby would enjoy casting, I would be worried about my contact to the lead particulates on his clothing. Maybe when I'm 50 casting will be an option, but not right now.

You're very likely going to be at far more risk of lead particulates getting into clothing with the swaging process than you would be for casting.

Reading through the thread it seems like you're using a very soft lead for the swaged bullets. That being the case I wonder if excess neck tension in the brass is further swaging the bullet size down when you are seating them.

To check for this I'd suggest you use an inertia puller on a few and measure the diameters of the bullets and look for any changes that occur due to the seating forces. If you're squeezing some of them down to smaller sizes the light amount of pressure from 3.2gns of Bullseye may not be quite enough to ensure that they fully obturate back up in size and bite fully into the rifling.

In any event a good place to start is to slug the bore so you're sure what the sizes are then work towards your swaged bullets being sized to match or be .001 to .003 larger than the groove diameter and ensure that they HOLD that size even once seated in the casings.

The other thing would be to run a bore brush down the bore with the rifle sitting ejection port down. Put a clean "drop sheet" of paper towel under the ejection opening. Same at the muzzle. Once you pass the brush through check the brush and any droppings at both ends for signs of lead pieces. If there are any then you're going to need to look for a cure. And that usually means a better fit in the bore or changing the hardness of the lead you're using. Once you know the bullets are not under size for any reason then the next option is to alter the hardness of the lead. Since you're already using soft lead this would mean going to a harder alloy.

 

[Jim Watson]

Pictures and accurate measurements of your "ball" will help us discuss it.

I don't know how well a swage die will work to seat a gas check - or half jacket, there is a difference.

How are your swaged bullets lubricated?

A home swaging outfit might not handle much harder alloy.
What IS your alloy, by the way? Pure lead? Ouch.