Sizing bullets

[Kurt]

Sam.

I have sized bullets down. three thousands is more then I personally would go. It just displaces to much in the direction your pushing the bullet through. I pushed some .514" .50 cal gov bullets through a .510" Lee die and the base punch had to much slop and I ended up with base fins where the base punch pushed. Maybe a harder alloyed bullet would not deform the base this much? I don't know. You cant compress lead, you just displace it. There is just to much slop between the base punch and die body on some of them.
If I want to change a cast bullet's diameter or ogive I will use the swage press.
My 52 S&W takes a .355 diameter full wad cutter and I used the Star Lube seizer to reduce the .358 wad cutters and that worked out just fine because they had a slight bevel on both ends.

Kurt