Question about lead bullets

[Grawfr]

I've been looking into shooting lead bullets for my Henry in .357mag in the next season. Partly for tradition, partly for economy. Those would be shot at paper at 100m, usually (I'd get commercial ammo for hunting). I was reading my manuals (ABCs, Lyman's, Hornady's) and came out a little confused about something:

If I was casting my own bullets (which I am not planning to do), I would be casting them, then resizing/lubricating the bullets before I used them to reload my brass.

But if I purchase commercially-cast bullets (I'm thinking those with a gas cap), do I have to resize them prior to using them in the press? That's what I couldn't find a clear answer about.

Thanks all.

 

[lister]

No, any commercial cast bullets should be sized and lubed already.
Also, depending on how 'hot' you're loading, you may not need to gas check them. Check your manuals.

 

[Sleeper]

No. You would buy Comercial cast bullets already sized and lubed to probably. 358 or .359

If you were having accuracy issues one of the steps to shooting cast is to slug the bore.

If your bore showed that it was over sized or you had microgroove style rifling you would want a bigger bullet maybe .360 or .361, in this case hypothetically you could get larger bullets but more likely you would be casting and sizing your own.

 

[Grawfr]

No, any commercial cast bullets should be sized and lubed already.
Also, depending on how 'hot' you're loading, you may not need to gas check them. Check your manuals.

Great!

I had some jacketed ammo and bullets on hand, so I did some measurements for comparison. The charges I use seem to give 1600-1800 fps.

CamPro 158gr FCP-TC measured 0.357"-0.358" and for some reason it performs horribly for me... I mean 8 MOA and more. (Edit: and the Campro 125gr FCP-TC or Winchester SuperX 125gr JHP were minute of barn door: 12-20 MOA!)

Fed Am Eagle 158gr JSP measured 0.354"-0.356" (it's undersized apparently) and gives me good results on the range (~2-3 MOA when I do my part). That's my "reference load", what I try to to equal or beat with handloads.

Hornady 158gr XTP was the most consistent at 0.357" with almost no variations in size. Does 2.4 MOA avg for me at 100m (9/10 rounds on three groups). Of course, that's about $0.35 per bullet, it better perform a little!

I'm not set to slug my barrel, but from all I've seen it's normal to use 0.001" wider than jacketed for cast lead, so I'll look for .358" diameters bullets. Thanks Lister and Sleeper!

Now to find a brand/model to order...