TC maxiball too tight in a TC Hawken ?

[45man]

Drop a brass rod down the bore and pound in a pure slug, then turn the barrel over and use the brass rod to bang the slug out, sort of a slide hamme raction.
If I remember TC went to button rifling that is not as deep so the Maxi might be tighter. I have shot thousands of them from my TC Hawken with no problems.

 

[coupe]

If one states “ I’m done with you” it very much leans to getting upset! Oh well some peoples children.

 

[deerstalkert]

easy way to check bore size is to take a dead soft ball larger then bore size, drive it half way into the muzzle, remove the imprinted ball and measure. ymmv

 

[longcruise]

Not on my gun it doesn't
Takes an effort to get the first bands in, take the mallet to get the top one in and moving

You Can get a lee push through in .501. At the .507 they are too large.

As already stated, you don't want to size the the nose end. MAYBE you can size them in the lee 501 by flipping the bullet and push it into the sizer base first without pushing all the way through. Push it back out . That might leave the front band wide enough to to serve it's purpose and rduce the base enough to ease loading.

I've seen it written here on MLF that the front band is larger to "seal" the bore. That is incorrect! The front band width is meant to keep the nose end of the bullet aligned. The base of the maxi easily bumps up to seal the gasses behind the bullet. BUT, if the nose band is riding the lands instead of the grooves it will not stay straight. The base bumps up due to the weight of the bullet above it resisting forward motion and actually serves to put the base in a pressure squeeze that fills and seals the groove. The nose doesn't have that same dynamic. It doesn't bump up the way the base does.

Without the nose band seated in the grooves the nose can tip to one side or another. Some might even stay straight. But they won't all respond the same so they will exit the Muzzle a bit cockeyed in a slightly different way. Result is variations in accuracy.

I have a Lee 501 sizer. I'll save you a turd hunt and try my resize idea out.

If the bullets are oversized there might be something holding the mold open a smidge. Crud, a bur around an alignment pin hole, or a bit of lead can do this.

This became a problem with my maxi mold. If you get it good and warm you can clean up the grooves with a toothpick.

 

[longcruise]

So, I tried the little resize trick and here's how it worked out.

But first, I have two 50 tc Hawken barrels. I took an as cast maxi and tried both for fit. In one barrel the maxi didn't want to start. I pressed a bit and still no go. In the other barrel it slid in with just a bit of friction but stopped at the front band. This seemed like an ideal fit for the maxi in the second barrel.

Next I measured all three bands on a fresh maxi just to be sure there was no distortion due to trying the fit with the first and here's how they measured.

Bottom band varied from .499 to .502 (in other words it was not perfectly round) I measured around the full circumference to find the variations.

The middle band was exactly the same.

The nose band measured right on. 505 all around.

Next I ran it into the sizer and by feel tried to decide how much it was sized and then pushed it back out with dowel. The first one came out with the front band sized so that one was set aside and another tried. Very hard to feel what's happening. That one went a bit to far also. On the third one I didn't use lube and now it had a better feel. Success, two bottom bands sized and the forward band untouched.

The new measurements were for the two bottom bands .499 to .5005.
So the base is now more round and smaller. Not by much, but smaller. The forward band still at .505.

Doing a fit test, the first barrel that was too tight to start was now a good fit. I'd say perfect. It took some pressure to push the first two bands in but not difficult. I didn't press into the forward band because I needed something to get my fingernails around to pull it out.

In the second barrel the bullet dropped right in and stopped at the front band. It fell out when the barrel was tipped up.

BTW both of those barrels have pristine bores. The tighter one has been shot quite a bit. The looser one less than 20 shots out of it.

 

[ETipp]

If one states “ I’m done with you” it very much leans to getting upset! Oh well some people.

No sir, what it means to many is that its a waste of time and energy trying to get something across to some folks. Only to some folks would it equate to being upset.

Its as simple as that.

 

[Sudsy]

Not pure soft lead! Get yourself some soft lead and cast some more. Even if you have to melt down some other soft lead bullets, such as Hornaday Great Plains Bullets. That is is fastest way to figure this out. If you still have problems then there’s a reason why that rifle was a wall hanger.

Last time - YES IT"S PURE SOFT LEAD !
From an industrial source that used pure lead, and tested at 5 - which is pure lead.

You can only explain things to people so many times before you get annoyed by their denseness (see what I did there ?)