Usable Bullet Diameter

[leecork]

[B]I am getting ready to reload some 44 magnum cartridges. The Hogdon reloading tables indicate I should be using bullets with a diameter of .430. The Sierra 210 grain bullets I have available have a bullet diameter of .4295. Will these Sierra bullets shoot OK in my new Henry Big Boy rifle ? Just a little bit smaller. Thanks B]

[Tuna]

If your using lead then .430 would be appropriate. Jacketed then it's the .429 that you need.

[Sunray]

The Sierra bullet will be fine. Hodgdon's site manager sometimes is confused. I'm not quite convinced he/she is a shooter. Mind you, whatever program they're using to produce the tables may be rounding up and the programmer who enters the data doesn't bother to edit. .0005" isn't enough to worry about anyway.

[Fred Pillot]

It's said that lead bullets should be .001 inch larger than the groove diameter for optimum accuracy.
Not so with jacketed.