I have a couple rifles that I'd like to figure what caliber they are; and figured I'd give sulphur casting a try. I bought pharmacutical grade sulphur from McMaster Carr, stripped the barreled action out of a 1895 model mauser, heated the crap up, plugged up the barrel past the chamber, poured the stuff down in. Locked up tighter than the hinges of hell. O.k. Heated up the underside of the action a little and melted it back out. Sprayed silicon lube in the chamber; did it again. Now just a gooey mess.

what gives.
turfman

You have to mix the sulphur with a couple of other ingredients, but CRS disease has struck, and I can't remember what they are...

Sulpher crystilizes when it's cooled... great for casting feet for equipment... not bad for making stinky trophies (heh heh heh )


HORRBILE for barrel casting, as the crystals are large and rough, when compared to other low temp materials.


jeffe

Well I guess I'll have to put the flame suit on here, as I've used sulphur quite a bit and once you figure out the quirks it works well. A nice thing about doing it is that you can keep your casts and look at them in a year or ten, and then when you do another cast you can compare them. Nobody I know has a dozen or so cerrosafe castings stored away somewhere for future reference, it gets melted back down but that is not a problem with sulphur.

Now, how to make a casting-

First, clean that gooey mess out, then maybe degrease with alcohol or something.

What I do is put some oil on a cotton swab and make sure the chamber is coated with a light coat, it does not need to be thick at all. Now, put your plug into the throat, I use paper towel usually but I think anything works the same probably. Now, heat up the chamber with a torch so that it is warm to the touch. To melt the sulphur, I make a crucible out of the bottom of a pop can. I cut it with scissors and shape the spout so that it pours into the chamber easily. I'm writing this at the end here, but you should actually do this first. Practice pouring the empty melter into the chamber to make sure it all lines up. Now slowly heat up the sulphur over a low torch flame until it is all melted, it will bubble a little but try not to get it too hot. This is also where the "well ventilated" suggestions occur as you definately need to have some air exchange! Anyway, just pour it in just to where it fills the chamber. If you put in more it gets into the locking recesses and you will break it getting it out. Anyway, after it has cooled for a coupple minutes just pop it out with a rod. So keep trying and I'm sure you'll get it.

Also, I bought my sulphur at a regular pharmacy. The first one didn't have it but the second one did.

Good luck and remember it is supposed to be fun!

Fixturing alloy is a bad choice because it is dimensionally variable. Actually IIRC it expands upon solidification, which may make removal difficult but regardless the reason for making a cast is to obtain accurate dimensions and the advantage of cerrosafe is that it has known rates of contraction and expansion. Sorta like sulphur

McMaster Carr sells a variety of low melting point alloys including cerrosafe, I think. MSC also sells low melting point alloys. It's often called as "fixturing" alloy, because it's used to hold something in place temporarily. Why the hell anybody would use sulfur in this day and age is beyond me - to put up with the stink and the possible healh hazards is masochistic.

Toolmaker

Much better to go to Brownell's and get the alloy that is designed for that job.Much easier and more accurate.

Midway sells cerrosafe very inexpensivly. Melts in boiling water and makes an excellent chamber cast. I hate to recommend them for anything, as they will not even send brass to Mass. But their cerrosafe is about 1/2 the price of the rest. Bob

IIRC, Frank Barnes in the 1st edition of "Cartridges of the World" (40 years ago) said that "sulfur casting" was done with sulfur mixed with camphor and carbon black. Didn't give a recipe. He recommended Cerrosafe as being far superior. Said sulfur shrank and didn't give precise chamber dimensions.