- Location
- New Brunswick
Would it be safe to use an round nose 8mm cast bullet, 175 gr, .324 diam., Lee Mold, in a Winchester 94, .32 Spl ?
Last edited:
8mm cast in .32 Spl?
- Thread starter gerardjohnson
- Start date
Probably, if you didn't load it too warm. - dan
Take a case that's been fired in your rifle but not resized and put a slight bell on the mouth, like you would for a resized case for cast bullets. If your 8mm bullet will fit with only the slighest resistance, you'll be fine. If not, you'll have to resize your bullet some more. This is fitting the bullet to the throat which is more important than grove diameter.
That's right - with cast bullets, it's the neck diameter that's much more critical than the groove diameter. Make the bullet too large in diameter and it can cause severe neck pinching, but with sufficient neck clearance, but can go several thousands of an inch over groove diameter without excessive pressure (although your accuracy might suffer). The effort to sqeeze down a lead bullet is not as great as many imagine, in fact it's less than forcing the rifling lands into the copper jacket of a jacketed bullet.
The neck has to have room to expand, to release the bullet. You don't want to try to invent a pipe bomb.
If the 8mm bullet is a tight fit in a FIRED case neck, then the chamber neck is too tight for the 8mm.
If the 8mm bullet is a tight fit in a FIRED case neck, then the chamber neck is too tight for the 8mm.
You may get by with .324, I use .323 in my Special. What may cause you problems is the bullet ogive length and how far forward the bullet is near full diameter. 8 mm rifles usually have fairly long throats while 32's are relatively short. You may have to seat the bullet quite deeply in the case to chamber a round.
