A 'Red-Headed Stepchild' Mold...Arsenal 311-176-LFN

I would guess that the mold is bored off center. What I am trying to say is that one side of your mold is holding the bullets because the cavity is offset more to one side that the other. If you have a way of measuring your cavities you will find that one side will have a deeper lateral depth than the other. I just ran into this with a Lee six cavity Harris mold. This mold was bored .010 to .015 deeper laterally on one side than the other and held all of the bullets in that side requiring "beating" on the hinge bolt to release them. Lee was very good about replacing the mold and the new one is perfect.

Ken

Before you get radical on the mold and do something that permanently changes is I'd talk a bit of small wooden dowel and rub the edges in case there are any burrs. Then I would smoke it, the layer of carbon will act like a non stick surface till the mold gets broken in well.

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Originally Posted by OS OK

Have you fellas ever tried using a Q-Tip to rub the cavities with powdered graphite...or used spray graphite to aid release?

Oh yeah...how you feeling this morning Marine?

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Dry graphite on a Q-tip might work.

I'm hurting this morning. Weather front coming through. Arthritis is flaring up. But I've got a couple of new to me molds that arrived yesterday so I'm going to go out later and pour some lead.

Any mold that starts to act up I just resmoke HEAVILY and that seems to cure its non-release tendencies. YMMV.

polishing is simple.
but you need to target where the problem lies.
it might be as simple as rolled edges on the cavity's, or a vent line might extend a bit into the cavity.
you can remove them with an X-acto blade.


a little whitening tooth paste and some comet rubbed onto a boolit and spun with a star head screw will do a nice polish.

All of those square bottomed lube grooves are woking to hold the boolit in place. here are some things to try.
Tap the handle hinge bolt with a mallet before you open. I hold one handle and tap on the hinge bolt , not real hard...light taps , until the mould seperates. Then open the mould with both hands . I find the tapping get the opening started , then it's not so hard to finish opening.
Treat the cavities....Liquid Wrench Dry Lube, apply with Q-Tip, my preferred treatment.
Smoke with a lighter or try the graphite. I bought a can of spray on graphite mould release , it seems to work at first but builds up and gets all cruddy. The dry lube is better.
I remember the Keith moulds getting changed because the square grooves made them difficult to get out the mould....seems like they still like to hang onto boolits.
Gary

Thanks Gary for your comment, I will be incorporating the opening/taping method you describe...although I hate to use the whacker at all and am trying to get around it all together...?

Here's another little subtlety I hadn't noticed...this is the best picture I can get to show this anomaly. I've taken about 30 shots and deleted all but this one as it shows a dimple...an area about .001" deep, almost like a drill center, I'm guessing where the center of the nose is lower than the outer edge. I think this helps to lock these casts into the mold.

Imagine the mould open and that little bump in the mold forcing the cast to get over it...all the same time those square lube slots are keeping it from having any slack to rise above this bump on the nose of the mould...

I can put a straight edge over the nose of the cast and see daylight under the straight edge in the center of the nose...that has to help to lock this cast into the mould.


Attachment 188278
I think I need to devise a method to remove this bump evenly while the mould halves are closed together...? But how? I have a Dremel and lots of little polishing tips.
Maybe a small white fiber barrel shape tip with some lapping compound on the bottom...?

Depending on how they cut the cavity that makes me think a bad cherry was used. but I can also think of a few ways they could cut it where that would not be the case. Hmmmm...

I would clamp the mold on the bench.
take a small flat grinder in the dremel and use one single pass on 1 cavity [both sides] and give it a run.
if it gets better, then maybe another pass, and do the other cavity's.

it seems to me that just opening the mold would be a tug and pop affair.

I would not get radical with it yet. Several of my molds have been sticky at first till they broke in.

Good advise there Boolit...I'm going to start off simple with all the non-marring ideas, trimming edges with a stick, looking closely with a magnifier, applying powdered graphite...change the Pb blend to a little less Pewter Sn...alll that before going nutz on it.

I have high hopes for this design so I'm going to go easy...just a soon as I finish my ham sandwich.

The molds I have that don't want to open I lay the mold on the soft cloth and mostly release the handle. tap the handle pin gently and the mold usually pops open. Worth a try...

I'm going to suggest to heat the mold up and then try one cavity at a time and see if one is causing more problems then the others. That Dimple may just be from the center cooling and shrinkage is pulling it back in towards the center from the flat face.

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Originally Posted by OS OK

Thanks Gary for your comment, I will be incorporating the opening/taping method you describe...although I hate to use the whacker at all and am trying to get around it all together...?

Here's another little subtlety I hadn't noticed...this is the best picture I can get to show this anomaly. I've taken about 30 shots and deleted all but this one as it shows a dimple...an area about .001" deep, almost like a drill center, I'm guessing where the center of the nose is lower than the outer edge. I think this helps to lock these casts into the mold.

Imagine the mould open and that little bump in the mold forcing the cast to get over it...all the same time those square lube slots are keeping it from having any slack to rise above this bump on the nose of the mould...

I can put a straight edge over the nose of the cast and see daylight under the straight edge in the center of the nose...that has to help to lock this cast into the mould.


Attachment 188278
I think I need to devise a method to remove this bump evenly while the mould halves are closed together...? But how? I have a Dremel and lots of little polishing tips.
Maybe a small white fiber barrel shape tip with some lapping compound on the bottom...?

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I would close the mold down on a wooden dowel, and spin it with a hand held drill. You can shape the end of the dowel with sand paper to the correct diameter for the nose of the bullet, then glue a piece of 400 or 600 grit paper to the tip.

Something I have found out with some of my MP molds is that deep fairly square grease grooves can be a pain to release and get complete fillout in the grooves. On my MP .380 mold I bored out the grease groove some so it is not as deep. In my experience you don't need massive grease grooves to get the job done. I'll agree that some lapping with fine lapping compound should make the bullets drop easier.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OS OK

Good advise there Boolit...I'm going to start off simple with all the non-marring ideas, trimming edges with a stick, looking closely with a magnifier, applying powdered graphite...change the Pb blend to a little less Pewter Sn...alll that before going nutz on it.

I have high hopes for this design so I'm going to go easy...just a soon as I finish my ham sandwich.

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Ohh... ham sandwich. Sounds good.

That mold is broken. Send it to me. I need a small anchor for the boat. :p

Dang it, now I want a ham sandwich! That does sound good!

now I want a tiny boat.

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Originally Posted by TexasGrunt

I'll second smoking the mold with a butane lighter. It takes a few seconds and you'll lose nothing doing so.

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I agree as well.

I just realized that you have the first mold with a built in hollow point! Wow!