Wire Wound Cast Bullets

[theperfessor]

I was cruising the auction site we all love to hate for bullet molds several months ago and noticed a bullet mold that was advertised to be used with a coil of wire to be placed inside the mold before casting.

I haven't been able to find out anything else about this type of bullet but I could see some potential for the idea. The mold cavity appeared to be smooth inside and did not have any grease grooves, so apparently the bearing surface between the bullet and bore was the spring wire and whatever lead filled in the spaces between the coils.

I wonder if this might be an idea worth investigating. I would bet that using square cross-section copper wire would act nicely to scrape the bore clean w/o damage, and if it would allow softer alloys to be used it might make for a more effective game bullet. It might also make for easier-to-machine mold cavities. I suppose a gas check could be incorporated.

It might be more trouble to cast, but if it cut out the lubing/sizing process it would probably be a wash.

If anyone has any information or thoughts on the matter I would like to hear them. I've learned an awful lot from reading the posts here and really appreciate everyone's opinions.

[Slowpoke]

Haven't done it, so no first hand experience. They have been around since the late 1890s.

Jim Foral did a eight page article in the Handloader Bullet Making Annual II 1991.

If Memory serves he had a Hoch mold made up that resembled the 311291 sans the lube grooves, made up a couple special mandrels for winding the wire and tried several types of wire, he finally got it to shoot in the 24-2600 fps arena, I believe his production rate was around 17 bullets a hr. He shot them in a 30-30 ,30-40, 06 and 30 Newton.

The best part was after he had enough of the wire wound bullets he tried the plain bullet with a gas check and a lube wad and was getting good accuracy in the 1200 -1500 fps area, no leading.

good luck

[theperfessor]

Slowpoke -

Thanks for reference to Handloader manual, I'll try to get a copy. Also appreciate recap of contents of article referred to.

I'm thinking of trying the same thing only for handguns, probably .44 caliber and in the 240-250 gr range, since I have several revolvers in .44 Special and .44 Magnum to try them in and several loads of known accuracy using conventional bullets in this weight to compare them to.

Soon as I get done rebuilding my Lyman 450 I might try this.

[Buckshot]

................There was some discussion of this on the Paper patching forum awile back.

..............Buckshot

[Bret4207]

Like the Wilke gas check, which can be fit to the middle of the bullet as well as the base, this is one of those seemingly good ideas thats is just too much trouble IMHO. It would still be fun to try though, wouldn't it?

[standles]

Another method actually cuts pcs of copper tubing that you place in the grooves and cast over. This allows the copper bands to be the drivers and get your cast bullets up to higher velocity.

Steven

[armoredman]

Weird, never heard of either, but I am pretty late getting to this game. Interesting. Pics?