How big can I go?

[seasoldier85]

So I received my pin gauges and checked the throats on my 25-5. All were .457 +/- a hair. I slugged my bore and it mic's at .452. Will I be able to stuff a .458 cast bullet down the barrel, or am I asking for trouble? I'd really rather cast/ reload than shoot commercial.

 

[alwslate]

I wouldn't try it with a hard cast bullet. Factory swaged bullets for the .45 Colt have a concave base to expand to fit oversize throats and then easily swage back down to bore size I think. I think Hornady makes a swaged lead Cowboy Action bullet with the same feature.

 

[Forrest r]

Typically bad things happen if your bullets get swaged down 3/10000th's or more when going from the cylinders into the bbl.
Jacketed ball 230gr bullets have a open bare lead base with a jacket that extends past the lead core. This creates a concave base/hollow base that easily expands sealing the cylinders.

Some of the hb bullets I've cast over the years for the 45cal's.

That bottom left bullet is a cramer 5f that was a "special" order mold. The 5f bullet was cramer's 200gr swc for the 45acp. The mold was ordered with hollow based pins to be used in the oversized surplus 1917 cylinders (.456"/.457").

I cast most (99%+) of my revolver/pistol bullets with a 8/9bhn alloy. It's impressive how much that soft alloy can expand. The ww "fbi" 38spl load used a hollow based hollow pointed swc bullet.

I cast a 230gr hb bullet for the 44spl/44mags. I cast some out of that 8/9bhn alloy and seated them in 44spl cases with a healthy dose of 2400. Then I used a forster hp tool to put a huge hp in them. The end result was a 210gr hb hp swc

A side view of that recovered bullet pictured above. The expansion of that base is impressive. I kept expanding even after leaving the bbl with that 16,000spi+ load doing 1000fps.