Didn't want to hyjack another thread so I'll ask it here.

I have a 411 wildcat. More capacity than the 411 Hawk. 350-400gr .411 bullets are few and far between. Could I run a 416 jacketed bullet through a lee 410 bullets sizer and have a functional bullet? Would I need to polish out the sizer to give me .411. I have shot .410 caliber pistol bullets through a .411 and they seemed to work fine.

Ramrod, you may find it too much in one step, if so c&H 4D sell bullet sizing dies for this purpose. But for the price of a Lee I'd just give it a shot. Lynn

Ramrod
Have a look at Dave Corbin's site, he's written articles on doing just this.
Jim

Thanks guys. I had read the Corbin site a couple of weeks ago. But my swiss cheese memory couldn't remember the site and I had failed to save it. At $179 for the Corbin die I didn't think I would shoot enough heavy bullets to justify. C-H/4D's price of $57 looks a lot better. While they suggest .004 at a time they use that over all starting size. I would think that .004 on a 308 would have far more impact than on a 416. But what do I know. I think for the $13 lee price I'll order one some 400grs and pay around. Not much to loose. If it works great. If it shows promise I'll contact C-H/4D.

I polished out a 410 lee die and resize 429 300 gr bullets to 416 in one pass 416 to 411 should be easy to do.

First slug your rifle bore and find out whiat size it really is. It might be .412 or 413. Then buy 2 Lee dies and send them to the bullet sizing guy named Stillwell and have him hone them to size.

www.sizingdie.com

Hornady has two 400 gr SP bullets that are .410 dia.

Can't you use those?

quote:

Hornady has two 400 gr SP bullets that are .410 dia.

Can't you use those?

Yep sure could have if I hadn't had my head up my butt. Hogkiller pointed them out a week or two ago. For some reason my mind was looking for 411 and skipped right over the 410s.

I did go ahead and buy the Lee and some 350s for $12 I figured what the heck I would give it a try.

Always good to more eyes than mine looking.

Well I had gone ahead and bought the Lee sizer. Ran a couple 400gr 416 bullets through it today. I need to move the press to a stonger bench and get a cheater but it rsized them to .410 just fine.

I recall reading an article not so long ago where Craig Boddingtons daughter had shot her prey with a wildcat 411 cal using 416 bullets sized down like you mention. Paul what sort of press are you using the Lee die in?
Steve.

quote:

... it resized them to .410 just fine.

Now for the accuracy tests!
I was hoping to resize 8mm bullits to 312 to get BT's in the weight I want but there just aren't any. Before I try swaging up, I will shoot a few 308 bullets as is.

Keep us posted.

quote:

Paul what sort of press are you using the Lee die in?
Steve.

Sorry I missed your post. I'm using a RockChucker.

I ran some 400s through it and they worked fine. Haven't worked up an accuracy load yet. Just started some velocity testing. I've resized all the 400s I had on hand. With the Hornady 400gr 410 I'll just use them in the future. The 416's are a couple $$ less but sure not enough to justify resizing.

Also ran some 350gr 416s. They were easier to squeeze through. I'm interested in it for my wildcat. Should be a little stonger bullet than the 300grs designed for the 405. Again no accuracy loads yet.

Thanks Paul, sounds like we're in business to resize some 429s for a 10.75x68. Re my earlier post, Craig Boddington's girl was shooting a 405 Win with resized 416s, not a wildcat.
Steve

Am I missing something. Are you resizing jacketed bullets with the Lee sizer dies? I thought they were only for lead boolits.

quote:

Am I missing something

Nope you are not missing a thing. I used a Lee bullet sizer to squeeze some 416 caliber bullets down to 411 (actually 410). Lubed the heck out of 400gr Hornady 416s and 350gr Speers. Wanted to see if it would work. It worked fine. Far cheaper than the $200+/- wanted for a bullet reducing die.

ramrod

For serious hunting, ie African game I would use Woodleigh .411 bullets, softs and solids.

quote:

Originally posted by Shinzo:
Thanks Paul, sounds like we're in business to resize some 429s for a 10.75x68.
Steve

Steve,
Interesting thought! I've had a sizing die made that uses interchangeable bushings in 0.002" stepdowns to take a 0.366" projectile to 0.358". Not 100% right yet as the bushings are too short so you get 'banana bullets'. Later on I'll be adding bushings to take 0.429" projectiles to 0.423" and will need to decide whether to build a 404Jeff or get back into a 10.75x68.

I thought I was prety clever until I discovered a 'smith in Australia who pioneered the use of Double rifles in the NT uses a hydraulic press and tapered barrel stubs to create a range of projectiles. Some of the sizings down are huge ... like 0.458" to 0.435" in one pass for the 425WR. Lube is the key, but I'm told he uses lanolin. I had him run some Woodleigh 0.366" 286gr pills through his 358" die and the projecties are just perfect! Bearing surface increases substantially though.
Cheers...
Con

quote:

For serious hunting, ie African game I would use Woodleigh .411 bullets, softs and solids

I have very little first had knowledge of the Woodleigh. I have them in some factory 358 Normas. I know my buddy who has the 416 version of this wildcat uses 340s @ 2430FPS and has taken several Moose and a large black bear. He is very happy with it and plans to use it on a Brown Bear.

Most serious hunting my rifle will probably do is large hogs and Milk Jugs. So most will be the 350, 300 or even plinking with 210s for varmint hunting .

Am I missing something too? I have about a dozen boxes of the Hornady 300 gr .411 Spire Point and they say .411, not .410?

quote:

Am I missing something too? I have about a dozen boxes of the Hornady 300 gr .411 Spire Point and they say .411, not .410?

Hey you have 2 more boxes than I do.

You guys are not missing anything. I've built a 411 wildcat. Tiggertate I believe I showed you the case at the bigbore shoot. Looks like a stretched 400 Whelen.

Like you I had picked up some Hornady 300gs mine from Midway as seconds. I was looking for some 350-400 gr bullets to do some velocity testing. I didn't want to pay $1+ per bullet to just try and determine some max velocities. 416s were far cheaper than 411. I also didn't want to pay close to $200 for a bullet down sizer. For maybe a one time effort. Saw references to using the cheap lee bullet sizer to downsize jacketed bullets. It happens to be .410 for the 41 mag.

While I was doing all this I had my head up my butt and missed the 400gr .410s that Hornady had come out with for the 450/400 until Hog Killer pointed them out.

It worked sized both 350 and 400 grs 416s to 410. I'm doing velocity testing with them now. No clue if they are accurate or how they would do on game. Any future work with 400s would be with the Hornady 410s. I do like the performance of the Speer 350s sized down. They will take a couple hogs this years as a test.

quote:

Originally posted by Con:

Steve,
Interesting thought! I've had a sizing die made that uses interchangeable bushings in 0.002" stepdowns to take a 0.366" projectile to 0.358". Not 100% right yet as the bushings are too short so you get 'banana bullets'. Later on I'll be adding bushings to take 0.429" projectiles to 0.423" and will need to decide whether to build a 404Jeff or get back into a 10.75x68.

I thought I was prety clever until I discovered a 'smith in Australia who pioneered the use of Double rifles in the NT uses a hydraulic press and tapered barrel stubs to create a range of projectiles. Some of the sizings down are huge ... like 0.458" to 0.435" in one pass for the 425WR. Lube is the key, but I'm told he uses lanolin. I had him run some Woodleigh 0.366" 286gr pills through his 358" die and the projecties are just perfect! Bearing surface increases substantially though.
Cheers...
Con

Con, I have some 310gr .358 Woodleighs that I intended to load in my 358 Norma till I saw that the softs were only recommended up to 2200pfs. The solids will be OK, which now has me thinking in terms of 9.3s(.366s) run through a Lee .357 die. I read about this recently,on 35cal it seemed to work pretty well, sure gives a few more options & a selection of cheaper projectiles for practice.
Steve

Steve,
Absolutely will give you more options! I had a discussion with Geoff McDonald a few years back about introducing a mid-heavy weight (270gr) 35cal pill but he's not really interested plus there are a few flies in the ointment regarding whether they'll stabilise from a 1:16" twist as used by Remington.

The 9.3 projectiles resized will give you the option of a 286gr spitzer (PP) ... just be wary of the bearing surface as it increases significantly.

By the way ... no matter what Woodleigh lists as their recomended impact velocities ... push them faster and they don't fall apart. They just open up to resemble huge pancakes. Perfect on the likes of big deer!
Cheers...
Con

ireload2: I think that you will find that Stillwell is gone ---- out of business---retired---did a KMA(kiss my #%*).