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| one of us |
Hello, With all the heavy hitters now on this Forum,I'm sure that I can get this question answered. I recently bought a new custom mold,and it will not shoot very well. My old mold had to be sized down to .301 for my 30/30,so I ordered one that dropped a bullet at .301 dia. The diameter is fine,but the nose diameter(just foreward of the driving band)is only .289 dia. My old mold had a dia. of .394,and the origional Lyman bullet that is the model for my mold has a nose dia.of .299. My question is;should I have the mold opened up to .294,which will shoot very well,or to .299,which also shoots very well. My custom mold is smoothe sided for paper patching.The Lyman mold is #311041,which shoots well in almost any 30 cal rifle. Thanks, Frank | ||
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Just curious which 30/30 are you shooting. All 4 of mine like bullets sized .309-.310 and nose diameters no smaller than .295. Now with paper patching I understand the undersized mould bot I thought the patching covered more than the driving bands. Orygun | |||
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Mark, I'm shooting a Winchester '94 Carbine,and the diameter of patched bullet that it likes best is .308-3085 diameter. The patch does cover about 1/16th of the ogive,in front of the driving band.I'm going to try some bullets with 1/8th covered and 3/16th covered.You cannot cover too much because it will not be cut by the rifling. Frank | |||
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When it comes to paper patching I am as dumb as a rock, but I do have some experience shooting regular cast bullets in the 30-30. The body of the bullet should be as close to size of the chamber throat as possible. I find .310 to be a good place to start, if you don't want the hastle of doing a chamber cast. The nose of the bullet should be as close to the bore size of the rifle as possible. In the best of all worlds you want the nose to rest on top of the lands or very slightly engrave on the rifling. You don't want the engraving to be so deep that you pull the bullet if you have to eject a loaded round. I own three Winchester 30-30s and the bore on every one of this is .301. So my best case scenario is to have a bullet that is .310 in the body and .301 in the nose. Bullets that have noses less than .301 can do well, if the body of the bullet is long enough to support the entire bullet through it passage down the barrel. Bullets that have short bodies and long bore riding noses had better have those noses resting upon the lands or else accuracy will be the pits. Most of my bullets run about .299 in the nose and that is close enough if the nose is no more than half the length of the bullet. | |||
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Chargar, I'm still at grade school level,at paper patching bullets. My best results have been with bullets that have the same diameter as jacketed bullets.I think that the paper jacket performs much the same function as does the copper jacket,as far as internal ballistics is concerned. My regular,lubed cast bullets do better with a diameter of .309 or .310,also. Frank | |||
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franke...You might try taping just the nose portion of that mould with some aluminum air condition duct tape. Start with 1/8" inch strips alongside the portion you want to enlarge. Do one side first and if that's not enough, hit the other side the same way. One side will give you about .002" and two sides will run .003"+. If it don't work, peel it out and you're back to where you started./beagle | |||
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Beagle I like that name;it reminds me of one of my favorite friends, Thanks for the reply,but the mold is on it's way back to rehab. I'm interested in aluminum taping the mold to boost the diameter.It's gettin quite a spin on a different Site. I just wonder if the bullet will have fins,like it will have if the blocks are not closed fully. Frank | |||
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Franke, I have tried the mould shimming and I haven't had fins show up. I do it a little different but the end result is the same. Paper patching seems like too much work for me. I have made swaged bullets for 30 cal and that is a pain in itself. Cast bullets hold more interest for me. Lots of 30 cal moulds out there to try. Orygun | |||
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franke...When you shim a mould, you only encounter fins when you "pressure fill" a mould. By pressure filling, I'm talking about dipper pouring or placing the mould against the spout on a bottom pour and leaving it. A normal pour with a dipper or having the mould 1/2" below the spout on a bottom pour cools the metal sufficiently that you don't get wings or whiskers and produces good bullets. Blocks can normally have a gap between them of .005" before wings begin appearing unless it's real hot. This is how I got started messing with this in the first place. I had a DC H & G 73 and no handles. I finally ended up using a set of 4 cav Lyman handles and the mould produced .361 bullets. Then I noticed the gap. The attaching screws were positioned so that it uniformly spaced the moulds apart. Armed with this bit of knowledge, Orygun Mark and myself started tinkering. The first option was metal shims. That worked but not easy to stay attached. The next step was to drill and tap the index holes and use a set screw to uniformly hold the halves apart. Worked okay on some moulds but diagonally spaced pins threw it off. The stick-on aluminum tape was next and has worked well for us./beagle | |||
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Tried the Beagle Mould Enhancement today. I used a Lyman SC 311291 with the normal skinny nose. It casts about .311 body but skinny on the nose and won't engrave most 30-30's I've used it in. I taped it up, one strip down each side and one across the bottom. Only taped one block half. I'm a dipper caster and putting the dipper against the sprue and pouring caused flashing. Hold the dipper up and pour without contact and no flashing BUT couldn't get the base to fill. Rounded gas check shanks. So hold the dipper up to pour and just at the end press the dipper to the sprue hole and yessir, filled out the bases just dandy. So, I've got a bunch of boolits that're swole up all over, they weigh a couple grains more, gas checks fit, and the nose engraves. Instead of the .298-.299 it usta cast at, the noses are .301-.302. 'Course the body's bigger too, but sizing will fix that. Loaded a few just to see and they engraved nicely in the one rifle I had in the shop. 'Nother thing I found out, that glue stinks when it gets hot, but if yer not careful it'll also glue yer mold shut when it cools! Bottom line is it works, thanks Beagle, I think you've got a winnin' process there. Regards, Woody | |||
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Wouldn't shimming produce eliptical bullets? The sides that aren't shimmed will still be the same diameter as original? | |||
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z1r...Maybe a tad elliptical but not to the extreme. Most U/S moulds I've measured are closer to tolerance across the seams. The undersize portion is usually 90 degrees out from the seams. This is produced by "cutter drag" as it encounters the seams during the initial cutting. It's small but machinists tell me that it's there. It looks as if the sides create a small gap when the mould is shimmed. This gap allows the metal to try to expand some and the cold air stops it. This will produce a little on the sides as well as 90 degrees across the seams. Any out of round condition is swaged back into tolerance during sizing. Not a perfect condition now, but it allows us to use a mould that would normally not be useable. Kind of like putting a band aid on it./beagle | |||
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| <blackknight> |
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| <blackknight> |
Woody1, Glad to see another caster has been introduced to beagle's method of expanding their bullet size. I have used it a lot and it has served me well. You mentioned the smell of the glue and the problem with it sticking the blocks together. Ace Hardware sells a glue backed tape, produced by 3M, that is called "Flue Pipe Tape" that will stand up to 600 degrees of temp. It measures .004 inches and will increase the bullet diameter .003 or so per thickness. I have found it is possible to pressure pour with a dipper if the temperature of the mold is controlled to limit whiskers and finning. What I do is hold the open blocks in front of a fan for a controlled count (from 6 to 18 seconds) so that just a hint of whisker is produced. The edges of the bullets will be very sharp and the weight variation will be very close. I have found this to be necessary with the late production of RCBS blocks as the vent grooves are deeper than necessary. Regards, Bob | ||
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