Carbineone
Cadet
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2026
- Location
- United States
OK this is one of my crazy ideas again. So crazy it actually work. I have a Smith Carbine project I working on. I bought some of the black plastic cartridge cases. I slugged my bore the best I could and came up with .512 to .513 I have read that they geberally run from around .512 to as much as .518. Mine seems on the tighter side of thing.
Anyway I have bullets that are .512. But the problem is the cases are around .514 ID of the mouth. So hence my crazy idea. I went to the Ace Hardware. and bought this little pvc pipe union. It is just a few thousandths smaller that case mouth of the cartridge's OD. I then went to heating the plastic case with the Wifes hairdryer. I then stuck the case into the PVC of the smaller diameter. Cooled it all under cold water and pulled the case from the PVC. Sized the case down perfectly for a nice snug fit of the Bullet inside the case now.
Here a pic of the cartridge and sizing adapter.LOL
And a pic of the project Smith I am trying to find a stock for. It is nothing great. Quite a few aftermarket repro parts. But the bore is pretty decent and it all functions well.
I actually fired one of the resized case just to check function. It shot just like they are supposed to. I know nothing on accuracy yet. And not all that concerned about it being super accurate. Just a fun plinker every now and then. If it is accurate, great, if not that is fine too. It is not a target Rifle.
Maybe my crazy sizing die idea will help someone. Not likely but thought I would share it anyway. I suppose if you had to. You could also up the internal case mouth diameter by the same method. You would just have to come up with a internal die diameter form something.
The bullets I am using are shown also. They are not your conventional Historically correct Smith Carbine bullets but they should and did work fine in the one sample I fired. They are Hornandy Lubed Muzzled loader bullet with a hollow bas. They a plain lead also. The cavity in the base and the soft lead should bump um nicely, even if they are a little undersized for some reason. I load the bullet so it just engages the Rifling.
Thanks for listening to my Ramblings.
Anyway I have bullets that are .512. But the problem is the cases are around .514 ID of the mouth. So hence my crazy idea. I went to the Ace Hardware. and bought this little pvc pipe union. It is just a few thousandths smaller that case mouth of the cartridge's OD. I then went to heating the plastic case with the Wifes hairdryer. I then stuck the case into the PVC of the smaller diameter. Cooled it all under cold water and pulled the case from the PVC. Sized the case down perfectly for a nice snug fit of the Bullet inside the case now.
Here a pic of the cartridge and sizing adapter.LOL
And a pic of the project Smith I am trying to find a stock for. It is nothing great. Quite a few aftermarket repro parts. But the bore is pretty decent and it all functions well.
I actually fired one of the resized case just to check function. It shot just like they are supposed to. I know nothing on accuracy yet. And not all that concerned about it being super accurate. Just a fun plinker every now and then. If it is accurate, great, if not that is fine too. It is not a target Rifle.
Maybe my crazy sizing die idea will help someone. Not likely but thought I would share it anyway. I suppose if you had to. You could also up the internal case mouth diameter by the same method. You would just have to come up with a internal die diameter form something.
The bullets I am using are shown also. They are not your conventional Historically correct Smith Carbine bullets but they should and did work fine in the one sample I fired. They are Hornandy Lubed Muzzled loader bullet with a hollow bas. They a plain lead also. The cavity in the base and the soft lead should bump um nicely, even if they are a little undersized for some reason. I load the bullet so it just engages the Rifling.
Thanks for listening to my Ramblings.
Bringing the