Casting hot glue boolits

[ktw]

This one catches my interest as something to the scare the red squirrels off the birdfeeders.... Will report back when I get a chance to test it out.

-ktw

[JFriis]

I used to shoot parafin bullets, just using a primer and pushing the sized case over a piece of parafin. shot O.K. out to about to 10-12 feet. How are hot glue bullets in your bore?

I was shooting accurately to about 15' feet fairly easily last night. I am sure they will shoot further, I just need a good chance to relly try it out.

My bore has no signs of glueing.

[racepres]

Quick note: The other day a friend gave me some Blazers all fired! Never even gave 'em a thought before.. but not wanting to simply "recycle" them.. I resized a couple.. no decapper, then hydraulic'ed the primers out using the "pusher" for my lee boolit sizer. Decided to get rid of the Berdan primer "post", ended up on the crude!!! Drove the sucker out w/ a punch, right into the case. Now says I, whatta big primer flash hole we have!! Since I do Not like to enlarge the flash holes on "good" brass, I try these suckers w/ gloolits!!! This is a pretty good way to go for my primer powered loads.. and I don't have to 1] resize the things ever again... and 2] Wreck my "good" brass by enlarging flash holes!! Just sumpin a bored HickerBilly done.. and shared w/ you.. MV

[Buckshot]

................Sometime back last year I'd reported seeing "45 Caliber" hot glue sticks at Harbor Freight. Last time in I picked up a package of them. They're marked .450". The bag I got had 25 sticks 4" long for $2.99 so that's about 12 cents a stick. I pulled one out, and using the dial guestimaters they were from .448" to .453" checking several places around the OD the length of the stick.

I took a boxcutter and cut off a piece about 0.5" long and stuck it in a primed and flared 45 Colt case. I loaded it in my Vaquero and backed off about 12 ft from the rear garage wall. The back wall is finished in T&G Yellow Pine. I aimed at a handy knot and sqeezed her off. The Gluelit hit perfect for windage but about 4" low. It also put a very visible perfectly round impression in the board, about 1/32 to 1/16" deep.

I couldn't recover the slug as the back wall has a bunch of junk cluttered up against it. However, after the good solid "WHAP!" sound it made hitting the board, I heard it banging around amongst the flotsom and jetsom around the floor.

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

[Jim]

For those of you that have .45 caliber handguns, gluelits are easily loaded without the trouble of casting. Prime an UNSIZED case, smear a LIGHT coat of grease on a glue stick, shove the stick all the way to the bottom of the case, cut the glue stick off square with the mouth of the case with a razor knife, lock and load!
The grease helps to get the glue stick all the way in the case and lubes the gluelit for the ride down the tube. Large magnum rifle primers will really get the gluelit zinging along, too. I shot up a plastic patio chair with these things so, remember, they have a little bullet energy to them.
Oh, one more thing: You might experience your primers backing out. Opening the flash hole to 1/8" will help with that. Just remember those cases are now dedicated to gluelits! Maybe a little color coding to keep them seperated?

Be safe and HAVE FUN!

[JFriis]

All right, how about some numbers?

Chronograph placed 1' in front of target, target shot at 15'. Both sets were shot offhand, unsupported with a S&W 1911 PD (Commander Length).

Test #1 - Standard brass (Not drilled).
Average bullet weight 22 grains.
Average Velocity - 420 FPS.
5 shot group was right at 2". Would have been 1.5" except for one shot that may or may not have been me.


Test #2 - Brass drilled with 1/8" bit

Average bullet weight 22 grains
Average Velocity - 400 FPS.
5 shot group was right at 1.5".

Both tests had a wide deviation in FPS, =/- 15 fps either side of the average.
A long range test was performed with a single shot at 50 feet. The chronograph had a result of 358 FPS and the shot itself was fairly close to point of aim.
Energy calculations place this at 8ft lbs of force (Not sure what that means, but a 25 ACP is around 50 ft lbs if I recall correctly.)
Most of the recovered bullets were fine except of few that appeared to have shattered after hitting the plywood backstop. 80% recovery rate and 75% of those are reusable.

[Jim]

I just realized That I failed to make the sequence of loading clear. If you lube the gluelit and seat it BEFORE you prime the case, it's a lot easier. Pushing a lubed gluelit into a primed case traps air and the gluelit has a tendency to pop back up.
I just came in from the patio test firing a coupla' loads. I put a gluelit the full length of a .45 Colt case through a plastic flower pot. Janet's gonna gluelit me!

EDIT ADDENDUM: I used a large magnum rifle primer in an undrilled case and had no problem with the primer backing out.

[dakotashooter2]

Well I'm a new convert. Cast /injected (?) a dozen gluelits of a .41 Lee TL design.
Fired from a .41 Tracker.
Loaded 1 in an unaltered .41 case and just a bit of crimp, with a mag primer. Shot into an old pillow and wow what an impact. No penetration but a solid thump. Naturally the primer backed out.

Tried a few more then drilled out the flash hole on a trimmed down .41 case (.41 special) and primed again with fed mag primer. Wow even more impresive. The shorter case definately increased the velocity and didn't seem to effect the accuracy. Subsequent loads authoritavely penetrated two layers of corregated cardboard at 15 feet. Accuracy was minute of "post it note" though not to point of aim. Bullet showed no sign of damage after several firings, had no engraving from the rifling and left no residue in the barrel.

Accuracy testing is next. If I can still get MOP or better at 30 feet this may become an urban pigeon, crow and hare load.

[218bee]

A WORD OF CAUTION: This intrigued me so I was going to do some research on "solids" for dangerous game and decided to use Krazy Glue......DON'T !!

[Jim]

Dakota,
Lube that cast gluelit with a touch of automotive grease and your M/V will go up.

[Vstrom]

We just melted about 3/8 inch of wax in a shallow flat baking dish and when hard just pushed a 38 special shell into the wax, used only a primer and had a lot of fun shooting targets downstairs at 25 ft. with my Colt Python!!!

[Shrek]

Fellers,
I just caught this thread today. So of course, I had to try it. Talk about a blast!
I started with my Lee C309-170 mould and my Lee 210gr 41 mag mould.
I found a few things to pass on.
If you take a wooden match and smoke the cavities every 3 times you use it, the gluelits will release much easier. And keep the mould cool. It makes a BIG difference.
I didn't weigh any but I used Win LRM primers in my 41 Blackhawk 6.5bbl. Across the livingroom, about 15 feet, they would go through 1 layer of cardboard and 91 pages of an old AVON catalog. Scared the bejeebers out of my dog too, every time I set one off! I do need to drill the flash holes though. Shot to POA as well.
Haven't tried the 308s in the 30/30 yet, Mama came home and caught me. Almost got sent to the 'Lectric Chair' for shootin in the house!
shrek

[RP]

well I have shot the wax boolits so I had to try the glue boolits, I used lee 6 cav mold with out handles sprayed some cooking spray in the mold and wiped out excess. Turned the hot glue gun on and got to filling the mold. I did notice as the glue cools it lieaves a sinkhole in the base I did not use the spruce cutter and filled to a hump. Then I took a razar blade and trimed the boolits still being in the mold it held them nicely giveing me a good cut. Drill out some 40 cal casing and loaded. Did not lube them was to big of a hurry to shoot them worked good but did have a boolit stick in the barrel heat is the way to get it out.

[Echo]

I remember back in the '60's the Bexar County Sheriff (San Antonio) had a prison riot on his hands, and settled it FAST by shooting a couple of rioting convicts w/wax bullets! DANG! They STING! Better get back in my cell! Wonder how that would go over these days...

[Molly]

Hi fellows,

I have a question: Exactly what is the casting procedure used for glulits? Yeah, I read that it's just filling a mold cavity with hot glue, possibly with a little Pam to keep things civilized. But that leaves a whole lot of unanswered questions:

Is the sprue plate used in any way? I can picture filling the mold through it with the glue gun tip in the sprue hole. If not, how do you keep the glulits uniform in their bases? One post mentioned cutting off the base at one of the lube grooves. Is this to keep them uniform? Does anyone press the tip of the glue gun into the mold as they inject the glue to form a hollow base, like a minnie ball? Inquiring minds want to know.
Molly

[copdills]

Y"all are having too much fun , guess I'll have to try LOL

[Jim]

All,
It's been quite some time since I've been to this thread. I kinda' forgot about it. When I was experimenting with actually casting gluelits, I used a Lee mold. It took me a bit to work out a procedure, but I finally got it.
A touch of Pam helps with release. DO NOT preheat the mold. Keep it cool. This "fast forwards" the set-up time. Close the sprue plate and hold the nozzle of your glue gun tight to the sprue plate hole. Ya' gotta' hold the mold shut tight. Shoot the hot glue in. You'll know when the cavity is full as the hydraulic pressure will cause the nozzle to back off the sprue plate a bit. Give the glue gun one more shot as you are slowly backing away from the sprue plate. This will cause a build up of glue over the sprue plate. You need to do this 'cause when the glue begins to set up, there's a terrific suck-back into the cavity. Without the build-up, you'll get a void in the back of the gluelit.
Ya' gotta be patient with this. It takes a minute or so for the glue to set up. You can hasten this by holding the mold closed and dipping it in a container of ice water. You'll learn just how long this takes by trial and error. Be patient. Remember, we're jes' havin' fun here.
When the guelit sets up, open the sprue plate and the mold. The gluelit will not drop out. Ya' gotta' pull it out with your fingers. I would suggest you give the gluelits at least an hour to "cure".
When you're ready to load the gluelit, give it a LIGHT coat of grease. This helps not only with loading into the case, it also helps with the ride down the barrel. Without the grease, you'll get "leading" from the glue. The friction of the ride melts the glue and it smears on the inside of the barrel. Trust me, it's a real PITA to clean out.
SAFETY WARNING!: A gluelit is a projectile! Do not be fooled by the fact that they weigh next to nothing and have no powder charge. At close range(out to about 50 ft.), they will sting the p1$$ outa' somebody. If you doubt that, try a magnum primer and pop one on a plastic flower pot or patio chair. It'll go right through it. I've shot 'em through three layers of box cardboard at point blank range.

Enjoy and BE SAFE!

Jim

[RP]

Oh just another warning for the glue boolits like the shot capsules glue boolits are not a good ideal for ported barrels. I have read this somewhere and it makes sense the plastic or glue will build up. Stated that the ports may shave the capsule or glue off and started to build up causing presures problems

[dk17hmr]

Epic thread?

Here is the new thing guys,
209 primed 22 hornet case with a .22 cal air rifle pellet.





These WILL bring a black bird out of the top of a tree.

[GrizzLeeBear]

Interesting.

How do ream the hornet case for a 209 primer?