Sizing Hornady Conicals

[WP79Vet]

Just finished building a reloading and arrow building bench, getting it set up beside my fly tying desk, and moving all of my hunting and reloading stuff into what Tina (wife) calls "The Troll Hole"! Feels really good to have most of my toys unpacked, or at least readily available. The troll hole still needs lots of work - setting up steel gun cabinets, building a closet for hunting and fishing clothes, building stout ammo shelves, and so forth, but it's reasonably functional at this point.




As soon as my old Rock Chucker press was mounted, I screwed in a new Hankins adjustable sizer, and went to work on some Hornady Great Plains bullets. At .5015 inches (measured with a dial indicator), I could start the first sized HGP into my Renegade with firm finger pressure - no short starter needed. Once started, it slid down with about the same resistance as unsized HGPs, which means that the sized HGPs will stay on the powder. When I pulled the first sized HGP out of the barrel, grooves were engraved down to the driving band just above the lowest one. It looks like the grooves are engraved uniformly around the bullet, so it should be pretty well aligned with the bore. That's one big advantage of a tapered bullet design - the base goes down the bore for a ways with no pressure, so the bullet is pretty well aligned before any starting pressure is applied.

The sizer removed quite a bit of the factory lube, which is NOT applied very well, IMHO, so the next thing I need to do is figure out lubing the sized HGPs. My first attempt will be pan lubing with Lewis' modified SPG recipe. Not sure how well it will work, as the lube bands on the HGPs are pretty shallow, and the hollow bases may fill up with lube. Worth a try, though - I'll be happy if I just end up with a uniform coat of lube which isn't too soft.

Can't wait to get out and shoot some, even though my "shooting bench" is just a pair of shooting sticks and an old 5 gallon bucket at this point, and we have about 16 inches of crusty, uneven snow on the ground around our place.

 

[drpatton]

Feels really good to have most of my toys unpacked, or at least readily available.

Very Nice!

 

[eekjellander]

Just finished building a reloading and arrow building bench, getting it set up beside my fly tying desk, and moving all of my hunting and reloading stuff into what Tina (wife) calls "The Troll Hole"! Feels really good to have most of my toys unpacked, or at least readily available. The troll hole still needs lots of work - setting up steel gun cabinets, building a closet for hunting and fishing clothes, building stout ammo shelves, and so forth, but it's reasonably functional at this point.


View attachment 29982

As soon as my old Rock Chucker press was mounted, I screwed in a new Hankins adjustable sizer, and went to work on some Hornady Great Plains bullets. At .5015 inches (measured with a dial indicator), I could start the first sized HGP into my Renegade with firm finger pressure - no short starter needed. Once started, it slid down with about the same resistance as unsized HGPs, which means that the sized HGPs will stay on the powder. When I pulled the first sized HGP out of the barrel, grooves were engraved down to the driving band just above the lowest one. It looks like the grooves are engraved uniformly around the bullet, so it should be pretty well aligned with the bore. That's one big advantage of a tapered bullet design - the base goes down the bore for a ways with no pressure, so the bullet is pretty well aligned before any starting pressure is applied.

The sizer removed quite a bit of the factory lube, which is NOT applied very well, IMHO, so the next thing I need to do is figure out lubing the sized HGPs. My first attempt will be pan lubing with Lewis' modified SPG recipe. Not sure how well it will work, as the lube bands on the HGPs are pretty shallow, and the hollow bases may fill up with lube. Worth a try, though - I'll be happy if I just end up with a uniform coat of lube which isn't too soft.

Can't wait to get out and shoot some, even though my "shooting bench" is just a pair of shooting sticks and an old 5 gallon bucket at this point, and we have about 16 inches of crusty, uneven snow on the ground around our place.

Looks nice /I lube by hand while watching the news ,it gets it done and I don't get cracked fingers in this cold!

 

[deermanok]

Nice setup.

 

[Bad Karma]

Very nice setup with great lighting!

 

[bronko220002]

Dang, I wish my ''troll room'' was that well organized. Mine looks more like an ''ogre room'' LOL. Very nice.
I pan lube too with Nasa Lube and Stihl synthetic oil but unlike Lewis who used 2 bottles, I only use one. He likes his lube a lot thinner and he applies it as he goes I believe. But when pan lubing let the bullets cool in the lube and set for a day or two. The lube seems to stick better. I like to use a round cake pan and flip it over the push the bullets out from the bottom with a piece of wooden dowel. Most come out perfectly lubed but some you have to reapply lube by hand.

 

[WP79Vet]

Dang, I wish my ''troll room'' was that well organized. Mine looks more like an ''ogre room'' LOL. Very nice.
I pan lube too with Nasa Lube and Stihl synthetic oil but unlike Lewis who used 2 bottles, I only use one. He likes his lube a lot thinner and he applies it as he goes I believe. But when pan lubing let the bullets cool in the lube and set for a day or two. The lube seems to stick better. I like to use a round cake pan and flip it over the push the bullets out from the bottom with a piece of wooden dowel. Most come out perfectly lubed but some you have to reapply lube by hand.

LOL - you should see the Troll Room now! My '23 - '24 winter project is re-doing our laundry/ downstairs bathroom and storage room, which sits right next to the Troll Hole. The re-do involved taking it down to the studs, reinforcing the ceiling joists, replumbing about half of our house, pouring self-leveling concrete to level out that part of the very uneven basement floor, laying porcelain tile, moving the door, putting knotty pine planks on all the walls, installing cabinets, resetting the toilet, and building a shower alcove. The Troll Hole is the overflow for tools, materials, etc., and at the moment it's so full of stuff I can hardly move in it!

Pan lubing with Lewis' SPG blend, but with only one bottle of oil worked pretty well. I found that after pouring and letting everything get back to room temp., the bullets came out best if I cooled everything down in the refrigerator before pushing the bullets out. Even though the HGPs have very shallow lube grooves, all of them are nicely filled when I do it that way.

I think you're right - I remember Lewis saying something about hand lubing his bullets, so a softer lube would work better for him. Nevertheless, with only one bottle of oil, Lewis' SPG recipe completely solved the leading problems I was having when I shot the HGPs with the factory lube.

 

[snapbang]

Yep, very nice

 

[bronko220002]

I don't have a pic of my reloading bench but it fits in a corner. Its about 8' long on one side and 4' on the other and 30" deep. Underneath the entire bench are metal ammo boxed all filled with reloaded ammo, shotshells, and 22LR ammo. That's in addition to a 36" wide by 72" tall cabinet filled with more of the same with 2 shelves dedicate to muzzleloading stuff. Under my 48" long cleaning table is several more ammo boxes filled with muzzleloading bullets, patches, sabots, wads and other goodies. My shooting and archery boxes are somewhere near there. I swear I have more stuff than some of the gun stores I go in.

 

[anonymouscowherd]

My reloading press and powder measure are attached to my messy desk with C clamps. Have a shoe cubby there holding a lot of ammo, brass, bullets etc

 

[Bad Karma]

I don't have a pic of my reloading bench but it fits in a corner. Its about 8' long on one side and 4' on the other and 30" deep. Underneath the entire bench are metal ammo boxed all filled with reloaded ammo, shotshells, and 22LR ammo. That's in addition to a 36" wide by 72" tall cabinet filled with more of the same with 2 shelves dedicate to muzzleloading stuff. Under my 48" long cleaning table is several more ammo boxes filled with muzzleloading bullets, patches, sabots, wads and other goodies. My shooting and archery boxes are somewhere near there. I swear I have more stuff than some of the gun stores I go in.

I can find nothing wrong with your last statement.