Notes From The Reloading Bench

 Welp… I am happier than a pig in the mud! 

I used to think I was pretty good at the boolit casting game. I'd grab the old lady's kitchen sink, throw it in the lead pot - and melt it down, and then chuck in the stove for extra alloyed goodness. Once I got the mess melted down, I'd flux the ever loving pooh out of the melt and remove the peanuts and corn that floated up to the surface. Then I'd get my mould and dipper and go to work. It must have been good enough for my Retirement BPCR guns, because they'd swallow my home brewed ammunition without a hiccup and shoot like aces. I read about the black powder/cast boolits geeks fussing with something called boolit 'resizing' - but wrote that off as accuracy zealots picking the flyshit out of the pepper. Resizing? Bah! I slugged my bores for both rifles, they came out at .459". I measured my boolits, and they dropped from the mold at .459". Done like dinner!

In my innocence I assumed it would be the same story for my pistols. That is when Darwin and Murphy dropped by the Reclusium to inform me otherwise. My home made boolits hung up in the 1911 like clockwork, and a few even bunged up my pistol. I guess that boolits can expand and contract as they cooled... and many were overbore in their final dimensions. I screwed around with my dies to no avail, and the devils laughed. AB picked up on my difficulties and soon had the issue in hand. He told me to pick up the resizer and now I am off to the races. I was also able to make a favourable bargoon during our visit and stock up on some much needed supplies.

I think I paid less than 60 bucks Canookistannie including shipping for the resizer. All it does is squish the boolit down to .451" which is the commonly accepted nominal boolit diameter for both the 45ACP and the 45 Colt. I spent a dreary half hour running my boolits through it... and all of a sudden, they loaded up and chambered like champs. Darwin and Murphy were run out of the Reclusium on a rail, and I am now back in control of my mental facilities. Apparently some rifles will need this boolit swaging nonsense done too. Be sure to slug your bore before buying one of these, and give your boolits a couple days to cool before measuring their final dimensions. 

There are a lot of rod and gun forums out there but in my opinion, this is one of the better ones

Cast Boolit Forum

Be careful of the info you get there - the old hands are great and really know their stuff... but like anything else, the pikers are there and they are not shy about sharing their opinions even when they know nothing about whatever it is the experts are talking about. Usually the experts will pretty much be very close to the book in their advice.

In any event, I am over the first hurdle in cast lead mastery. Now all I gotta do is get a handle on my alloys and bullet hardness... and I should be good to go.

I'd like to thank AB for all his help in getting me off to a reasonable start. If you have any questions you can post them in the comments, or over at the boolit forum and we should be able to help you out - or at least point you to somebody who knows what they are talking about.