Seating the 315 SWC minie in a tube

[jonk]

So I got a beautiful .582 315 SWC mold from Moose. Drops nice bullets if I do my part. Previously I had been using a more traditional conical minie; those slid right into my tubes nose first.

The issue is, the SWC runs up against the mouth of the case and requires a lot of wigglign and force to get it in- which pulls lube out of the grooves and distorts the base. Sometimes the force needed to get it in distorts the tube. I've tried vinyl and hard plastic types.

Is there some easy trick I'm missing here?

[efritz]

Jonk,

.582 is kind of big for the normal .58 tube but you could try base first. Yeah the powder will stick to the sides the first time. Say 45 grs in the tube the first time and maybe 44 comes out. The next time you load the tube 45 goes in and 45 will come out. The grease in the grooves is the important part so when it comes off putting it in the tube it doesn't matter. It's still in the grooves. It's not as messy either. For those that bite the bullet there isn't any grease in the teeth and no bent skirts. Like anything else, try it.

Regards
Eric

[Rebel Dave]

Your tubes will Probably stretch after they are used a few times. I shoot the lyman wadcutter , and it is a little finicky on new tubes also, but after one or two uses they are okay.

Rebel Dave

[Maillemaker]

Yup, I have the same problem with my RCBS-Hodgdon skirmisher bullets. They are semi-wadcutters and the shoulder makes them hard to get in.

I find them easier to load into the rigid plastic tubes than the soft rubber ones, though. The soft rubber ones are great with traditional pointy bullets.

Like Dave, I find that the mouths stretch after a while.

Steve

[jonk]

Yes, base first does seem to go a tad easier.

I know I've seen at least one sutler selling oversized .58 tubes, I can check it out next nationals, and just keep my regular ones for my other gun. Gun has a .582" bore, .581" sizing is called for (though they do size down to .576 for my other gun just fine). Oddly, the more I load, the harder it seems to get- the necks are collapsing and rolling in on themselves.

I might try a pipe reamer and try to open the mouths a tad.

[Ron/The Old Reb]

I determine how far the powder comes up in the tube. Than I take a small drill like a no.60 and drill a hole through the tube just above the powder. Makes the Minnie easer to get in and lets the trapped air out that keeps pushing the Minnie back out.