BOAT-TAILED Gas Check Update/Teaser

[HollowPoint]

I hope that just because this thread has been dormant for a while that folks aren't thinking I've abandoned the project.

In fact, I went as far as I could with my Tool-Holder builds, then I had to wait for the 1"x60 degree dovetail cutter to arrive so I could
finish them up.

In the mean time, I spent this morning turning my latest Bullet-Cherries. I can't cut the Lube-Grooves until I've dovetailed the
slots on my Parting-Tool-Holder. The Tool-Holders need to be Dovetailed so I can mount them on the Quick-Change Tool-Post.

As luck would have it, I finished turning those Cherries, shut down and cleaned up the lathe when the UPS guy showed up with my new Dovetail cutter.

I'll Dove-tail all those Tool-Holders tomorrow; then I'll be able to cut the Lube-Grooves and set the Cherries up on the mill to cut
the flutes on them.

This time around too, I made two Cherries. (actually I made three) One will act as my primary boring Cherry, then I'll follow that with the Cherry that has the
Lube-Grooves milled into it.

Because of the small diameter at the tail end of these Boat-Tailed Bullet-Cherries, I've opted to cut the cavities of my bullet mold with two different Cherries. One will be cutting the body and the nose of the bullet cavities and the other will be used to cut the Boat-Tailed section of the bullet cavities.

My previous two attempts worked out in the end but, because the diameter at the base of the Boat-Tails was so small, it tended to weaken the Cherry to the point where I was having trouble keeping it from twisting into a cork-screw looking affair.

I know it may be hard to picture in one's mind what I'm talking about. I'll post some pics of these latest Cherries after I get them done.
You'll know exactly what I'm talking about once you see them.

In regard to what Bigslug stated, I knew going into this that there would be skeptics or nay-sayers that might chime in. I don't have any problem with that. It's pointless to argue or try to convince them otherwise. Most of them are just quoting something that someone else has said or written; they don't actually have any hands on experience themselves. That's OK too.

It's too late for negative post to stop me now. I'm to close to the completion of this Boat-Tailed Gas-Check project.

I'll be back.

HollowPoint

[tjones]

The History Channel had the X1 supersonic problems explained pretty well. The shape of the wing and the shape and height and placement of the horizontal stabilizer, and the entire rotation of it. Those were the problem areas. Given that, perhaps super sonic arrows may have some application. As far as gas checks are concerned many have stuffed styrofoam peanuts behind boolits as working checks. As far as plugging the gas leaks which is what checks are about it seems to work from all accounts I've heard. Supposedly flattened and still stuck to the bases at the berms. -tj

[HollowPoint]

Here's a pic of what I tried to describe in my previous post.

In starting from scratch with my next bullet mold, I'm trying to keep the "As Cast" weight of my bullets down around 150-165 grains and the diameter at around .310-.311". I don't know if I'll succeed but, that's what I'm shooting for.

Because of the small diameter that these Cherries have to be turned to, I've decided to make this next mold in a similar manner as my very first attempt at making a bullet to accommodate these new Boat-Tailed Gas-Checks.

Also; rather than milling five flutes into each Cherry, I'm going to try to just mill two flutes in order to maintain a little more rigidity and mitigate as much flex in these Cherries as possible.

If you guys that have been following this project will recall, initially I tried to just add a Boat-Tail length to an existing bullet mold. This was done by simply adding a plate to the top of the existing bullet mold. That "Plate" had the beveled tail ends milled into them. (you can see the pics of what I'm talking about in some of my initial posts.)

In theory, this should have worked. In practice, my inability to align the bevels I'd milled into that Top-Plate with the existing cavities was my undoing. I was able to cast some decent looking bullets but, the tail ends were off center from the rest of the bullet.

Anyway; this new mold will be built on the same principle. It will have a separate top plate with the Boat-Tail Bevels milled into it. The difference this time around will be that the top plate will be attached to the top of the mold block as I drill my initial cavity pilot-holes from top to bottom. (it's going to be a hollow point bullet so I can incorporate my Synthetic-Bullet-Tips)

This should solve my alignment problems between the main bullet body and the Boat-Tailed ends of the bullets.

Once I drill the initial pilot-holes for the cavities, I'll follow up by milling the Boat-Tails into the Top-Plate. Then I can remove the Top-Plate in order to finish the cavities for the body of the bullets. Followed by flipping and replacing that Top-Plate upside down onto the top of my mold blocks so that the milled Boat-Tail ends on the top plate mate perfectly with the cavities. (I hope that makes sense.)

In theory it should work but, that's what I said before. I'll just have to try it and see.

I should mention that I was hoping to make these bullets in the "Spitzer" shaped nose persuasion but, I found that in my previous attempts at doing this, when I milled the flutes on those Cherries I ended up nearly milling off the noses of my Cherries because the diameter at the tip of the nose was so small.

By making them hollow pointed bullets I can use my Synthetic-Tips to get the pointier noses without fear of ruining my Cherries during the flute-milling process. I'll have to wait till I have alot more machining experience before machining the designs I'd really like to make.

That's it for now. I'll try to post again as soon as I can.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

I finished up my income-producing work early yesterday so I got a chance to flute all three
of the Cherries I have pictured above.

I would have done it sooner but I spent most of yesterday's free time aligning the 4th-Axis on my mill.
Before, I'd always wondered why the flutes on one side of my previous Cherries were slightly deeper than the flutes on the apposing sides. It never occurred to me to check the alignment. I just assumed that my 4th-Axis rotary table automatically aligned when I mounted it.

In fact, the rotary table does align when mounted. The small feet on its underside mate perfectly to the table-slots on the mill. It's the aftermarket face-plate and chuck that were slightly out of alignment. I spent nearly four hours getting it as close to aligned as I could.

Anyway; next on the agenda will be to harden and then tempering these new Cherries. Then I'm on to finishing my new mold blocks.

I'll be back when that's done.

I forgot to mention before; in my previous pic, I included my newly made tool holders. Just a bit of showing off on my part. They turned out pretty well for my first time out making these. They function well too. I might have gotten a little carried away by painting them to match the color of my new lathe.

HollowPoint

[PatMarlin]

4th axis- you bragger you...

Looks like your making good progress HP and very nice work.

I don't have 4th axis, but I got real nice AC in the shop. Dang it's hot this week.

Pat ...

[HollowPoint]

Hi Pat:

Back in 2009 I got a wild-hair up my butt and bought a couple of large solar panels, a bank of four-12Volt solar collector batteries, an inverter and a couple of small shop evaporative coolers.

I bought them not really knowing what to expect as far as reliability but, it's been four years now and I've been running them nearly every day during the Arizona summers. During the winters I can run most of my small shop tools off of them or use them to charge batteries and what-not.

I haven't done the math but if all that solar stuff hasn't already payed for itself, I should be coming up to that point pretty quickly.

During the peak of summer when it can still be near 100 degrees at midnight, I'll run the coolers all night long. That's when they really save me money.

I wish my whole house was wired for solar but, that's quite a bit out of my budget.

HollowPoint

[PatMarlin]

Arizona's the place for solar for sure, and that's the way to go for evap AC.

Was totally off grid for 14 years, and I've been back on the grid here now since last May. For what it was costing me in fuel, to run back up generators on the solar for the machine shop up the mountain, I was spending 4 times my whole monthly electric bill here (no generator maintenance/noise), just in fuel.

Not to mention having to cut 1/3 a cord of fire wood every week in the winter.

I have my large Outback inverter I used in the old shop and I want to put a system on this house just for emergency BK.

Now I look back, I don't know how I did it.

[jasent]

Sounds like progress keep up the good work

[HollowPoint]

I have made some progress. Yesterday I got a chance to harden and temper my recently turned Cherries. Today I got a little free time to work on some more mold blocks.

I might get a chance to set everything up on the mill tomorrow. It would be nice to get this mold knocked out before next weekend. It might give me a chance to cast a few and make it to the range. Time will tell.

My work schedule next week is pretty busy. That's why I'm kind of in a rush. I have to force myself to take it slow or risk ruining my mold blocks or possibly my new Cherries. That would set me back to square-one all over again.

I'd kind of like to turn another section of my Boat-Tailed Gas-Check Dies. It's the section that holds the actual aluminum disks in place as they're being formed into a cup.

Right now I'm using factory 44 caliber copper checks. I made my present dies to hold these previously formed plain base gas checks. I want to start making these Boat-Tailed Gas-Checks out of aluminum. This means I'll need to tweak one of the sections of these dies in order to properly position and hold the slightly larger diameter aluminum disks for forming.

First things first though. I start to get ahead of myself which tends to throw my projects into confusion. For now, it's enough that I'm making some headway.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

I'm on mold-attempt number four now. On the mold attempt I eluded to in my previous post just about everything actually went off without a hitch.

It was a two cavity mold like all the other attempts except that this time around the blocks and especially the cavities had a very nice finish on them. The mold wasn't as rough looking as my previous attempts.

My undoing on all of these attempts has been my inability to perfectly align the Boat-Tail/Beveled top-plates with the bullet cavities on these bullet mold attempts. I can't begin to describe the frustration at this point.

On this fourth attempt I'm making a single-cavity mold. I'm hoping that this will simplify the alignment issues I've been having. I now have this latest mold all laid out and I have the day off today.

I'm Keeping my previous mold blocks until I can figure out a way to perfectly align a new top-plate with the Boat-Tails milled into them but, for now I'll start work on my fourth attempt.

On a Bright note; the Cherries I turned for these latest Boat-Tailed Bullet-Mold worked out extremely well. I've seen tangible improvement in my mold making attempts with every one I've made thus far.

On a frustratingly Dark note: you'd think that after four attempts I would have nailed by now.

I'll post pics of both mold attempts later. I want to get started on this single cavity mold while I have the time.

I shall return.

HollowPoint

[jasent]

Good luck. Hope it works out

[Artful]

I think your skills are serving you well - I look forward to your successful completion of this.

[HollowPoint]

Artful, jasent; Thanks for the encouragement.

I'm positive that this project will work out in the end. I can say that with no reservations because the Boat-Tailed Gas-Checks that this projects centers around have already been completed and found to work as designed and intended.

It's the specialty bullet molds required to fully test these new Boat-Tailed Gas-Checks that's been giving me fits.

Today I came to the realization that there's just no getting around it; no more procrastinating. I'm going to have to break down and order a Co-Axial Indicator. It's the only way to be sure I can align the Boat-Tailed Beveled-Top-Plates on these specialty bullet molds with the bullet cavities themselves.

I now have a small pile of failed attempts sitting in my shop that includes both Cherries and Bullet Mold halves. Once I get that final bullet mold built and cast a few bullets with it I'll do a final synopsis of all the failures I've encountered in getting to the completion of this project.

Since I'll now be waiting for a new Co-Axial Dial Indicator to arrive. I might as well turn a couple more Cherries while I'm waiting. (provided that my work schedule allows me the time)

I find that with any project I've ever undertaken, no sooner do I finish a project or a certain stage of any given project that, in hindsight, I realize that it would have been easier if I'd done it this way or that way instead.

This Boat-Tailed Gas-Check project is no different. The redeeming value of all these failures is the fact that each failure was better than the last one. What I mean is, attempt number one was just miss-alignment issues on an existing bullet mold. Attempt number two had better alignment but a crappy finish due to crappy Cherries. Attempt number three had slightly better alignment, a slightly better finish on my mold blocks and slightly better Cherries to work with. On attempt number four I had some nice sharp Cherries to work with that gave me a really nice finish on my cavities but, I still had the miss-alignment issues I've had all along.

I touched on this in one of my other posts but, I think it bares repeating; "When you're self-taught, you basically have an ignorant teacher trying to teach an ignorant student." It's the "Trial and Error" method of learning.

When you hear a guy talking about learning at the "School Of Hard Knocks," this is generally what they're referring to.

Thanks again for the encouragement. I'll be back when my new Dial-Indicator tool comes in.

HollowPoint

[jasent]

instead of making your mold with the top plate could you instead just make it a boat-tail only mold? I know the plan was to have plain base or boat-tail mold but it seems to me it may just be simpler to make it only boat-tailed. maybe im missing some thing.

[HollowPoint]

Hi jasent:

I don't think you've missed anything real important. In a couple of my earlier posts I described the various ways I've gone about trying to make my Boat-Tailed Bullet molds.

I tried doing it both ways. On my second and third attempts, I tried making my Boat-Tailed Bullet molds using a single Cherry turned to the shape of the finished Boat-Tailed Bullet. In one instance the heat and vibration turned that particular Cherry into a cork-screw looking mess. On another occasion I got so much flex while milling the cavities that it contributed to the trouble I was already having in aligning everything up.

As stated before, this time around I'm making a single cavity mold. Since I've pre-made two more mold-block sets, I may use one of them to make a plan-base mold of this same bullet profile. I want to wait to see how this attempt turns out first.

With the remaining pre-made mold block, I'm hoping to use it to make a paper-patching bullet mold with a similar profile and Boat-Tail.

Because the very base of the these Boat-Tailed Bullets are only about .220" in diameter, this means that the Cherry has alot of flex in that section of the Cherry. Milling the flutes just further weakens the Cherry in that area. I'm sure a more experienced machinist could have knocked these molds out in short order but, I'm just a hobby machinist learning as I go.

This time around I'm going about it in a multi-step process. It's hard to explain with the written word. If I get a chance I'll post pics of my latest Mold-Blocks and Cherries. I've had a spotty work schedule this week so I've been able to get just about everything ready to go for the next go-around.

Right now I'm also waiting for that new Coaxial-Dial-Indicator tool to arrive. It won't be here till the 21st of this month. This will give me some time to mill the flutes on these latest Cherries.

I'll be back as I get further along.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

It can be difficult to picture in one's mind what I'm trying to describe when I post updates on this project.

I'm hoping that this latest pic will help make sense of my ramblings.

Notice the "Top-Plate" on this single cavity bullet mold blank. Once I've drilled the initial hole from top to bottom on this mold blank, I then remove the "Top-Plate" and proceed to finish the cavity that forms the actual body of the bullet.

I follow that by mounting my "Driving-Band" Cherry in my Boring-Head and cutting the lube-grooves.

This is followed by removing the main mold blocks from the vise and placing the "Top-Plate" upside-down into the vice. I then use my new Coaxial-Indicator to find Dead-Center of the hole I drilled in the very first step of this process.

When Dead-Center is found, I can then use my Boat-Tail reamer to cut the Boat-Tail shape into the "Top-Plate."

When I turn the "Top-Plate" back around and mount it to the mold block halves via the pre-positioned anchor screw, everything should line up perfectly. I HOPE!

I cut the flutes on these latest Cherries today. I think I'll have some free time tomorrow to harden and temper them. I won't be able to cut the bullet cavity until sometime next week.

I'm moving forward with baby steps at this point. It's just a matter of getting some free time as I stumble toward the finish line.

I'll be back.

HollowPoint.

[jasent]

Looking good

[HollowPoint]

The job I had scheduled for today cancelled out on me so I used that free time to finish up what was left on this latest bullet mold attempt.

I may be able to cast a few bullets with it this weekend.

That new Coaxial Centering Tool I ordered last week worked out real well. I was able to center my Top-Plates with the Boat-Tailed bevels milled into them right in line with the cavities of the bullet bodies with very little problems.

In the picture below they don't look like they're aligned but, that's because they're photographed at a slight angle. They're as "Dead-Center" as I could hope to get them.

With this new tool, I may be able to go back and tweak that previous two cavity mold attempt that I screwed up the Top-Plate alignment on.

I'm seeing light at the end of the proverbial tunnel now. I just need a couple more days off so I can get to the range to test these new bullets.

I don't know exactly when that will be. If I get some free-in-between-time, I may go ahead and make up that new Boat-Tail Gas-Check Die-Section I mentioned in one of my previous posts.

I've tried forming these Boat-Tailed Gas-Checks with the aluminum sheeting I bought at Home-Depot. Using the 30 caliber aluminum disks, the Beveled section forms quite nicely. Because of the diameter of the 30 caliber disk however, I'm only able to form a partial check. It's only large enough to cover the Beveled part of the Gas-Check-Shank on my bullet.

I need to make a disk-punch that will cut out disks a little larger in diameter. I need a diameter large enough to form into the Boat-Tailed Gas-Check that fits up to just below that last driving band of the cast bullet. It has to be a little larger than the diameter of a 44 caliber Gas-Check disk.

Since I've finally gotten this bullet mold done. Now It's just a waiting game. I'm looking for some free time to test the mold and the bullets.

A thought occurred to me as I was putting the finishing touches on this latest bullet mold. After all of the work I put into making a usable bullet mold that will accommodate these Specialty-Gas-Checks, it may be that my rifle won't like this particular design.

The only way to be sure is to load them up and send a few of them down range.

I'll be back after I've tested a few.

HollowPoint

[jasent]

Looks great. If this all works out as planned do you think you will be making any that will be for sale?

[Artful]

Looking good - show us a few cast up ASAP will ya.
There's lots of experimenting to do before deciding a rifle won't shoot a boolit.