Hey guys and gals its me again with my 455 SW and 455 Webley. I decided to cast my own bullets, and use the RCBS Lubra sizer . I noticed that the 2 guns have different bore sizes, about 2 to .003" difference. This tells me that perhaps one bullet coming out of the mould won't need sizing. This brings me to my suggestion. I don't want to pound a lead ball thru my girls, to get a bore size, so I decided to shot the bullets out and retreive the bullets. What I propose is load a bullet for each gun using 2 grains of unique , enough powder to get the bullet out of the gun and into a plastic barrel of water with a mesh cloth suspended to catch the fired bullets. Of course retreive each bullet and bag for bench rifling measurments. And use a piece of cardboard, hole in top to shot thru, to block splash. is this idea a home run or a fly ball out.

I guess it's worth a try, but you might find that the velocity needed to insure the bullet exits the barrel could be hard on your containment system and/or the bullet itself.

Slugging a barrel the conventional way seems like a daunting task, but done correctly it is simple and does no damage whatsoever to the gun.

Sounds good to me.Maybe not in the house ;-)

Have you ever recovered a bullet that hit something? Even water?

No, they deform too much to get a verified accurate size. I do understand about not wanting to drive a lead ball through your "girls" but what about this: Take a primer, maybe even a magnum one, and no powder, put a bullet in the case, go to a range and in a safe direction, load that bullet and shoot it ONLY. Put the guns up, go home, make sure it is unloaded and use a wooden dowel to push the stuck bullet out. It will be just past the forcing cone or, maybe still in it, partially. Shorter trip by far than pushing one all the way down.

Don't ask me how I know to do this!

If you use the proper projectile (pure lead) and lube the bore with oil, it doesn't take that much force to slug the barrel. Another benefit of slugging is that you get to check the full length of the barrel for tight spots.

I use muzzleloader balls since you know they are pure lead. Even sinkers can be tough to find in pure lead. Reduce the diameter to just over the groove diameter before you start. Once you slug one barrel I think you will learn you are way over rating the difficulty of doing so.

Are you checking the cylinder chamber diameters?

Try a pure lead ball designed for the black powder shooters with an oiled bore - no problem.

Pushing a soft slug is far better than trying to shoot (note, 2 "o"s in shoot) a bullet and trap it.

Unless you have the proper guage block to measure a 5 groove slug you won't be able to accurately measure the bullet anyway, so what is the point?

Besides, for best accuracy, usually, the bullet should be sized to fit the cylinder throat, not the bore, anyway. Oversize by .001-.002 works as well or better, and you will be able to shoot the same bullet in both guns.

FWIW, you will have to be a far better than average shooter to ever know the difference in most cases.