Success in First Beagle Attempt

[Gray Fox]

I have the Lyman 9mm devastator mold that casts a monstrous 130 grain hollowpoint, but only at .355 diameter. Great if it's a jacketed bullet, but sucks in the real boolit world. I haven't used the mold in several years because of this. After lurking around various posts about Beagling a mold, I thought I'd give it a try. I have this big roll of 4" wide aluminum duct tape laying around from a real duct project in our home's crawl space, so I though I'd give it a try.

I cut two tiny pieces to put alongside the body cuts of the mold after cleaning the spots with brake cleaner, re-smoked the mold with the barbeque lighter, and had at a pot of 50/50 lead and clip on WW with 10 ounces of 50/50 solder for about 2% tin. After about the usual 20 bad first casts, I let the first 3 good ones cool off and there they were--right at .358! My M9 and my two S&W 3913s should love them.

Tomorrow I'll make another batch of the same alloy and see if my Beagled Lyman 357122 will give me some .460 boolits for my new Guide Gun. Seems like it should. How I love simple things that work. Just one more reason I love to visit this site. Thanks, guys, for all the assistance and encouragement. GF

[Whistler]

My Lyman 429215 dropped at .428".

I love aluminum tape!

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/4575/20111104191131.jpg

I wonder if the sizing die swages the bullet?
This one now drops .431 over the seam and .434" across as seen in the picture. When sizing it to .432" it becomes perfectly round. My BFR .444 Marlin earlier couldn't hit the target at 60 yard. Now it shoots 2" groups at 120 yard!

[Cadillo]

How often does the tape detach and need replacement?

[Gray Fox]

A sad epilog to this post. My new Lee .358 push through sizer sizes to .356! Luckily I have a Lyman 450 with a .358 sizer. It just kisses these boolits. I think I'll just use them as cast with two coats of thinned LLA. If I get real ambitious with this project, even though the boolits have no crimp groove, I may try loading some in .38 cases and see if a good roll crimp holds this relatively soft alloy. If it does I may try to replicate the Gold Dot 135 grain HP "snubby load", trying for 850 to 900 fps from an S&W two incher. Sure would be a lot cheaper if it worked.

[462]

Gray Fox,
There is a School of Thought that says smoking a mould produces smaller boolits. I can't speak to the truth of it, as I've never found a need to smoke any mould, but it does make sense.

Cadillo,
Some of my beagled moulds have their original application still firmly in place. The tape can come loose, but I've found that repositioning it and closing the mould will keep it in place. Last week, I cast 100+ rifle boolits, from a newly-beagled Lee mould, and the tape never loosened.

[MikeS]

I was just going to ask why so many people feel that NEED to smoke a mould? I've seen so many people that will use all the other advise given on this forum (regarding using BullPlate instead of boolit lube, proper cleaning of moulds,etc.), then they go and smoke the mould before even trying to cast with it without smoking it! I only ever smoked one mould, once, then figured out what I needed to do to fix the problem (of the mould not dropping boolits easily). Heck, when I get a brand new mould, I don't even bother with the rigorous cleaning that some give, I just give the cavities a simple wipe with an alcohol soaked Q-Tip (after applying Bullplate to the tops of the blocks, bottom of the sprue plate), pre-heat the mould on my hot plate, and usually start casting nice boolits right away! I've had a couple of moulds (usually aluminum ones) that did need to heat cycle a couple of times before they cast their best boolits, but even those probably wouldn't have been helped if I scrubbed it with Dawn and a tooth brush!

BTW, on the one occasion that I smoked a mould, I didn't inhale. :)

[1Shirt]

Yep, beagling works and works well, but you have to learn to work with the process.
1Shirt!:coffeecom