What to do with undersized bullets?

[Shrinkmd]

I was shooting the other day with some correctly sized (as in 0.001 over the bore diameter) lead bullets, and had virtually no leading on the forcing cone or the cylinder face. After 300 rounds the gun was almost clean. I needed to pick and scrape a little, but overall it was an easy cleanup.

This is in comparison to some 38 special 148 wadcutter rounds (fired in 38 brass in a 357 chamber) which threw lead all over the cylinder face, forcing cone area, etc and was a royal pain to get clean.

These bullets were mistakenly ordered at 0.357, and not the 0.358 I should have done. What can I do with these undersized bullets? Would shooting them in a .357 case help the mess, or shooting them at magnum velocities to try and get them to obturate a bit more? I will shoot them up regardless, but after cleaning up from the other load (45 auto rim), I am not looking forward to scrubbing the cylinder with Flitz again to get it looking decent.

 

[Walkalong]

I believe you are on the right track. Using .357 brass and a little more pressure has gotta help.


A polyethylene (I think) filler will also eliminate the leading. Super Grex (shotshell buffer) is what I used years ago, but it is discontinued and I only I have a little left. I have some PSB now, but have only tried it as a filler to hold powder in place. (Ho Hum results) I have not tried it under lead to combat leading. I should do that soon.

Wax gas checks will eliminate the leading as well, but are a bigger pain than loading fillers.