reverse engineering a bullet into a mold?

[Ironduke]

I purchased two different commercially cast boolits a couple of years ago. Both designs shoot great in my guns. Sadly the caster is no longer in business. I still have some of the boolits so what I need is a mold maker who will cut me the molds required to allow me to cast more of those boolits. Who does this kind of work?

BTW, I have been on Mountain Molds website, but have been unable to duplicate these boolits with their software, plus they don't go heavy enough for one of them.

Help, please.

Here is a pic of the boolits in question. The one on the left is a 550 gr hard cast .458 designed for the 45-70. It works like magic out of my Guide Gun. The center is a 400 gr Speer FN, basically the heaviest J bullet available for the 45-70 for size comparison. The right is a 720 gr 458 cal I use in my 458 Lott. It's not nearly as hard as the 550 gr, so the big nose section flattens out to the size of a quarter or bigger when I have dug them out of the sand back stop. The 550 gr could be reloaded and shot again almost when dug out of the same back stop. it's super hard.

58706

I am thinking I will not cast the 550 gr as hard as these fatory ones. They might just rivet some on big hogs, and that would be fine.
Paul

[jason f]

I would contact accurate molds. He does mighty fine work

[41 mag fan]

As Jason said, send a boolit out to, Tom he'll take measurements and make a mold design, then place it in his catalog.

[runfiverun]

go to magma engineering's websight most commercial casters use their molds.
if you could put up a picture of what you have someone could most likely identify them and save you a lot of trouble.

[Ironduke]

Now updated with a pic.

[longbow]

If you want moulds made here is another vote for Accurate Molds.

Tom does great work and will cut the mould to whatever diameter suits you. He will take your design or boolit and turn it into a beautiful mould that will cast to spec.

Longbow

[runfiverun]

here is his catalogue.
if you don't find exactly what you want you can have it modified.
or like suggested send him a sample.
http://www.accuratemolds.com/catalog.php?page=9

[MBTcustom]

Send your boolit to Tom at accurate molds. He will swap e-mails, design your boolit, and put it in his catalog for free. Then you just belly up to the bar and order it. You can even select what size you want it to drop with what alloy in the nose, driving bands, and gas check areas. He does all this at a cost that is very competitive in the custom mold market, and it will be on your doorstep in record time. You'd almost think he had it sitting on the shelf waiting for you.
What more could a guy want?

[Lloyd Smale]

taking a bullet and making a mold from it is asking alot. Weve tried it here with group buys and you just never seem to get the exact same bullet from the mold. It doesnt take much to make a bullet your gun likes into a dud. If i was going to do it id seriously try ballistic cast. they will do custom projects, at least they did for me, and they dont charge a whole lot more then a production mold and when i had mine done the machinist and i talked personaly and he put alot of efford into getting it the way i wanted. My project was a full custom bullet. It was taking an existing non production mold they had made for another guy and making me a 3 cav mold with one of the cavitys a gas checked version. He did have the set up specs for that bullet from the first time they cut it though. He seemed knoweglable about what made a bullet work not just how to run the machine. He gave me some advice but still listened to my suggestions. the mold turned out great.

[44man]

All I have to say is shooting that monster from a Lott means I would need a 30# rifle! :Fire:

[captaint]

Afraid I'd have to stand aside and watch somebody shoot that puppy. I'd make sure I had some Band Aids tho.... you know, for the eyebrow. Mike

[Willbird]

taking a bullet and making a mold from it is asking alot. Weve tried it here with group buys and you just never seem to get the exact same bullet from the mold. It doesnt take much to make a bullet your gun likes into a dud. If i was going to do it id seriously try ballistic cast. they will do custom projects, at least they did for me, and they dont charge a whole lot more then a production mold and when i had mine done the machinist and i talked personaly and he put alot of efford into getting it the way i wanted. My project was a full custom bullet. It was taking an existing non production mold they had made for another guy and making me a 3 cav mold with one of the cavitys a gas checked version. He did have the set up specs for that bullet from the first time they cut it though. He seemed knoweglable about what made a bullet work not just how to run the machine. He gave me some advice but still listened to my suggestions. the mold turned out great.

If the person copying the bullet has an Optical comparator it should not be terribly hard to exactly duplicate a bullet. IMHO many group buys bullets end up being a horse designed by a committee.

[Ironduke]

All I have to say is shooting that monster from a Lott means I would need a 30# rifle! :Fire:

Yes. It's a beast. QL estimates the recoil at 1900 fps with a 9 lb gun in the range of 91ft/lbs. It's a beast to be sure. It is my second most powerful hunting gun.

[Ironduke]

Afraid I'd have to stand aside and watch somebody shoot that puppy. I'd make sure I had some Band Aids tho.... you know, for the eyebrow. Mike

This rifle disassembles a weaver Grand Slam Extreme scope in 8 shots with mere 500 gr loads. On the 8th shot the entire opticbell popped off the rear of the scope, bounced off my shooting glasses and flopped onto the table.
58751

These days I just shoot it with irons. You lose some precision, but the ions stay in one piece

[303Guy]

I'm not a recoil person myself. Hand gun recoil is different, 44 mag recoil being about just right. On a rifle I want a push at most, preferably with no muzzle lift - too much to ask from a big bore, I know, but a rifle that breaks a scope? Hooh boy! Mind you, that scope has/had a lot of parts and weight but even so!

I find the boolit on the left in the pic quite interesting. Extreme meplat on a big fat boolit, short nose with fat bore-ride section, not too long. The one on the right - is it for real? It's just a cylinder with driving bands and lube grooves!

Might I ask for a pic of the loaded cartridge (just a mock-up will be fine)? And more pics of that rifle?

[Willbird]

I shot a robar 50bmg a few times that a guy had not fitted a muzzle brake to. Honestly not as bad as a 12 gauge 3" with slugs, or even worse is a 20 gauge 3" Savage model 24 with slugs. The LENGTH of the recoil pulse on the Robar 50bmg was what was striking about it.

[Plinkster]

Yeah I think you're shooting ingots rather than boolits in that Lott! But now I know who to call next time I go train hunting!

[Ironduke]

I find the boolit on the left in the pic quite interesting. Extreme meplat on a big fat boolit, short nose with fat bore-ride section, not too long. The one on the right - is it for real? It's just a cylinder with driving bands and lube grooves!

Might I ask for a pic of the loaded cartridge (just a mock-up will be fine)? And more pics of that rifle?

Sure. Here ya go. 58754
Left to right: 45-70 550 gr hard cast, 458 Lott, 500gr Barnes TSX (for reference) 458 lott 720 gr cast, and 475 Yblood (my wildcat named after myself: 500 gr barnes TSX at 2500 fps, the 338 Lapua magnum necked up to 475 cal). BTW, the nose section of the 720 gr only measures .450 in diameter so it goes right into the bore. Also, I don't know why the pic is sideways.sorry


58755 There is lots of room left in the mag for even longer bullets if it would stabilize.

[RayinNH]

Scares me to look at them. Watching the grass grow is exciting enough for me :-D...Ray