My improvised "locking" mold handles

[Haywire Haywood]

I was going to buy one of Cabine Tree's Locking handles, and Veral Smith suggested a hose clamp over the handles. I got my 2 brain cells bumping together and came up with this. Before, by holding the mold with my hand, I was getting a 5gr weight ES. With this, I lowered that to 1.2gr with only 4 rejects out of 62 boolits with a preheated mold. Have a look and see what you think. I used 2 o-rings secured to one handle with a coax cable clamp and then super-glued a flap of leather around them for a tab.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1..._98/O-ring.jpg

Ian

[StarMetal]

Unless you're in some full fledge match target competistion, you're wasting your time.

Not to say your idea isn't any good. You just aren't going to notice a difference on a target or animal especially if you aren't shooting those precisely made bullets out of a built to the hilt target rifle.

But if that makes you happy then I guess it is good then.

Joe

[Bret4207]

Seems like a good idea to me. How much does it slow down your rythm?

[Haywire Haywood]

I don't know with this setup, when I first tried it, the o-rings were loose and it was a bit of a pain. I came up with the clamp and the leather tab to simplify it but haven't put it into action yet.

If I continue to have as few culls as I did with that session, it will save me lots of time since I'm not spending 25% of my time casting rejects as I was before and my results will be better quality too.

Ian

[LAH]

Howdy Haywire. 25% of your time casting rejects seems very high. Is this based on weight?

[Buckshot]

.................Haywire, a great idea. Simple, cheap and looks like it would be pretty consistant.

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

[Haywire Haywood]

thanks buckshot, seems to work out good for me

Howdy Haywire. 25% of your time casting rejects seems very high. Is this based on weight?

Looks like my previous response got lost somewhere between here and there.

In all honesty, I think my recent reduction in culls is more due to the appearance of a toaster oven in my reloading area than the o-rings. I started preheating my molds to 425ish before the first pour. I also started putting a couple ingots in there to preheat so my pot temp wouldn't drop so much when I add alloy. I can't remember whether I read that here or over at Graybeard's.

Ian