AWESOME work my friend!! To say LOTS n LOTS of time goes in to this stuff is being EXTREMELY Generous! The fellas that ‘pop’ on here, read this info, buy the components listed, and follow the steps, HAVE NO CLUE the corners they were able to cut, The amount of time, Powder, and Lead that went in to making this stuff work like it does. I can say i know this first hand, As i have been plugging away at it for about 2 years now myself in a slightly different direction, The amount of time i have put in to this stuff is HUGE, Just like yourself, so i VERY much respect all you have done to help me and MANY others!! I learned my start from you. There are things i changed to better fit my personal needs/wants, the biggest being bullet diameters from the mold, i chose to have custom molds made per Caliber that drop undersize and i wrap up to bore. But in the end we are achieving the same thing, just 2 different ways of doing it.
On the Paper, My advice is to use the New stuff from the Paper Mill store. In my testing i am confident the sticking papers are confined to the old 25% Cotton 9# onion skin stuff with a Cockle texture, At least mine, mine is Neenan brand and ads 7-8 thou to the overall diameter after 2 wraps (there are several different brands of the old stuff out there, it is considered vintage now days, you can find it on Ebay, But personally i would AVOID it with both the Lee S&W 500, and the RCBS 11MM bullets, I can use either or with my Custom bullets) I tested 12 Lee S&W 500 bullets 1 morning in a fairly controlled test, 6 with the Old paper and 6 with the New stuff, all 6 bullets with the old papers stuck and made it to my target, next up was the 6 with the new Wood fibre paper you get now days from the paper mill store, and all 6 ‘Shucked away’ Upon exiting, i even found all 6 twisted tails. There was no need to test this with the RCBS 11MM bullet as it sizes easier than the Lee S&W 500 bullet, since the Lee S&W 500 Shucked this New wood fibre Paper, there is no doubt in my mind the RCBS 11MM bullet will do so.
This new stuff you get now days from the Paper Mill store is SUPER slick stuff, Forum member Harleysboss sent me several sheets of it to test with, After running the patched Lee S&W 500 bullets through my .499, and .500 sizer i could grip the nose/ogive of the bullet with my thumb and index finger, hold the paper jacket with the other hand, and actually get them to turn inside the paper jacket, There is no way in hell i can do that with my old 25% Cotton paper, that stuff almost Welds on after being sized that hard!! If you use the New stuff from the Paper Mill store i am Confident it will ‘Shuck’ away upon exiting the muzzle as a true paper patched bullet should.
As far as sizing goes, In a controlled environment such as benchrest/Target shooting i prefer a bullet that slides down the bore easy (as long as it shoots well) Most of our top shooters say that they find best accuracy 1-2 thou under bore, which makes loading a true pleasure! But for hunting i simply would NEVER trust a bullet like that, I want my hunting bullet to have enough pressure that i can absolutely trust it 100% to stay put on the powder charge and not slip. As to what size you need? There is no easy answer here, This comes down to a ‘per bore’ deal, You need to know your bore, without having your rifle in front of me I can not tell you what will load best in your rifle? But I can tell you in my experience with SEVERAL different rifles that 8 is a pretty darn safe bet, examples- .45 Cal .448, .50 Cal .498, and .54 Cal .538, I have 8s, 9s, and 0s (0 being .450, .500, and .540) I personally use my 9s and 0s by FAR the most, but i have a few rifles that require an 8. With as many Rifles as i have it is a must to have all of the sizes I mention above, But If you only own and work with 1 Rifle i advise you get an 8 die, and if it ends up being looser than you feel comfortable with you can always open the die 1-2 Thou very easily! Look up Buckshot’s tutorial over on Castboolits for opening a Lee push through bullet sizer. Follow what he says to do, Go slow and check often, You can always take a little more away if need be, but impossible to ad any back, I know this first hand