True up your cast and paper patched bullets

[Distant Thunder]

I'm kinda with Eric on sizing patched bullet. Starting some time in 2016 I began "sizing" ALL my paper patched bullets for my Hepburn .45-70 I use in long-range matches. I did this because in my search for as tight a fit to the bore as possible I had finally opened up my mold to the point that a few bullets in the 100 or so required to shoot a match would either chamber with great difficulty or would require more pressure than I can apply with my old arthritic thumb. Too many years of pushing grease grooved bullets hard into the rifling I guess!

Anyway, I was having trouble chambering a handful of cartridges and I'd have to get up out of position, knock the PP bullet out with my wiping stick, get back in position, attempt to chamber another cartridge, get back on MY target, and try to break a good shot finally. This wasn't helping my scores I didn't think.

So I made up a push thru sizing die, similar to a Lee, that I run my .451" PATCHED bullets thru to uniformly size them to .4505". This also irons out the fold over at the base really nice. I don't know it that helps accuracy any, but they sure look nice! Looking good is key to shooting well, because the better your bullets look the more confident you'll be and the better you'll shoot. This is the main reason I shoot paper patched bullets, even a guy like me looks his best when shooting paper patched bullets!

So once my bullet are patched and then sized to a very uniform .4505 diameter they ALL chamber with uniform easy thumb pressure like Eric says and my scores have improved noticeably.

Whether the troubles I was having chambering the same bullets unsized was because of variations in my patching or in the paper or whatever I don't know, but sizing fixed the problem and improved my scores. I don't know if it actually improved the accuracy of my loads, I just know it improved what matters, my SCORES.

So this past summer when I was developing my paper patched bullet for my .40-65 I went to sizing right out of the gate. Does it make any difference, I don't know. I just know that that rifle/load/bullet is consistently the most accurate I have been able to put together. I'm not changing anything!

I like sizing my patched bullets, no lube is required for sizing or shooting and it works great.