Reading another thread here caused me to respond. I was one of those who for years, was afraid of making a chamber slug. Somehow I got the idea that I could damage my chamber or barrel in the process. Of course, nothing is further from the truth. I've done several now and for the life of me, I can't see how a guy culd damage anything provided he used a little common sense.
I use a steel rod wrapped with a couple of turns of black tape. In effect, it's a coated rod just like the one I clean my guns with. I also use a 3 lb hammer to swage the slug. Veral suggest this as it take but one or maybe two hits to get the job done and it doesn't peen the top of the slug as a lighter hammer and more repeated blows would.
There's a lot of horse apples out there passing for knowledge. I've seen BPCR shooters who wouldn't use a brass brush in their bore for fear of damaging the lands in their bores. Geez-louise, that would have to be some really soft sttel and some really hard brass to damage that bore. Yet, some get down-right nasty about the whole affair and accuse those who would use such a brush of being idiots etc.
If you want a cast bullet to fit, you've got to slug the chamber, that's where all of the business is. If that bullet doesn't fit the chamber and throat nothing else matters ... period. Veral's book is dead on about this. I wish I'd read it a decade ago when I first started using CBs in rifles. Veral, thanks very much. Your work has helped me turn an otherwise attrative .375 Win door stop into a real shooting machine.
