Help with reloading my old pistol.

[JTF#]

i have a bodeo italian pistol that there is no ammo for its 10.4mm italian.
i had some custom cases mode for it out of .44 mag cases. all i am wondering is about the size of bullet to use. i have read allot on the net about people useing .422-.427 diameter bullets but my gun is not even close to that. when i measure the bore it comes to .402 and the front of the cylinders are .426 and the unloaded case is .418.
would i not be looking at useing a .41 bullet?



could some one please help me. i really want to shoot this old gun but i wanna do it right.

 

[Colt .45]

Just getting in to this with my tanker .38s&w's. Here's what ive learned so far...

What you want to do is slug the barrel. Basically take a soft peice of lead and hammer it into the end of the barrel then use a wooden dowel or something else that won't damage the barrel to get it back out. ( Search youtube videos for exacts ). You then measure the slug you got out of the barrel to know the exact diameter you want, usually going up .001 or .002 of an inch. The trick is with revolvers, some times the cylinder is smaller than the barrel; in this case using a tip large enough for the barrel will just get squished down in the cylinder and won't be the size you want anymore. HBWC's ( AKA Hollow Base wadcutters ) are good for this as the hollow base cause them to expand and fill the barrel which should give better accuracy. One thing you definitely don't want to do is just use calipers to measure the inner diameter of the end of the barrel, I find that never gives the same readings as slugging and measuring the slug.


Definitely start with slugging the barrel if you haven't already ( I'm not sure if your bore measurement is from calipers or slugging ).


As a small aside note, if you dont have a mold to make a tip that you can hammer in to the barrel, I've just taken a drill bit before and drilled a hole into a scrap peice of wood in approximately the right size, then pour lead into the hole and you have an approximate piece of lead that is good enough for slugging a barrel..