I'm considering abandoning resizing

40AMP, I breach seat in my schuetzen with smokeless powder just fine. It is hard to believe that one can get that sort of accuracy from cast bullets. In fact, I haven't tried black yet in that old rifle. But the 32-40 is throated for breach seating, and it is really nice!

ckpj99, it seems you have found something that works for you! Do you use your seater die to seat the bullet or thumb seat? In fact, if you can seat your bullets long enough that the first driving band engraves in the rifling, it is my opinion that said practice will center the bullet better in the bore than traditional, FL sized, fixed cartridges, assuming that the bore riding nose section of the cast bullet fits properly. It is sort of a hybrid of breech seating, but one is using fixed ammo. This works with my 45-70 and black powder, as my chamber must be a little bit larger at the mouth than yours. The powder stack keeps the bullet from seating any deeper, and it is just a bit loose in the case to allow a little wiggle room to center up nicely for a good start.

But in my rifle this would not work with smokeless, as the properly sized bullet is not held firmly enough if there is an air gap in the case as is the case with smokeless. Different chambers I guess.
 
one thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is that consistency is the precursor to accuracy. for consisent pressure and hence ignition and burn of your charge, one of the steps in a process is to run the expander die through a case neck so that the case neck is at a consistent inner diameter, and as long as the brass is not significantly thicker or stiffer, that brass will pull against the bullet consistently with the same resistance. pulling the bullet isn't going to be the same as firing it.

Setting your ammo up by sizing and expanding, and maybe adding a crimp to it will ensure that you get consistent case pull. Seating the bullet into the rifling leades and firing a charge behind it will also create consistent ignition and pressure.

By leaving out the sizing and expanding steps you are dumping both of those processes and using a process that will not receive consistent results.

But, as I said, do your own testing, use control sets of unsized and properly processed off of a bench and compare targets carefully. By doing this, you will get the only absolutely correct answer to your question. All you are getting here is advice on what facts and variables there will be. The proof will only come from scientific testing and data gathering. Use the process that gets best accuracy
 
Oh, I forgot to mention... that staining you are getting on your case necks from blowby can be reduced if you flare your cartridge necks enough that they are a resistance fit in the chamber. I'm experiencing similar phenomena with my breach seated bullets, and an old timer explained that flaring can eliminate the blow by. Gotta love these low pressure, 19th century, cartridges!

My $.02 :cool:
 
I shoot a 2nd Allin 50-70 and a 1886 Trapdoor 45-70. I shoot black powder only in these fine antiques and never smokeless.

All of my charges are compressed and topped with a grease cookie and lubed wad. I do not size the brass because my brass is dedicated to each rifle.

I do a very minor bell and a mild crimp on every round. I have loaded my 50-70 cases at least 25 times and have not lost or damaged one. I believe I can go another 25 loads or more.
 
I am old school, but I mainly just neck size my bottleneck ammo. Essentially you would be doing the same thing in the procedure you are going to use for the straight wall case. It should work beautifully. If they get sticky, (which I doubt they ever will) run them through the sizer.
 
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