Sizing Jacket Bullets

Considering buying a .450 Bushmaster barrel for my Savage project gun. A nice 16.5" heavy barrel dropped into a synthetic stock with a 1X Scope will be a dream for very close quarters work on white tail here in MI. Also make turning in a blind quickly without the muzzle bumping the walls easy. The bore diameter for this round is .452 (which was huge mistake in my opinion with the availability of several fine .458 diameter bullets in the 250-350 Gr range.) My question is.... How hard is it to push a .458 projectile (well lubed of course) through a .452 Lee bullet sizer? 6 thou doesn't sound like a lot but I ask this question now before I come back later asking how to get it "Un-Stuck" from the die. Will they just pop right through no problem?

Jeff

Last edited by Trapaddict; Yesterday at 09:05 AM.

A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

I wouldn't attempt a .006 reduction on a .458 bullet in a single pass. If it were me, I'd try to limit it to .004 steps.

I've sized .458 to .454 in a single pass and you'll want to make sure that you have some good lube and a reasonably strong press. Make sure your die is clean and ready as well.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

Theodore Roosevelt

I went with the 50 Beowulf for the very reason we are discussing. The availability of good .452 bullets in a rifle is dismal. The popularity of the 500 S&W makes good .500 bullets easy to get. Same goes for the 458 Socom. My brother chose the Socom and I chose the Beowulf. I believe sizing a 458 bullet down to 452 would be a mistake. Too many bad things can happen to a bullet sized down that far.

Bob

I have sized down jacketed 0.429" 300gr 44s to 0.423" for use as plinkers in my 404jeffery, a reduction of 0.006". they shoot pretty well, 2" @ 100yds is pretty common. I did it using the Lee dies & doing them in steps of 0.427" then 0.423". I went that way as I only wanted to have the one custom die made, the 0.427" was a std size. If having one made I would go 0.003" smaller, then to the final diameter. I may open my 0.427" to 0.426" to make final swaging easier. It does take a bit of force even using Imperial. I don't shoot a lot of the 404J, but bullets are more than $1 each, so swaging the 300gr is worth a little effort. BTW, I am running these about 2100fps. If you use a FMJ, you have no worriesa bout a jacket slipping the core, but you can also use a bonded bullet like the SGDHP if you are worried aout core slippage.

Last edited by fredj338; Yesterday at 08:58 PM.

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The other thing that may happen is the jacket could separate from the core. If that happens, all kinds of nasty things might happen. I would not recommend it.

Last edited by bullet maker 57; Yesterday at 06:05 PM.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading
Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt"

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