mold lapping

[chevyiron420]

im thinking of getting a lee wadcutter mold for my 38S&W and wondered if it is easyer to lap out a mold with conventional grooves verses one with the tumble lube style grooves, or no difference?:castmine:

[Jim]

Dunno fer sure. Seems like having big lube grooves to work with to start would be better. I'm thinkin' them little tumble lube grooves might just blend in to the side of the mold and kinda' fade away.
I'd bet Buckshot could lend some advice on this.

[WHITETAIL]

I have had better luck with one or two groove.:-D

[longbow]

Since you are likely only taking out a couple thou, I doubt there will be a problem.

Aluminum is soft though so will lap quickly.

[Buckshot]

..............Jim is right. A TL design wouldn't be the best choice to lap out. The first thing to be affected is sharp edges, as that's simple mechanics. In a regular lube groove type mould (a couple Lees) I lapped out sometime back trying to fit my 38 S&W's it worked, but even trying the fussy method I used, the lube grooves lost material faster then the drive bands. That was fine as at most 38 S&W velocities most boolits carry an abundance of lube anyway.

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

[dromia]

You might want to consider Beagling 'afore lapping.

[HeavyMetal]

You didn't say which 38 S&W you had.

Some of these guns can have really large bore's.

Another idea might be to get a mold for a 9x18. these run about .365 or so. Since the 38 S&W's seem to be .361 and larger this might work out.

Sadly the only mold I know of, cheap, is the Lee. This is a 95 grain boolit and might not be what your looking for.

However a really talented die maker might be able to make a wadcutter out of one with minamal hassle. He'd only have to recut the nose area to the shape you wanted.

Heck if you didn't mind a "step" in the boolit a "chucking" reamer, 23/64's = .359 Dia., could be run into the mold and would give you that wadcutter nose real easy.

Reamer is $15.00 (?) Mold is about $20.00 I don't consider that a lot of risk to get what you want and I may try it myself!

[JSnover]

Someone asked this question on another thread but I can't find it now; If you do it properly, how far could you open a conventional mold without ruining it? If you took off, say .005" would the tops of the bands still be flat? If not, would the sizing die dress them up enough to shoot well?