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Thread: why not hot glue?

  1. #21
    Boolit Master
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    Sulphur is pretty good, but if you overheat it surprisingly little, it will ignite with a low blue flame. There is no risk of a great conflagration, but it gives off sulphur dioxide gas which rusts any steel on which it condenses. It is also quite unpleasant stuff, which in the First World War was found be more dangerous than some gases with a much worse reputation.

    Car body filler also makes a good cast. You would probably need to put it in a disposable plastic tube and squirt it into the chamber with a dowel. The combination of weight and fluidity of Cerrosafe (and bullet casting alloys) determines how well the will take the shape of a mould or chamber.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by KCSO View Post
    Melt the sulphur in a double boiler and pour through a warmed funnel. I made my oown long necked funnel for doing chamber casts. Fill the to top of the chamber but not into the lug area. Clean well afer using sulphur as it draws moisture.
    Very smart man KSCO as sulphur is one substance that expands as it solidifies. They use to use it to anchor iron railing on concrete porches.

  3. #23
    Boolit Master
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    Melting sulphur in a double boiler is a nice trick if you can do it. Its melting point is 115.21 °C, so you would need something other than water as usually constituted.

  4. #24
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    Roto metal has a chamber casting alloy that melts in a ladle with a propane torch. Done it myself. It's also relatively cheap at $13. And doesn't stink the house up like sulfur. It also has a known shrink rate and is re-usable.

    https://www.rotometals.com/chamber-casting-alloy-ingot/
    I can not know what I don't know.

  5. #25
    Boolit Grand Master In Remembrance
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    Why try to reinvent the wheel?
    RotoMetal alloy or CerroSafe has been used for decades. One wants accurate measurements of the chamber - there is a shrinkage table for the alloys, none for hot glue and I doubt measurements would be accurate with HG plug being measured in a micrometer
    Regards
    John

  6. #26
    Boolit Master
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    I agree that Cerrosafe is best, and the others mentioned only have some point if you don't have it handy.

    I have experienced sticking with an alloy I bought as Wood's metal. I don't know whether they were being strictly factual it mar not, and the chambers I tried it in were somewhat rough. But it may be that it doesn't experience the temporary shrinkage of Cerrosafe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood%27s_metal

    You might get better results with the various cold substances if you rammed a roughened stick into it before it hardens, to make a sort of pressure casting as well as a handle. I'm reminded of the way steel ingots used to have a sort of carrot-shaped cavity in the upper end, caused by thermal contraction, containing all sorts of slag etc. If you just rolled that ingot into a bar, there would be inclusions along most of its length, to your severe disadvantage if you bored it for a barrel. Cast steel (including "Whitworth's Fluid Pressed") wasn't cast, but hydraulically pressed, side to side, while still soft. That didn't compress the grain, as sometimes claimed, but it squeezed out that cavity, and the impurities could be removed by cutting off and discarding only a small part of the ingot.

    With the unofficial chamber casting substances, I think accuracy would depend on either having the shrinkage remain a cavity or dent, or filling it with something, rather than having it shrink on the outside.

  7. #27
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    sundog's Avatar
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    Sulphur and powder graphite mix works really good.
    It ain't rocket science, it's boolit science.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

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