.358” projectiles out of spec is quite common I’ve been finding out lately

badaxeriverman · Friday at 5:52 PM

A few years back I was crushing case necks on my 35 Rem brass when trying to seat .358, 180 grain Speer Hot Cores. I couldn’t figure out what was going on at first. Check the specs on my die i’ve used quite a bit in the past with the same bullet, and the measurements were within spec. And then measured the diameter of the hot core’s. They were at smallest .3595” all the way up to .363”. I sent my two boxes into Speer who confirmed they were all oversized. I had to wait for the new production run which as almost a year. The new ones came at .358/.3585”. Seated nice and tightly like they should. No issues since till I bought a 35 Whelen and kept getting fist sized groups, and larger, at 100 yards with several bullet choices. My barrel on the whelen is on the large size slugging at .358”. Remington told me it was within spec but on the “large” end of the spectrum for specs. My 35 Rem from Remington and my Marlin 336 in 35 Rem both slug at .357”. Makes no sense to me that the whelen would be at .358” and shoot the same projectiles. Anyways, I started measuring my jacketed projectiles that I can’t get to group worth a darn. Hornadys .358” 200 grain spire point measured .357”, Hornady’s .358” 250 grain spire point measures .357”, Barnes .358” TSSX blue tip measures .357”, and Norma Oryx .358” 250 grain projectiles meaured .3565”! The Speer Hot Cores that are .358”/.3585” shoot nice tight groups needless to say. I posted a group here in the last couple days that measured .427” at 100 yards. The others undersized above are close to minute of pie plate at 100 yards on average. I talked to Hornady and was told that their tooling gets dull or comes out of spec once in a while and had me send them back. They sent a return label and said they will measure them and send new boxes regardless of what they measure. Figure I’ll roll the dice and try Barnes and Norma as well. I’ve talked to Barnes in the past about the the .308” 180 grain TSX I have that measure .3065”/.307” and they basically told me they didn’t care and find another gun to shoot them in. So I’m not expecting Barnes to replace them. I’ve tried .243 XLCs when they first came out as well with the same undersized issue. Couldn’t hit a 4’ square of paper with them at a 100 yards. I don’t know why I keep getting suckered in to wasting money from time to time on a Barnes branded mono bullet because they never group in any of my guns.

https://imgur.com/T4uAoYZ

https://imgur.com/LDd1ONH

The Hornady are on their way back or I’d post pictures of them at .357” as well. I can post a picture of the Norma’s tomorrow if someone really wants to see them under spec. It explains why some bullets and ammunition just don’t shoot in your gun then you don’t know if you don’t measure. I always thought it was the powder. It didn’t like in a particular firearm over the decades when I didn’t reload. Now I’m realizing that a lot of manufacturers don’t get the specs right on the projectiles is probably more of the issue.

So has anybody run into out of spec .358 projectiles or am I just keep having bad luck with them ? I’m guessing it’s just not a common size projectile and that’s why the manufacturers have such an issue with making them out of spec? FYI I’ve used these calibers and another set to double check my homework. Same with my slug that measures .358” I put through the barrel of my Whelen.

RL338 · Friday at 7:09 PM

I went and dug out some of those 180gr TTSX and they measure .357”. Next I measured some 225gr BT and .357”. Then I moved onto some .338 TTSX 210 and 225 both measure .337” and the same with 300gr CC.
I going to say my dial calipers are probably 0.001” off as they aren’t high quality , but they give repeatable results.

badaxeriverman · Friday at 7:17 PM

Whether my calipers read correctly or not the projectiles are .001” smaller than my slugged 35 Whelen’s bore diameter. Good to know yours are undersized as well. How do they shoot for you and have you slugged your barrel for comparison? My other two 35 cals…35 REM’s both slug at .357” so there wouldn’t be an issue with .357” sized projectiles with them.

RL338 · Friday at 7:25 PM

The 180gr TTSX shot very well and will be my hunting load in the woods this year. The 225gr BT flat out shoot out of my CVA 35 Whelen. 250gr Hornadys have been a struggle.

badaxeriverman · Friday at 8:13 PM

Did you ever slug the barrel of your gun to see what the diameter of it is? I do this because I shoot Cast bullets in my guns or I would’ve never known that my barrels were a machined at a larger diameter than the projectiles. Your barrel might slug at .357”.

RL338 · 2024-10-12T07:25:15-0700

Never found the need to slug the barrel as I don’t intend to run cast in it.

badaxeriverman · 2024-10-12T09:46:37-0700

RL338 said:
Never found the need to slug the barrel as I don’t intend to run cast in it.

I thought the same and just did it because I was going to run Cast. Never had a gun that wouldn’t shoot until this one and I’ve owned hundreds of firearms. Glad I did so I at least now know what’s going on to fix the issue. I’ll be measuring ALL every one of my jacketed .358” projectiles before loading them from now on. If they are under .358” I’ll save them for my .357” slugged 35 REM’s. Just another good way to think outside of the box when you can’t get a bullet to shoot acceptable groups.

Another good way to fix the issue is to Powdercoat them. I found that if you don’t clean the copper jackets powder coat stick won’t stick to them. These are ones I pulled the other day from my ladder tests for the 35 Whelen. You can see the purple ones peeled the powder coat when pulled them. They also had three coats on them so only put one coat on them…is all you need. After I powder coated them I ran them through my lee .3595” sizer dye. There was a good amount of force when I went to size them down so they definitely grew larger than then .3595”. They all started at .357”. You can see on the blue ones that the powder coat sticks to very well and did not come off. Got the idea from powder coating my Cast projectiles to increase the diameter. I pulled them since I found a load without having to powder coat and figured I would run with my 180 grain hot cores this year and save my H4895 powder that I loaded these with with for the loads. I did have to sift my powder about four or five times to get the flakes of powder coating out of it, but it looks pretty darn good now. Ill re use my primers too. Those pointed 250 grain hornet days were murder on my Lyman kinetic bullet puller two. It’s under a year old and one of the projectiles poked right through and busted the bottom out when I was hammering on it. I don’t have the receipt, but hopefully Lyman takes care of me. They had me email a picture late in the day on Friday so I’ll have to wait till Monday to hear back from them. I blame the purple powder coating for not sticking because it was old powder. I had mixed in a container for a few seasons, but you can see on the 220 green SPEER in the Ziploc bag It never came off of. The 200 grain Hornadys were the ones the PC flaked off of. They were pretty oxidized and dirty before I coated. The others were shiny and new that the PC stuck great to.