Sharps,
I never harden the brass, the necks workharden and may to be reannealed, if shot and sized enough.When I anneal,I hold the cases by the "head"with bare fingers.Believe me,the heads won't get hot enough to anneal this way.I think you are right that your 40-70 bullet is too heavy.The normal wt.of a 40-82 bullet is 260 gr.This is about the right weight for the 10.5x47R.If you size to .406,what is the as cast diameter? If you have the mold,I think it would be worthwhile to try a few "as cast" from 1-40,pan lubed,with Black Powder.Even at .406, this bullet is .011 over bore dia.Sometimes they give acceptable accuracy with bore diameter bullets( I mean old BP cartridge and muzzle loading rifles).There is another thread on this forum about "simi-custom mold", I think they have a link to a company that will make a mold for you.Lee bullet sizing dies come in an amazing number of diameters, and if you pan lube,they work fine. A friend of mine shoots a .416 Taylor and i'm pretty sure .416 is a standard dia.for his Lee outfit.You didn't say what kind of lubricator you have, so I can't make another suggestion.Since you are making good cases,if you send a couple to a loading die maker, they will make you a custom set. With modern CNC machines, they just scan the fired case and bore a die.They are much cheaper that way than having to make a reamer.Hornady recently would do this for $80, but I don't know the current price.I like to use existing dies, when I can, but in the case of the 10.5x47R,I can't think of another useable caliber anyway.Infact,the 10.5 would windup being the set I would use for other calibers.
Mike
