Resizing bullets

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Resizing bullets

Postby lucasphi20 » Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:52 pm

This forum has been great in enlightening me to the process of resizing 458's for use in the 450. As I am filling my cart for the sizing gear I wonder what other caliber's I could resize. In anyone's opinion what is the max difference that someone would safely size down? I was thinking about sizing .375 down to .338, but was wondering if .037 is too much. I know that's quite different than the .007/.006 that the 458 is. Probably would be a pain sizing a little at a time, not to mention ordering custom sizing dies from Lee. Just wondering if anyone had any opinions on that.
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Re: Resizing bullets

Postby MudBug » Wed Mar 03, 2010 5:47 pm

Try going from 458 to 452 first. That will likely answer the question for you.

Wildcatter has probably resized .50 down to .224 but then again. the Man is a nut. :lol:
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Re: Resizing bullets

Postby wildcatter » Wed Mar 03, 2010 5:58 pm

You can size down, anything to anything and you already have the right ideas, Man-is-that-going-to-take-allot-of-time!!

I have been resizing down bullets since I was a child and prolly have as much or more experience doing it than anyone alive (and before I started to suggest, that our guys do this, I knew of no-one else doing it), considering that there is no data in the literature anywhere about it, other than it's dangerous and even that admonition is so rare you might spend more time than you've got trying to find it. - Flash, at this years SHOT, one of the suggestions Hornady solicited me for (yup, they asked me), was for them to resize their 325gr 458FTX to 452, and to offer it in their Dangerous Game Line, they loved the idea, which was one of many I gave them.

There are many considerations, but let's consider your 375 to 338. For the most part, most of those bullets, will separate the jackets before you get to 338 and if you did get to the end results with them en-tact, most of those will have Terminal Preformance jacket/penetration problems. I'm not saying you can't do it, I'm saying there are a plethora of problems to consider, Safety being the biggest.

For the most part, but not always and not even usually, one can go from one caliber to another. Example, 8mm to 7.62, or 35cal to 338. In fact I regularly shoot 9mm bullets from my 338 and .358/.357 bullets in my 9mm is just a complete snap and I don't even resize those, the throat and barrel does it, you just need to make sure the 9mm doesn't expand so much that it doesn't chamber and of course use less powder. You ought to see my chronograph numbers when I am shooting resized 80-90gr 9mm hollow-points at 3500fps+++, for my 338. As for the fauna, you are well aware of what the Varmint guys call the Pink Mist, is all about, imagine a wood-chuck hit with the bullet I just described, some of which have reached 4000fps+ (don't try that until you've got more experience than I). These bullets are designed to expand at 300fps or less in a 380acp, now move them at WELL more than 3000fps. In most cases you only find a wet spot where they were!

I've long used 357 lead semi-wad cutters, flipped over and hand pushed into the case mouth of a 7mm remmy-mag, with 10gr of 296, filling the cast up the rest of the way with Cream-of-Wheat (this or something like HAS to be done with highly reduced loads, to keep the gun from blowing up), and then firing them in my 338. Leading is one of many problems, but several shots with jacketed 338 bullets cleans that all out..

Now, I bet this will all spur on many questions, bring'em..t
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Re: Resizing bullets

Postby wildcatter » Wed Mar 03, 2010 6:00 pm

MudBug wrote:Try going from 458 to 452 first. That will likely answer the question for you.

Wildcatter has probably resized .50 down to .224 but then again. the Man is a nut. :lol:


Get it right Mudder, it's NUT's

Yes I'm Nuts, but the Mudder is the Mad-Hatter and we like it that way.

Ops, I mean the Mud-Hatter..wink..t
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Re: Resizing bullets

Postby lucasphi20 » Wed Mar 03, 2010 6:09 pm

Wow! Some good info there, thanks. I will start off with the 458 and see how it goes. It never dawned on me to try 9mm and size them to .338, I may have to try that. What steps do you take to resize that .355 to .338? Straight shot, or do you have a few intermidiate sizers?
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Re: Resizing bullets

Postby wildcatter » Wed Mar 03, 2010 6:42 pm

lucasphi20 wrote:Wow! Some good info there, thanks. I will start off with the 458 and see how it goes. It never dawned on me to try 9mm and size them to .338, I may have to try that. What steps do you take to resize that .355 to .338? Straight shot, or do you have a few intermidiate sizers?


Depends on the bullet jacket and how hard it is. I usually do it in .0045" steps, which the finnal swagging will yield a bullet of .337", but with the spring-back effect, they usually come out .338".

If the bullets you are using have hard jackets, you may have to do it in .002" steps. Some of the Machine Gun bullets are like that. The newer Hollow-Points are no big deal, usually.

Make sure you are using a good press, can't say enough for the RCBS Rock Chucker. We just bent a ram on a Redding Turret Press (Operator error, my man learned to use the right tool for the job and Redding makes them, but their turret is not the one for this job). Of course the Grand-Daddy press of them all is From Corbin, who make bullet swagging equipment, but at $600 bucks, most are going to use the Rock Chucker. But for you guys that want to speed up the 325gr FTX 458'sto 452, this press will diffidently do it in one step, lickity-split and 50's to 224, well no big deal really..t

http://www.corbins.com/prcsp-1.htm
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Re: Resizing bullets

Postby lucasphi20 » Wed Mar 03, 2010 7:11 pm

Man, that Corbin press is a hog! I do have a Rock Chucker, so I will play around with those 458's first. Thanks for the info, it should get me started.
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Re: Resizing bullets

Postby gunnut » Wed Mar 03, 2010 9:20 pm

50cal to 5.56? The press is call a 300 ton extruder! a 1 shot! :lol:
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Re: Resizing bullets

Postby Al in Mi » Thu Mar 04, 2010 2:45 am

gunnut wrote:50cal to 5.56? The press is call a 300 ton extruder! a 1 shot! :lol:


Plastic or aluminum extruder???
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Re: Resizing bullets

Postby gunnut » Thu Mar 04, 2010 6:41 pm

plastic, but, The ram is 300 ton, just need the die! :D
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