I was wonder if I could mill off the mold enough, to reduce the boolet, from 125gr to 115gr.????
How do I figure out how much to take off????
My Marlin Camp 9 likes 115gr boolets. 125gr not so much.
I was wonder if I could mill off the mold enough, to reduce the boolet, from 125gr to 115gr.????
How do I figure out how much to take off????
My Marlin Camp 9 likes 115gr boolets. 125gr not so much.
Cast a boolit out of the alloy you plan on using, measure it then start filing off the base until you get your desired weight. Measure it again, do the math and that's how much you need to remove.
My fear would be the boolit would no longer function properly. You're removing material from the drive band area only and none from the nose all this is calculated in the design of a boolit.
I acquired a 9mm mold where someone had tried to do this and failed. I removed the lube grooves and just recently have started playing with it.
Not sure what it was originally but it now cast 112 grn smooth-sided boolits.
still, need to do a little more polishing
Last edited by Conditor22; 08-28-2019 at 11:56 AM.
Good answer ^^^^^^
You can calculate the amount to remove like this:
The Specific Gravity of wheel weight alloy is 11.0096 Grams per cubic centimeter.
(If you are using a different alloy, substitute the Specific Gravity of the alloys shown at the bottom of the post in your calculation)
There are 15.43236 grains in a gram.
A cubic centimeter of ww alloy = 11.0096 x 15.43236 = 169.904 grains.
We want to reduce the weight by 10 grains.
So 10 / 169.904 = 0.058857 cubic centimeters to take off the base of the bullet.
There are 2.54 centimeters in an inch.
There are 2.54 x 2.54 x 2.54 = 16.387 cubic centimeters in one cubic inch.
So we need to take off 0.58857 / 16.387 = 0.00359 cubic inches off the base of the bullet.
Now we need to know how many square inches are in the base of the bullet.
The base of the bullet measures 0.357" in diameter.
So The radius of the bullet base is: 0.357" / 2 = 0.1785".
Pi = 3.1416
Pi x radius x radius = square inches of bullet base
3.1416 x 0.1785 x 0.1785 = 0.1000090 sq inches in the bullet base.
So we have 0.00359 cubic inches divided by 0.1000 square inches = 0.0359 inches to remove from the base of the bullet.
Round that off, remove 0.036" from the base of the bullet and this is the result.
[Click on images for full size]
Elements in the Alloy Lead Tin Ant. Sp. Gr BHN Pure Lead 100.0% 0.0% 0.0% 11.3450 5 WheelWeights 95.5% 0.5% 4.0% 11.0096 12 Lyman #2 90.0% 5.0% 5.0% 10.6829 12 Linotype 86.0% 3.0% 11.0% 10.3830 19 Monotype 73.0% 9.5% 17.5% 9.6700 26 Roto Metals HardBall
(Terracorp)92.0% 2.0% 6.0% 10.7789 16 Roto Metals Superhard 70.0% 0.0% 30.0% 9.3917 37 50-50 Solder 50.0% 50.0% 0.0% 8.911 14 10 : 1 Lead - Tin Alloy:
10 Lead + 1 Tin = 11 units of Alloy
9 .1 Lead + 0.9 Tin = 10 units of Alloy90.9% 9.1% 0.0% 10.8083 11.5 16 : 1 Lead - Tin Alloy:
5.88% Tin
16 Lead + 1 Tin = 17 units of Alloy
9.4 Lead + 0.6 Tin = 10 units of Alloy94.1% 5.9% 0.0 10.9918 10.53 1/20 Tin/Lead Alloy:
5.00% Tin
19 Lead + 1 Tin = 20 units of Alloy
9.5 Lead + 0.5 Tin = 10 units of Alloy95.0% 5.0% 0% 11.0434 10.15 20 : 1 Lead Tin Alloy:
4.76% Tin
20 Lead + 1 Tin = 21 units of Alloy
10 Lead + 0.5 Tin = 10.5 units of Alloy95.2% 4.8% 0% 11.0574 10.03 30 : 1 Lead Tin Alloy:
3.226% Tin
30 Lead + 1 Tin = 31 units of Alloy
9.7 Lead + 0.3 Tin = 10 units of Alloy96.8% 3.2% 0% 11.485 9.11
Last edited by Tom Myers; 08-28-2019 at 03:00 PM.
With the cost of a Lee mould being $22.00 wouldn't buying another mould be the wise thing to do .
Ruing a good mould will result in buying another .
Cutting down on the driving band area just might not the answer .
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Lee doesn't have a 115gr mold.
They have a 102gr I may just have to try.
I have used the 102 gr round nose in my 9mm with good results.
I don't have one now since it wasn't any better than other options.
You might even try the 95 grain RF mold from Lee. I use it in my 9mm as well. It makes a great plinking load and uses even less lead.
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 |