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Posted: 10/7/2009 11:40:14 AM EDT
| I normally don't size bullets as I use new 99.0% of the time.I have sized 50 call bullets, and 224 pulled to bring them back into round. I have a need to use .311" bullets and size them down to .308". I use Lee sizers. They offer a .311", .309", and .308" sizers. For obvious reasons I don't think I would need to use the .311". Does anyone have any experience in going from .311" to .309"? Is it a lot of effort? What about going from .311" right to .308"? |
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Boy this is a good question. I did about 10k of pulled .30cal tracer projectiles that really required resizing. I used a .308 die from Lee but the pressure was pretty high. I have a small Lee single stage press for these operations and ended up removing the ball on the press handle and added a longer handle to ease the pressure. The press is been fine, but I don't think I could of done 10k with the stock handle. I assume if you do it in steps, it will be easier. Other than that - they could call u popeye, like they call me. |
| I tried this weekend to swage down some hornady 120gr .310 bullets to .308 this weekend with with my Lee swaging die. Put a little RCBS case lube on my fingers and had no problem running them through the partner press. However, they swaged to .309, so if you want .308s, you'll have to get the .308 swager. |
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Quoted: anm2 did you lube the bullets before you ran them through the sizer. I've read where several people that resize jacketed bullets use a little Imperial sizing wax on the bullets to help them pass through the die easier. No they were lubed with Lee liquid ALOX. |
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Flamethrower, are these lead core bullets or steel core? I ran lead core ammo through my .309 Lee die and they came out at .3091". I fired them through my FR8 and they worked great. A friend of mine said some of the steel core he sized had a little spring back.
G |
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I would definitely like to know on the steel core. Wideners has a bunch of steel core .311's from 54R ammo that would be fun to shoot/way cheaper than .308 steel core. As of last night these were out of stock. I am waiting for the next order to come in. |
| I routinely resize 7.62X54R bullets down to .308 in a lee sizer. After adding lube, it is not hard to do. I would think going .003~.004 would be fine. If I was going more than that, I would probably try to step it down to that much per step. Now here is the bad news. In sizing lead core, especially hunting bullets, will cause you a problem. We all know that lead cores are bonded somehow to the jacket to prevent seperation and/or control or stop expansion. When you swage, it can break this bond. I would think a few thousandths is as much as I would want to swage down a bullet I was going to hunt cape buffalo with. Every bullet application has it's own reasoning, just keep that in mind. |
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Well I got both the sizers and tried to size some down. These are the Weidners .311" The best I got was .3095" Keeping in mind that they really started somewhere in the .312"-.314" range. I won't be able to get it any smaller with what I have. Any ideas? Shooting a .3095 bullet in a nominal .308 barrel should not be a problem so long as the loaded rounds neck diameter fits OK in the chamber. Load a dummy round and see if it fits easily in you gun, if it does I would load them. |
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Well I got both the sizers and tried to size some down. These are the Weidners .311" The best I got was .3095" Keeping in mind that they really started somewhere in the .312"-.314" range. I won't be able to get it any smaller with what I have. Any ideas? So you are using a .308 sizer and they end up .3095? No advice, just trying to follow along. |
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Well I got both the sizers and tried to size some down. These are the Weidners .311" The best I got was .3095" Keeping in mind that they really started somewhere in the .312"-.314" range. I won't be able to get it any smaller with what I have. Any ideas? So you are using a .308 sizer and they end up .3095? No advice, just trying to follow along. Yes. I should have been more clear. I started by using the .308" sizer. I got .3095" I then took unsized bullets and sized in the .309" then the .308", but still ended up with .3095" |
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I've sized 6,000 .311 diameter .308 bullets using the Lee .308 sizing die and lee liquid alox lube. All of them sized to .309 no matter how many times run through the sizing die. You would need a .307 sizing die (which they don't make) to end up with a .308 diameter bullet. I attribute the .309 result to springback from the bullets sine they are steel core, like I'm assuming the ones you are using are. It didn't take that much resistance to size them down.
Hope this helps. I'm not worried about the .309 result as I'm not using them in match rifles or anything and read up on others doing this and testing done in the past by Keith, ect.... |
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Well I got both the sizers and tried to size some down. These are the Weidners .311" The best I got was .3095" Keeping in mind that they really started somewhere in the .312"-.314" range. I won't be able to get it any smaller with what I have. Any ideas? So you are using a .308 sizer and they end up .3095? No advice, just trying to follow along. Yes. I should have been more clear. I started by using the .308" sizer. I got .3095" I then took unsized bullets and sized in the .309" then the .308", but still ended up with .3095" Thanks, I'm caught up now. 
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I've sized 6,000 .311 diameter .308 bullets using the Lee .308 sizing die and lee liquid alox lube. All of them sized to .309 no matter how many times run through the sizing die. You would need a .307 sizing die (which they don't make) to end up with a .308 diameter bullet. I attribute the .309 result to springback from the bullets sine they are steel core, like I'm assuming the ones you are using are. It didn't take that much resistance to size them down. Hope this helps. I'm not worried about the .309 result as I'm not using them in match rifles or anything and read up on others doing this and testing done in the past by Keith, ect.... I figured it would size down to the same each time. I figured it would end up smaller than what I got. I am not using them for match ammo either, I just don't want an over pressure problem. As I said I don't normally size bullets to a different diameter, just to bring them back into round. Maybe I will get a .307" sizer and see what I come up with. But all in all it may not be needed. |
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I've sized 6,000 .311 diameter .308 bullets using the Lee .308 sizing die and lee liquid alox lube. All of them sized to .309 no matter how many times run through the sizing die. You would need a .307 sizing die (which they don't make) to end up with a .308 diameter bullet. I attribute the .309 result to springback from the bullets sine they are steel core, like I'm assuming the ones you are using are. It didn't take that much resistance to size them down. Hope this helps. I'm not worried about the .309 result as I'm not using them in match rifles or anything and read up on others doing this and testing done in the past by Keith, ect.... I figured it would size down to the same each time. I figured it would end up smaller than what I got. I am not using them for match ammo either, I just don't want an over pressure problem. As I said I don't normally size bullets to a different diameter, just to bring them back into round. Maybe I will get a .307" sizer and see what I come up with. But all in all it may not be needed. I would suspect, as you probably do, some ’bounce back’ is occurring. I did some .311’s with my Lee and as I recall .3085 to .309 was my result too (long, long ago – no notes  )
I assume this is for business and will carry a liability cloud over it??? If that is the case, you want to be right on .308 - .3085. Why not Call Lee and discuss it? A custom diameter die is only $29.00 – Lee |
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I've sized 6,000 .311 diameter .308 bullets using the Lee .308 sizing die and lee liquid alox lube. All of them sized to .309 no matter how many times run through the sizing die. You would need a .307 sizing die (which they don't make) to end up with a .308 diameter bullet. I attribute the .309 result to springback from the bullets sine they are steel core, like I'm assuming the ones you are using are. It didn't take that much resistance to size them down. Hope this helps. I'm not worried about the .309 result as I'm not using them in match rifles or anything and read up on others doing this and testing done in the past by Keith, ect.... I figured it would size down to the same each time. I figured it would end up smaller than what I got. I am not using them for match ammo either, I just don't want an over pressure problem. As I said I don't normally size bullets to a different diameter, just to bring them back into round. Maybe I will get a .307" sizer and see what I come up with. But all in all it may not be needed. I would suspect, as you probably do, some ’bounce back’ is occurring. I did some .311’s with my Lee and as I recall .3085 to .309 was my result too (long, long ago – no notes )
I assume this is for business and will carry a liability cloud over it??? If that is the case, you want to be right on .308 - .3085. Why not Call Lee and discuss it? A custom diameter die is only $29.00 – Lee You are right on the money. I live right down the road from Lee and will be stopping there tomorrow. They have always made special tooling for me. I am sure it wont be a problem. |
| you got .001 spring back. I took some .312 pistol bullets and sized in a Lee .308 die and they came out .309 for .30 Mauser and for .30 Luger. If the bullets are .001+ over, I have read that they would be entirely safe to fire in a .308 bore, assuming that they chamber easily and don't jam in the chamber. Start with starting loads and watch for pressure. Accuracy can be hit or miss with this process. The sizing and spring back can separate the lead or other core from the jacket in a non concentric way. Interesting to see what accuracy you get with them. These are probably surplus army spec bullets in the first place and are not to be confused with Sierra HP match. |
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you got .001 spring back. I took some .312 pistol bullets and sized in a Lee .308 die and they came out .309 for .30 Mauser and for .30 Luger. If the bullets are .001+ over, I have read that they would be entirely safe to fire in a .308 bore, assuming that they chamber easily and don't jam in the chamber. Start with starting loads and watch for pressure. Accuracy can be hit or miss with this process. The sizing and spring back can separate the lead or other core from the jacket in a non concentric way. Interesting to see what accuracy you get with them. These are probably surplus army spec bullets in the first place and are not to be confused with Sierra HP match. I hope you were joking here. |
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Ok, I just finished sizing 1K. I used Lee Alox lube and the .308" sizer. I then tumbled them for 2 hours.
Result: Very shiny and the nominal diameter is .3087. (Picked at random) Determined by a 1" capacity Sterrett micrometer. I am satisfied with the results overall. I think these will do just fine. I checked factory new bullets and got an average deviation of .0006" compaired to the surplus sized. This is the best I can hope for and is certainly in line with tolerances across the board. I never did get the .307" sizer, because they are severely backed up at the moment. Thanks for the help guys. |
| You can also soak the bullets in batches in a small pan of mineral spirits to remove the lee liquid alox. Just swirl it around, pour off the mineral spirits, then lay the bullets on a trash bag or something to dry for a day. Use a small fan to speed up the drying. Will come out very shiny and clean. |
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So to sum up, You changed lube and were successful.
Were these the previously sized to .309 bullets? Or a .311 fresh sized batch of bullets? I will possibly try this in the future, thanks for posting. Dry These were fresh .311" bullets. Steel core with copper washed steel jackets. About 1K of the 1500 I purchased had silver tips on them. As far as I can tell these are not incendiary bullets. They are not and were not labeled as such. Weidners says MPB311 HandPulled .311dia 147gr FMJBT Projectiles $40.00/500 These were purchased from Weidners last year at some point. It is really because of the steel jacket that I am being anal about these. That and the fact that these are going to a customer as loaded ammunition. I will still be loading these on the lower end of the spectrum. A steel jacket and steel core does not leave a lot of room for give when it enters to bore.
At first I did test size these using both Dillon spray lube and some Hornady sizing lube. (Like Imperial) When I did I got indifferent results. Not quite the size I wanted. Yes at the last moment I decided to change to Alox. I have never used it before and it was made as bullet lube. For cast bullets anyway. I used a container that I could easily fit 500 bullets in and it would only be half full. I put about 250 bullets in the container and ran about 6-8 lines of lube over them. I then added the rest of the 500. I used my hand and swirld the bullets around until they were all coated somewhat evenly. I did not let the lube dry.. I went right to sizing. I sized until the Lee container was full then dumped into a new container. Repeat. After all was done I tumbled them in my tumbler/cement mixer to remove the lube. It was on for 2 hours only because I was busy during this time installing a new outlet for the mixers. It does seem that I got a slightly smaller diameter with the alox. Not sure why. It should be stated that when I sized these it made the jacket noticably shinny on the body where it was sized. After tumbling this went away. |
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