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From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Bullet Sizing Success!
Message-ID: <35758@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 18 Jun 91 02:36:08 GMT
Sender: magnum@mimsy.umd.edu
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California
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Approved: gun-control@cs.umd.edu

Many thanks to those of you who sent all of the suggestions about how
to size bullets from my oversize Lyman mold.  It was really heart-warming 
and beyond that, all of your suggestions worked.

The suggestions fell into two basic categories: prelube the bullets 
before sizing and size down in steps.  I tried both.  I cast a bunch of
bullets and ended up with 120 keepers which I split into 3 groups; 
control, presize, prelube.  The alloy was again Lyman #2: 5-5-90.

I treated the control bullets in the normal way - cast and then run through
the Lyman 450 sizer/lubricator.  Again the bullets came out .404 as cast
and .402 as sized in the .401 sizer.

To presize the bullets, I purchased a Lee reloading press bullet sizer
which I polished out.  I used the supplied liquid alox for the sizing lube.
Bullets came out of this sizer at .4015.  I then ran them thru the Lyman
sizer/lubricator and they came out .4011 with a range of diameter readings
on any given bullet of .0001.  The sizer/lubricator was loaded with the 
usual 50-50 Alox beeswax.

To prelube the bullets, I used the suggestion of employing liquid Alox.
The bullets then went directly to the sizer/lubricator and came out
.4013 diameter with a range of .0003.

So it looks like the better results came from the presizing but that it
would make no difference, from a practical standpoint, which method was 
used.  But why did the pre-lubed-only bullets come out smaller than the 
bullets which were not prelubed?  This doesn't compute for me.

It occurs to me that the best method might be to run the bullets through
the sizer/lubricator first, only with a large die in it; say .4025 diameter.
_Then_ run it through the Lee sizer which gives a mirror finish and a
rounder bullet probably because of its thicker die walls and lack of 
lube ports.

Thanks again, guys!
JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)