PC nose too big

[Bama]

May be of interest, I checked the overall length before and after front section sizing. Before sizing the oal of PC bullet measured 1.132 inches and after neck sizing it measured 1.432 inches. Again front section was smooth and measured perfect .300 inch. There is no indication of any material being pushed back into grease grooves.

[popper]

Did some for the 30/30 today. ESPC (HF red) cooked on hot plate for 20 min., dropped in ice water. Installed the NOE nose size (305) in the press. Put washer on nose and align in sizer, bring ram up till the nose sticks in the sizer - just right depth. Then tap on the nose to remove washer. Don't have a 311 NOE bushing but IMHO I could just turn the boolit around and push the washer off with the ram, then body size. Didn't remove much PC but the back side hasn't been tapered or polished yet. I sized & GCd @ 311 before coating, measured coating thickness is 314-411/2 = 1.5. They shoot good. Only reason I'm doing this is for the levergun that can jam the lands. This way the throat is still filled good (RD style boolit) but no land interference - Seating depth is where I want. Washers are $025 ea.

[popper]

Polished and tapered the back side today, next time I'm coating I'll check for PC damage. Also noticed that cooking on the hot plate cooks the PC from inside out vs the outside in of convection (air) cooling. HF red PC doesn't seem to flow quite as good on the hot plate. Hot plate sure is faster and easier. Any coating on the ceramic tile comes off with Acetone wipe. No NSAF needed.
Edit: used the washer to nose size (centered in 311 Lee), turned the boolit around and base first sized, no problem, almost no pressure on the handle and it came right out. Boolit is ACWW FP uncoated. Didn't see anything funny under magnification so should work good for coated bore rider nose sizing. I moved ~ 1/10" of Pb.

[popper]

Cast some more of the 185GC, harder alloy (push the Marlin a little harder). GC'd, sized & nose sized with washer, then coat and resize, nose size with washer. Pushed through Lee 311 base first to remove washer. Of the 30 or so I did, only one had a small bit of PC removed by the washer. 2 step nose sizing moves minimum material at a time. Looking at the sizing marks, seems as concentric as I can do without special tooling.

[Mr Humble]

Use my "dip the *** end" method covered in detail on my post.

[shootsblanks]

Simple solution! get some 1000+ degree paint, clean off mold, tape what you don't want painted, put 1 or two coats of hi-temp paint on nose of mold. Let sit and cure for at least 24 hrs now you have the mold back to original size after PC'ing , the paint will last for several 1000 bolits, when it get thin do it again.

as per our conversation over PM I tried this with krylon 1200 degree paint, it worked PERFECTLY.
My lee 309-170f drops with a .300 nose, one coat of paint brought it down to .298 and that size stayed consistent over the course of the 300 boolits I did last night.
it is a bit of a headache to apply to JUST the nose, I don't see why masking off the whole block and painting the entire cavity would not work just as well.

although this worked out fantastic for me, it is a temporary solution in my case. Jared from Arsenal molds got back to me yesterday and they can modify any mold to be larger/smaller than the listed spec at no extra charge, the obvious solution is to order a mold that is .002 or .003 smaller than fits in my rifle. and have the powder coat bring it up to fit.

if anyone is having issues I would definitely recommend trying this method, and if it doesn't work for you its not exactly hard to use paint stripper.

[Dragonheart]

Thanks for the information it is good to know that there is a mold manufacture that is willing to work with those that are into coatings. it is also now obvious to me that I need rifle bullet molds that are slightly undersize rather than oversize to allow for a good build out of the polymer. Otherwise I am just pushing metal around.

[popper]

Accurate allows you to spec the mould to whatever you want, depends on your alloy, but IIRC he specs to WW. Slightly oversized on the drive bands doesn't bother me, I've ordered reduced nose dia. for a couple moulds, just to compensate for the nose PC. I pulled the nose back 0.003 which worked fine. The 30/30 mould is like a flying beer can with tapered nose and just jams the levergun lands. Marlin chamber isn't even correct, the rim sticks out of the case gauge. it does what it's supposed to, cheaper to fix the boolits than the gun.

[Freightman]

as per our conversation over PM I tried this with krylon 1200 degree paint, it worked PERFECTLY.
My lee 309-170f drops with a .300 nose, one coat of paint brought it down to .298 and that size stayed consistent over the course of the 300 boolits I did last night.
it is a bit of a headache to apply to JUST the nose, I don't see why masking off the whole block and painting the entire cavity would not work just as well.

although this worked out fantastic for me, it is a temporary solution in my case. Jared from Arsenal molds got back to me yesterday and they can modify any mold to be larger/smaller than the listed spec at no extra charge, the obvious solution is to order a mold that is .002 or .003 smaller than fits in my rifle. and have the powder coat bring it up to fit.

if anyone is having issues I would definitely recommend trying this method, and if it doesn't work for you its not exactly hard to use paint stripper.

I thought about painting the whole cavity right after I talked to you that would work with PC as it comes out the same "DUH"

[HollowPoint]

I recently took delivery of a brand new Lyman 150 grain 6.5mm bore-rider type of bullet mold that I had high hopes for as a PC coating project. Lyman molds have always dropped some very precisely dimensioned bullets for me in the past but this particular mold is dropping bullets of .263" at the driving bands and the nose is a bit on the thin side as well; not to mention the gas-check shank. Before buying this mold I was expecting to have to spray a thin layer of that spray-on bullet mold drop-out coating in order to bring the as-cast size of my bullets down to .263. That way when I applied my powder coat it would bring them up to .266".

Since these bullets are already long and skinny to begin with, the fact that they're dropping from the mold at .263" means that I won't have to further elongate them during the sizing process after I powder coat them. After powder coating I just run them through my push-thru sizer and it irons out the powder coating to give me an exact measurement of .266".

In order to get to this size I have to do the powder coating in two steps. The first step is done with the bullets sitting upright with the gas-check shanks hidden from the powder coat. (the undersized gas-check shank was an easy fix; just reamed it out to proper size) After curing, I then stick them nose down into some old 30-06 cases that I necked down to 6.5mm and add another coat just to the part of the bullets that engage the rifling.

I was concerned about concentricity; you know, applying the powder evenly around the entire diameter of the bullets. To that end I built a carousel type of jig that I can rotate as I'm applying the powder so as to cover all sides as evenly as possible. I've been wanting to build such a jig for a while now but only recently found myself with the free time to do so. I'll be spinning that carousel manually until I can find a small DC motor to do the spinning for me.

In order for the bore riding noses of these cast bullets to fit the intended gun/bore perfectly, I can't apply any more than a single coat. Oddly enough, I have two 6.5mm rifles and the naked bullet's fit perfectly in one rifle but require that one PC coat in the other in order to fit precisely. No matter. These cast bullets are intended for my 6.5 milsurp rifle only.

So what does all of this rambling mean? It means that I'm casting undersized .263" bullets and bringing them up to .266" with two layers of carefully applied Powder-Coat. This means that I'm applying a slightly thicker coating of powder coat than the usual thin single layer that most of us may be accustomed to applying.

Will it work? I don't know. I'm just at the first stages of this experimental PC project. Now I have to wait for some more free time to come around so I can go out and test them. I only mentioned all of this cause I noticed the title of this thread focused on the noses of the OP's bore rider bullet being to big. Mine were to small.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

I finally got a chance to make it to the range today to test my 6.5mm Powder Coated cast bullets. The way I do it is; I place the gas-checks on the gas check shanks before applying that second coat to the driving band area of my bullets; then, after curing the powder I'll run them through my push thru sizer. This sort of locks the gas-check in place. It's probably not necessary to do it this way but that's just how I prefer to Powder-Coat rifle bullets.

Anyway; this time out I only experimented out to fifty yards. I wasn't sure what to expect because the 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser cartridge has a very tight twist barrel so there's a definite limit to how fast I can push them. And since these are long and skinny bullets I half way expected them to give me some oblong holes in the target. I'm trying to work my way up as close to 2000 fps as I can get while maintaining the same tight clusters I'm getting at a un-impressive fifty yards.

They all flew straight and of the six different charge weights I tried all of them gave me tight four round clusters. What a relief. I wasn't sure if it was going to work or not because I did actually try these bullets without powder coating earlier at the same fifty yards and the groups were not very impressive. (softball sized groups) During that test run I was using peep sights so that could have had something to do with it too.

Adding the Powder Coating brought the diameter of my bullets from .263" to .266" at the driving band area to give me a perfect fit to the bore. Putting the scope back on this rifle also helped out alot. I have pics of my targets. I just haven't had a chance to edit them or posting here.

Incidentally; I powder coated them in a Harbor Freight Orangeish/Copper color. I mixed one part Harbor Freight Red, one part Harbor Freight Yellow and a fourth part Harbor Freight White. It gave me the closest thing to a copper colored bullet that I could get without paying a slightly higher price for a retailer to mix it up and charge me for copper colored powder.

I'll try to post those pics this weekend sometime.

HollowPoint

[jimb16]

I was just wondering if NOE would consider making a test bullet based on something like a 311291 with an undersized nose for us PCusers?

[Dragonheart]

I was just wondering if NOE would consider making a test bullet based on something like a 311291 with an undersized nose for us PCusers?

Not to speak for anyone else, but I think the short answer is NO. I asked for some undersize NOE bushings a long while back after investing in the NOE system, that never happened, so I am now trying to figure out how to make my own with limited equipment. Most of us do not have a machine shop or not able to spend a grand for custom swage dies for every bullet design.

I think if you are into coating we are on our own. For handgun bullets it is not a problem, but for rifles is apparent those that have achieved accuracy with any kind of full power velocity are having to make their own tools.

[HollowPoint]

It is possible to make a nose sizing die with only a specific drill bit and chucking reamer. The hard part would be in the indexing of the metal stock to be drilled and reamed so as to get as near a perfectly centered hole as possible. Even then you still have some room for error since your die can be made from a piece of pre-threaded rod.

Before getting my metal working machines I did alot of things that turned out as I'd hoped. Of course, other projects didn't turn out nearly as good.

I actually have a Lyman 311291 single cavity mold that I bought from Eric over at hollow point service dot com. It's been hollow pointed. This particular bullet mold drops some very nice bullets that have seemed to shot well out of every 30 caliber I've shot them out of. At one point I made a "D-Reamer" on my cheap little Harbor Freight mini lathe, used it to make a nose re-shaping-die out of a rectangular piece of scrape aluminum. With my bargain basement arbor press I was able to use it to swage the noses of those 311291 cast bullets in to more of a spitzer shape. This was back when I was experimenting with Boat-Tailed-Gas-Checks. I was trying to come up with a more ballistically efficient cast bullet.

I succeeded but the amount of work it took to do it was not worth the trouble. The bullets were already shooting real well without all of that work.

HollowPoint

[Bama]

Hollowpoint, I use a home made holder that uses the Redding neck sizing bushings( $15) to size the front portion of bore rider boolits. I did have to add some angle to the entrance and exit ends of the bushings to eliminate scraping. They come in .001 increments and are .500 in in outside diameter. Bullets are pushed out of die made from a piece of scrap drilled out and filled with plastasteel (make sure to use wax on bullet nose or it is a mess--found out hard way). I add gas check, size, pc(S/B adds .004 in one time), and final size before nose sizing. Takes longer to describe than to do it. Accuracy is outstanding, but you may have to add copper to alloy at higher velocity.

[Phantom30]

Accurate allows you to spec the mould to whatever you want, depends on your alloy, but IIRC he specs to WW. .

Yes sir, the 308 designs 31-215G and 31-240A from Accurate are designed for PC. Just request the drive bands at 306. I sent mine out to hollowpointmold.com and converted them to HP. The molds are not cheap but when it works you make a lot of boolits like in Dutchninja's BBDT thread.

[Dragonheart]

Hollowpoint, I use a home made holder that uses the Redding neck sizing bushings( $15) to size the front portion of bore rider boolits. I did have to add some angle to the entrance and exit ends of the bushings to eliminate scraping. They come in .001 increments and are .500 in in outside diameter. Bullets are pushed out of die made from a piece of scrap drilled out and filled with plastasteel (make sure to use wax on bullet nose or it is a mess--found out hard way). I add gas check, size, pc(S/B adds .004 in one time), and final size before nose sizing. Takes longer to describe than to do it. Accuracy is outstanding, but you may have to add copper to alloy at higher velocity.

What did you use to hold the bushing in place?

[HollowPoint]

Hollowpoint, I use a home made holder that uses the Redding neck sizing bushings( $15) to size the front portion of bore rider boolits. I did have to add some angle to the entrance and exit ends of the bushings to eliminate scraping. They come in .001 increments and are .500 in in outside diameter. Bullets are pushed out of die made from a piece of scrap drilled out and filled with plastasteel (make sure to use wax on bullet nose or it is a mess--found out hard way). I add gas check, size, pc(S/B adds .004 in one time), and final size before nose sizing. Takes longer to describe than to do it. Accuracy is outstanding, but you may have to add copper to alloy at higher velocity.

I get what you're saying and it makes sense when a guy needs to reduce the size of the nose of the bullet. If I were shooting naked checked and lubed bullets I'd be a very unhappy camper. The bullets out of the 6.5mm Lyman mold I'm using are dropping from the mold undersized; diameter-wise.

Since I'm using these undersized bullets as my Powder-Coating platform, once I've added the powder coat they turn out perfectly sized for the bore of my rifles. The only problem I'm having now are the gas-checks. I'm using Gator gas checks I bought from the NOE site. They work well enough but I'd like a check with a skirt that rides slightly higher on the gas check shank. Why? I just think it's a bit more beneficial to have the added grip of a higher riding skirt on a gas check.

To that end, I spent some time yesterday making a set of rudimentary gas check making dies to use in my arbor press. I'm using the same aluminum flashing I've had in my storage room for the last several years. There's nothing really wrong with the Gator checks. They work fine. I just wanted a higher riding check. The shallow depth of the Gator checks seem to barely grip the very end of the bullet's shank. That's why I've been applying my powder coat over the top of them; to keep them in place.

I did get a chance last Monday to get to the range and try them out. I only shot out to 50 yards this time but I must say, I was encouraged by the results. Once I got my scope dialed in I was getting some nice tight clusters. I can tweak from there and look for even better results. At least that's the plan for now.

HollowPoint

[Bama]

Maybe this picture helps, use 7/8X14 bolt for body and 9/16X18 for keeper.


bolt heads could have been left as is (may had to trim corners on 9/16 to clear hole in press if inserted assembled)