Cool!
Cool!
Cheers
no34570
"I'll tell you what rule we applied sir,We applied rule 3-0-3, We caught them and we shot them, under rule 3-0-3." :Lt Harry " Breaker" Morant at his court martial in January 1902.
Understand 100%.Besides, part of the fun is seeing if a mold can be made and if (a big if) it produces a viable, decent looking projectile even if only of novelty
Well, here I am.
It's now 11:08am and I'm only 44% through the program on the first half....
Boy this one is slow going.
When I left the machine last night I thought I'd turn the cutter feed down some so I'd be sure not to break a cutter during the night. (.015 carbide ball mill)
Anyway, it's a cuttin, it will just take as long as it takes and I probably won't have it to play with till Mon or Tues.
Geez, I hate waiting.
Sir, you are amazing! This simply blows me away. Imagine what these molds would go for on evil bay. The definition of the mold would sell them before the suckers would know what it is or whether its practical or not.
Look twice, shoot once.
while we wait, cannot help thinking of the marketing pitch for this boolit. Tired of cleaning your rifle bore, Have you ever wondered if your rifle has rifling at all, well here is your answer the bullet that self threads its way down any barrel regardless of the conditon of the bore......
Look twice, shoot once.
Nice work! For a Colt ...can you make a left-hand thread?
These are truly amazing. I know someone with a CNC. If I can convince them to let me use it, could I get a copy of the files?
I finished cutting and pinning the mold today around 4pm so was quite pleased.
I have it home and tomorrow I plan on breaking it in and seeing if it will actually produce pieces.
As I believe I've said previously, these molds are just quick and dirty bullet makers made from scrap for my amusement so you're not looking at hardened steel pins and inserts, or even entirely adequate material mass for a given cavity.
But they work fine for me (mostly) and satisfy my curiosity.
When I left work this afternoon I threw on another mold block to cut the 45ACP "Screw" type jobbie.
I don't go back to work till Tuesday so It should be there looking at me when I go in.
Someone on the forum asked me if they could have the file for one of these pieces.
At this point in time I don't want to give the files away.
The company I work for is going to be defunct in a few months so I am in the process of speaking with some local job shops in the area to see if there would be any intrest in producing "real" molds.
This way I can get a good idea of actual production costs, materials, machine time, etc.
I would do all the modeling, detailing and programming. They would do the machining and assembly or some mixed combination of both.
I can't justify the costs of machines, materials and all that on my own. Getting too old to be taking those kinds of risks with the old age funds.
These bullets ? Are really novelty for the most part, trashcans and wingnuts, acorn nuts, carrige bolts, phillips heads, dog houses etc.
But having said that I have many conventional molds I've made for many calibers over the years.
I've made lyman/Ideal clones, Cramer, Hensley and Gibbs, Saeco, etc.
But these off the wall jobs are the most fun.
So for the time being I want to sit on the models. I hope you all understand .
That looks great. Knew you could do it. I'm interested in some of the boolits but not the mold. Let us know if you cast up some. PM me if you do. Thanks and again, great job!
I'm with taco (and many others, I'm sure) on this. I think a table at a gunshow offering up either the boolits or boolits in dummy rounds would pay off handsomely. We spend scads of dollars on novelty items as it is and I want several of each -- but I don't want a novelty mould. I think your retirement fund can be augmented substantially with a bit of not-too-intense marketing from novelty sales alone, not to mention the gravy of selling an occasional conventional mould. I'll sign up now to be your Northwest Marketing Manager/Distributor. I'm not saying to rethink setting up your own shop -- I know all too well how difficult it is to dip into your retirement security to risk a new business venture.
And as I've said before, nice work.
mike
I saw this in a cartoon once. I'm pretty sure I can pull it off...
One more question: is that a carburator in the background of the new mold?
I want to be on your list to purchase some chess set units of these as I have neat wood for boards but current chess pieces are boring. Go capitalism, be blessed for creativity! nekshot
Look twice, shoot once.
OK, so here's where I am with this new mold.
I fired up the pot this morning and cast 80-100 pieces. Throwing many back in the pot.
The bullets released from the mold very well, a few taps on the handle joint and all was good.
That was a pleasant relief, I had my doubts about mold friendliness.
What I did find was that I WILL have to vent the threaded area, too much trapped air for reliable, full filling but that's not a real big deal. I tried varying the height of the pour, tightening and loosening the sprue plate, varying the temp of the lead.
I just think I need some venting, I've been lucky not to have to vent many of them but......
I'll use a metal rule and a carbide scribe to vent each point on the threads and see what happens.
The bullet weighs 193grs lubed with a GC. Being based on the 311284 that makes sense.
And yes, that is a Mikuni carb off one of my bikes, get them all cleaned and rebuilt over the winter so I'm ready to go in the spring.
Here's the results
You can see the threads are not fully filled properly.
5 grs. unique into the old duxseal.
So there it is up to this point. A little more work and I believe it will be good to go.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |