Here's my quandry. Have been shooting Berry's plated 148 HBWC in my 10-5, 10-6, and 10-8. Great results, but the prices went up. I tried casting some 148's from an old Lee mold, and tumble lubing them, but without sizing them. I had some bulged cases that wouldn't chamber. ( 11 out of 50!). So... I thot I would cut a fat hog and ordered a new 148 tumble lube mold. (the old one was standard design, and one cavity threw an out of round slug). Cast up a bunch and tumble lubed them. Eureka! was happy! They all chambered. No sizing. I also cast some 124 tumble lube round nose and 124 semi-wadcutters in 9mm. No sizing.The 38's were 2.8 grains Bullseye, and the 9's 3.6 grains of Bullseye. Here we go, shot the 38's from the 10-8 and a security six, and the 9's from a 5946 and a 6906. No lead in the 9's, but the 38's are horrible, chambers and barrels. Same alloy, same powder, (different amounts). Neither sized.I am totally baffled. Idea's???

I also have a Ruger SS and use the same load. I use the non tumble lube Lee 148 bullet and size to .358. My bullet alloy is either #2, or straight wheelweights. The only time I had a similar problem was when I used store bought Speer bullets and found they were undersized.

Slug your barrel and check the bullet diameter. I would guess your bullets are too small or the lead is too soft.

I have the same mold and tumble lube and experienced the worst leading I've ever seen. I was using W231 powder and tried the loads in three different pistols with the same results. Going to melt them down and add 50% wheel weights and try again.

I use wheelweights with the Lee 148gr TL and 3gr 231 with no trouble at all in S&W .38/357 revolvers (65, 14, 66, 686).

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Science plus Art

Thanks everyone! This batch of lead had quite a bit of pure lead in it, from old muzzle loader bullets. Luckily I have about 100 pounds of wheel weights. Guess I'll drain the pot, and start over with pure wheel weights. Sometimes it just don't pay to be too fugal and melt down anything and everything! Hope it works.

Just a couple of questions.

#1, even though the bullets were unsized, what size were they?
#2, what was the alloy?
#3, what size are the throats in your cylinders?

If it was me, I would check the hardness too. Somewhere around 12BHN is the best IF you are shooting target type loads and all of the sizes match correctly.

For me, I have often used straight wheel weights and driven them right to the 1000fps mark. If I add a little Linotype, I have driven them all the way to 1800fps from a rifle. For me, it has proven much more a matter of size. Size is the "trump card" in this deck, in my opinion. Hardness only comes into play if I am trying to drive something either too hard too lightly or one too soft too hard.

Take one of your bullets and see if you can push it through the cylinder throats.

I just checked a couple of ingots I have for BHN. The first was range scrap (from a police academy range) that gave me .061" on the Lee hardness scale. That converts to 13.9 BHN, which is plenty hard for most purposes. The "pure" lead I have is a mix of stick on WWs and any other lead scrap I have laying around. That ingot measured .080", which is off the Lee hardness scale (.079" is as soft as it will read and that's 8.0 BHN).

So, just about any mix (mine is 50/50 "pure" to clip on WWs) will be close to 12 BHN. Again, that's plenty hard for me to run them as high as 1750 fps. But, as Skip emphasized, my bullets fit the bores (I size at .359" in .38/.357 and sometimes I don't size at all).

I've never had to do it, but undersized moulds can be enlarged some by use of valve grinding compound on a bullet from that mould.