boat-tailing cast .40 - anyone else do this?

[Grey_Lion]

Perhaps I shouldn't say boat-tailing as that's more severe than what I do.

I put my .40 cast rounds through a lee sizing die - but due to case variances, I still occasionally have narrower cases on the small side of tolerances that shave small bits of lead off unaltered rounds.

Now there's one way to handle this by using a flare die to further expand the shell.

and then there's another way - I use a large pencil sharpener and lightly roll the butt end of the cast round in it to put the smallest bevel / boat tail on the cast round which allows it to slip into cases without ever saving off any lead bits during reloading.

 

[Chainsaw.]

Aint dumb if it works! Frankly thats a slick way to do it that might be faster than flairing, you eliminate the extra step of crimping/closing the flare if you dont want to do it.

 

[T. O'Heir]

"...allows it to slip into cases..." That's why you flare pistol case mouths. You only put enough flare on the case mouth to allow the bullet to sit in it with no help.
A BT/bevel on a cast bullet is probably allowing gases past the bullet.

 

[Grey_Lion]

the bevel is slight - it basically is about twice the depth needed to effectively remove the casting burrs left from the casting process. Do I get some bypass gassing? - not enough so's you notice. Effectively, you get a feel that there's a bit more smokiness on these rounds than FMJ. As for the case flare, I prefer to keep the flare to a minimum to extend the life of the brass and reduce strain on my crimping die.

 

[Jim Watson]

Commercial bulk cast bevel base bullets are more common than flat.
Carry on.

Me?
I flare them real good. A clean seat is more important to me than brass life of cases I will probably lose before they wear out.

 

[Grey_Lion]

first attempt here to attach an image.... see how this goes..... The left round is raw out of the mold with some burr at the butt of the round - through a sizing die which can often produce more burrs - and then a round lightly run through the pencil sharpener which is clean - a lil lube and she's ready to load.

 

[Jim Watson]

Interesting. I once saw a fixture that did the opposite. It sanded the base of a cast bullet dead flat with square corners. Meant for BPCR to get the "steering end" as uniform as possible.

 

[Chainsaw.]

That looks great. Im gonna have to keep this little trick in my pocket.