Ed Harris wrote: I have always felt that bumping or swaging was a way to make an as-cast bullet which doesn't fit, more compatible with a rifle's throating, and to square the base of a bullet cast from a defective mold which doesn't produce one.
If the mold drops bullets as-cast to the proper dimensions and contour to fit the throat, bumping isn't needed. Why anybody would persist working with a defective mold which doesn't cast to size or produce square bases is beyond me!
With the high quality and affordable cost of custom lathe bored molds, which enable you to fit any barrel, it makes no sense to buy a cherry-cut mold produced using 19th Century technology and to have to fiddle with it, spending more on bumping dies and crap than you did for the mold, to make it work.
I think adding more info to the tech data sheets is just mental masturbation because every barrel is different and what works for one doesn't necessarily work with the other. Of course, I must confess that I haven't shot in CBA competition for years, because I no longer value having thousands of dollars in rifles and equipment which are used for nothing but bench shooting, needing a cart and a pony to get from the pickup to the firing line. Whatever floats your boat.
I think that Giorgio in Italy has the right idea with his emphasis on classic hunting rifles, revolvers and cowboy guns, having fun shooting steel targets and chasing the deer and the wild boar. To me the proof is on the barbeque and not on the backer.
If anyone has a recipe for steamed target papers stuffed with risotto, mushrooms and wild rice, I'm willing to try them once!
I haven't shot BR in a few years either but I think the same can be said about throwing money at the bunny gun idea when there's plenty of perfectly good over the counter guns out there that fill the same shoes. Some for under 250 bucks brand new. But like you said.....whatever floats a person's boat.