Home-made Mould

[heathydee]

I made this "push out" style 30 caliber mould over the past couple of weeks . The cavity was cut with a half reamer or "D" bit and the bullets are ejected from the mould with a captive ejection pin/nose form which is flat at present and results in a meplat measuring .200". Boolits measure .301 inches and have been patched up to .309" , finger smeared with LLA and seated and fired . No sizing . The boolits were fired in my 7.62x39 single shot bolt action .The target shows the best results so far .

[303Guy]

heathydee, do you have more pictures of the mold and the loaded cartridge?
What patching technique do you use?

[heathydee]

heathydee, do you have more pictures of the mold and the loaded cartridge?
What patching technique do you use?

I have the whole build documented over at homegunsmith.com 303Guy, in the "your projects" forum where I use the same user-name. You have to register , which is free , but if you encounter problems (a lot of people do) PM me with your email address and I will send a few pictures across the Tasman .

[longbow]

Nice mould and nice targets!

I see you have made your mould from square or at least "squared" stock.

I have been making push out moulds for some time now and find they work very well especially for paper patching but I also shoot some bare full bore boolits over grease cookies and knurl some then tumble lube.

From your description I assume you have a full diameter sliding nose form. I normally do that but have also started using D bits in boolit form then with just a small ejector pin to push the boolit out.

I will have to go to homegunsmith.com to see what you have there. It is always good to see what others are doing! I am still learning lots.

Thanks for sharing.

I have posted photos of my moulds on Cast Boolits, if you are interested just do a search.

Longbow

[heathydee]

Theis mould features a small diameter ejection pin which also forms the .200" meplat Longbow. I have seen your moulds on this forum and used them for inspiration. Thanks .
Heath

[barrabruce]

Excellent Heathydee
Looking promising..Like to how well they go at 100yrds or more when loads and things worked up a bit.

Barra

hmm must get lathe ...must make mold....mold....

[1874Sharps]

I have some molds being built by a local machine shop that have both similar and different characteristics that I will show when they are in my hand. I like the work all of you have done on your experimental molds that have been built on sound principles! I look forward to seeing the photos of the molds, raw and patched bullets, loads and targets.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Nice looking bit of kit, I'll be back in mid Sept, I'll pop around and have a close up look.

[heathydee]

I have uploaded a few photos , with captions, of the mould manufacture to an album on my home-page ,which is accessed by clicking on my username . Start at the last one and work your way back . I have not yet learned how to re-organise the album .

[Four Fingers of Death]

I checked out your homepage, looking good.

[303Guy]

I have the whole build documented over at homegunsmith.com 303Guy,

Thanks, heathydee. I did have trouble but will try again.

[heathydee]

I have Mk 2 version of the mould cut a little deeper with the same D bit and featuring a projecting ejection pin . More pictures and descriptions in an album on my profile page .

[Four Fingers of Death]

As the boys used to say, "Cool bananas!!!"

[barrabruce]

Looks good to me...hope they shoot well for you


Barra

[longbow]

heathydee:

I finally got into the home gunsmithing site to look at your post. Good write up and pictures of the mould. Very nice workmanship too.

I like the mould "holder". I have been doing something similar with the round pushout moulds. I use the 1 1/2" round as a "holder" and use 3/4" round for the mould. Then the sprue plate and handle stay with the "holder". It is very quick to make a new mould as it is 3/4" bar cut off, faced and bored.

That looks like a very good site so I will have to take a look through. Thanks for pointing us there.

Longbow

[heathydee]

Looks good to me...hope they shoot well for you


Barra

I will be testing them later today Bruce .I wrapped up some yesterday evening and the paper dried and shrunk on overnight. They just need a bit of a wipe over with some LLA before loading .I get a good result with this weight boolit in my 94 Winchester in front of 30 grains of AR2208(Varget) , which is a mild load - 33 grains is listed as maximum ,so I will just substitute the PP boolit for the GC boolit and see what happens. Given that the 30-30 needs a crimp to hold the projectile in place because of recoil and the tube magazine conspiring together to push the boolit back into the case , and crimping a PP boolit will damage the patch, I will put a small ammount of filler between the base of the PP boolit and the powder to arrive at a 100% loading density . I usually use ground up polyethylene (Grex) for this purpose . It should help protect the base of the boolit too.

[Beekeeper]

I tried to get in to the gunsmithing forum to see your post.
No luck couldn't find anything about it so must be blocked out on this end .
any ideas

[longbow]

Beekeeper:

Yes, you have to sign up.

I signed up but it still took several days before I cold get access.

Heathydee did an excellent write up with very good photos.

I will have to take some time to puruse the forums, it looks like a very good site.

Longbow

[heathydee]

I got out to the range and tried both the 140 grain and 173 grain boolits in my 94 Winchester . It was raining at times and a strong and gusty wind hampered things as well . I was not willing to put the Chrony out in the weather so no velocity readings were taken either . The same type and weight of powder behind the Lee 170 gn flatpoint boolit in the Winchester gives just on 2000 fps and I would guess , judging by recoil , not much difference in speed with the 173 gn PP boolit.
I had the rifle resting on the bags with as little input from me as possible to try and minimize shooter error . By the time I had figured out that this was not working real well , I had shot off the ten rounds I had loaded with the heavier boolit. I will have to repeat this test next week . However , I had loaded five rounds with the lighter 140 grainer to test for functioning through the magazine , and once the barrel had cooled and the sun made a tentative and fleeting appearance I put these rounds through the Chrony and into the target , only this time holding the rifle firmly with both hands ; front hand resting on the bag . Using factory cartridges I can usually put five into a bit over an inch at this range so I am not too displeased with the result . The five shells were loaded into the magazine and cycled through the action and obviously the patch survived this treatment so some success was achieved for the day . The velocity of over 2100 fps was especially gratifying too . I am casting these boolits out of soft lead sweetened with some tin to improve castability without making them too hard .
Last week I tried a penetration comparison between the Lee 150 gn FP and the 140 gn PP using wet paper-back novels ; you know the kind that hang around the house for years , which are not good enough to read again , too good to throw out , and no one wants to buy them off you . Any way , without mentioning authors ( who may be reading) , 12 inches of wet novels did not stop the Lee boolit . Nor did the plastic 2 gallon container of water behind them . That boolit came to rest in the stout tree I had used as a back-stop although in two pieces , as revealed by the two exit holes in the plastic container. The test was then repeated with the PP boolit with the boolit coming to rest in the water container . Upon impact , pieces of wet paper were thrown into the air . Not a snow-storm but still impressive . The books sustained more damage than the first ttest and the boolit had been captured in the water container . 111 grains of it were left and it had expanded into a classic mushroom shape . Both boolits were launched at around the 2100 fps mark. I will put a picture of the expanded boolit in an album on my profile page .

[Beekeeper]

heathyde,
I am a member of the homegunsmith.com forum and I still can't get into your home projects forum.
The only thing the forum will let me have is Rodeus gunsmithing and new member .
I have been a member there for over a year and it has always been the same.


Jim