Resizing

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A few months ago I purchased a box on the Lehigh 230 gr. .451's with the hope of shooting them sabot-less. Well that got dashed quickly once I realized the knurling is too much to get past the crown. Bring on second idea, I bought a box of 185 gr. .451 XTP just to check barrel. They load with thumb pressure and will stay but will shake out. I then bought a Lee .452 sizing die in hopes of bringing the knurling down enough to load. Still too tight, ran them through the sizer several times. My question is how much spring back is there? If I go .451 will they come out at .451 or will they spring back a bit more.
 
Im having the same problem i need to get a .452 sizer and try going .452 then .451 i cant get them through my .451 sizer in 1 step
 
Lehighs are solid copper or brass. For proper sizing they should be annealed. Annealing makes iron/steel harder but copper/brass softer. Best to anneal and then slight undersize and knurl up to fit. Just my opinion and experience, others will differ. W
 
I kind of wrote of annealing, GM54 pointed it out but also stated that it may change the function to that of a Barnes. If that was what I wanted I could just go buy the MZ 250 and put a light knurling on them.
 
Hornet22savage said:
I kind of wrote of annealing, GM54 pointed it out but also stated that it may change the function to that of a Barnes. If that was what I wanted I could just go buy the MZ 250 and put a light knurling on them.

It might but without trying its only a guess. I would imagine that annealed machinable copper is still harder (more brittle) than pure copper like Barnes.
 
Success, due to the generosity of 03 mossy I was able to test my theory and it works. He lent me a .451 die and I can load them and they stay put. I'm off to the range this week fingers crossed they shoot.
 
:yeah: :applause:

Good news! Glad it worked.
 
Finally got out to attempt to shoot these. First shot 110 gr. BH209, .460 veggie was 451 Lehigh 230 gr. Bullet missed the target low to the right and went through completely sideways. You could see a perfect profile through the backer. Even though they load fairly different and have good rifling marks in them just not enough I guess. It was worth a shot. Back to sabots for me.
 
I tried to get Barnes bullets to shoot out of my 500 without success at all . Sabotless . I sized the bullets then knurled and sized again . They hit the target sideways . Then I tried knurling without running through the sized. Hit the target sideways again . I've tried with wads and without wads no luck . The only thing I have not tried is annealing Barnes bullets maybe that would work ? All of my testing has been done with Blackhorn .

I saw that sabotshooter has shot the Liegh bullets sabotless with some success but he mostly shoots triple seven which creates as much or more pressure than Blackhorn at a much faster rate . I just have had no luck so far with copper bullets and Blackhorn. Sabotless
 
You bring up a very valid point, that I hadn't thought of. I could get some T7 from my dad and give it another go before giving up. I wouldn't be thrilled about going back to T7 though just to shoot sabot-less. I'll stick with the 185 gr. Bloodline, or might switch over to the copper 200 that sabotloader just posted about.
 
But remember I am using a wad or sub-base under the bullet to capture the gas pressure.

Knurled and inserted...

Inserted.jpg


MMP_Sub_Base.jpg


Knurled_50x325.jpg


And I need to add that the bullet goes down very easily - not grabbing the bore that tight at all. And for me they have really been accurate.
 
Hornet22savage said:
Being that I'm shooting a 45, I can't use a sub base but I did use a veggie wad to seal the gas and I might add that mine are a bear to load the last few inches.

Well shoot - forgot about the 45 - I do use a shot card in that application. When you are cleaning do you notice the bore tightening near the bottom?

I am just going to throw this out there - but normally when you are getting a tumble it is because the bullet never reaches stabilization or the correct amount of spin.... so I a led to believe because of the tightening of the bore and the squeezing of the bullet to size it to the bottom of the bore - as it passes up the bore it becomes to loose and does not get the require RPM's. This is all speculation on my part.
 
Not so much when cleaning but when I load the Lehigh I can tell it get tighter towards the bottom. The resized bullets load I wouldn't say extremely easy through the crowd but I don't need to to smack them to get them in. Just a short starter.
 
Hornet22savage said:
Not so much when cleaning but when I load the Lehigh I can tell it get tighter towards the bottom. The resized bullets load I wouldn't say extremely easy through the crowd but I don't need to to smack them to get them in. Just a short starter.

Have you thought about doing a JB bore treatment just on the bottom portion of the barrel. I am often surprised by how well that simple paste works.
 
JB no not yet on this gun. I have been going over this since yesterday. This is what I have come up with. One of two things happened both my fault. #1 I used my Lee case lube to resize the bullets, that lube is a wet/ dry lube and I never cleaned them off could the lube have caused the bullet to skip the rifling? #2 I may not have seated the bullet fully on the charge allowing the veggie wad to turn at ignition and the loss of pressure caused the bullet to tumble. Before this turns into a debate into whitness marks this is a new load it seemed tight.
 
I tested my theories today. I ran the bullets back through a 451 die two more times for a grand total of 3 cycles. I also cleaned the lube off.Increased the powder to 120 gr. Loaded up and marked my rod. Fired, but forgot I lowered the scope and must have hit the open space in my pallet. Reloaded this time marking my rod for powder wad height. The distance between my two marks is less than the height of a bullet. If I'm correct in my thinking this confirms that the bullet is indeed seated on the powder. Walked down to 25 yds and fired. Still impacted sideways. I believe that I will need a light knurling on them. That is my next idea. If that fails I'll call it.
 

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