Expierment gone good!

[Freightman]

Got a new 500g Lee .459 mold this morning and cast a few, had some time (not much) and didn't want to size them befor I loaded them. So I put the powder in the cases and not having time to LLA them eather I wrapped them with some teflon plumbers tape (20) and pushed them together with surprising results. had to resight my Buffalo Classic so at 50 yds got the sights set and shot a 1" group now I said that is good now to look at how much lead I left. Ran a patch down the bore and no lead at all and without the mess.
Is there any bad thing about this, I always shoot outside and the wind is to my back most of the time so there will be no exposure to the fumes if there is any.
O the mold drops a .4605 boolit.

[dragonrider]

I have heard of the plumbers tape trick before but have not tried it myself. By using it there should not be any leading because there should be no lead contact with the bore, of course this may depend on how many wraps of tape you used. But it seemed to work for you, I wouldn't argue with success.

[Blammer]

is that tape aka teflon tape?

[carpetman]

Yes they are talking about teflon tape. What is called plumbers tape is metal with a series of holes in it so they can use it as a strap on pipes.

[Jim]

No, carpetman, that's perforated hanging strap.

[bruce drake]

Carpetman,

We don't need to know about "strap on pipes"

Sounds like something that isn't wanted on our Family Friendly Forum (The mythical FFF rating that everyone wishes to achieve)

Teflon tape does work to an extent. I've just found that seating the bullets without tearing the tape was sometimes a trying experience.

Bruce

[leftiye]

Bruce, Take a little of your own counsel, IMHO. Try running the taped boolits through a sizing die.

[mooman76]

If the tape is teflon. What makes it stick to the boolit?

[Freightman]

The tape sticks or conforms to the grooves and its self when streched.

[BAGTIC]

No, carpetman, that's perforated hanging strap.

I am 64 years old. My uncle was a plumber. It was always 'plumbers tape'.

"perforated hanging strap" sounds like some politically correct 'newspeak', shades of '1984'.

The teflon stuff was called 'pipe tape'.

[DLCTEX]

+1 for plumber's tape being metal strap. Dale

[Freightman]

My mis-nomer pipe tape works for me, the teflon tape that is very thin and 1/2" wide and will stick to it's self and when streched will mold to surface like a skin "pipe tape".

[hs45/70]

Glad the teflon tape worked for you..I first heard of this proceedure about 1990... A friend and fellow caster gave me a photocopy of an article from (IIRC )Handloader magazine from the mid 1980 's. Those folks had tested cast boolits in 45/70..and .300 win. mag. and a few others useing teflontape.

In the .300 mag. , they went up to 3000fps with no leading ..accuracy was not mentioned at this speed merely that it proved successful.

Since about 1990 I have been teflon tapeing all my cast bullets in 45/70 to 2300 fps
..same for .444 and my .30 calibers to 2550 fps with excellent accuracy. The 45/70 has well over 2000 taped/cast through it and has never leaded and the bore is as shiney as new. Between the 308's and the 30/06's about 1000 at over 2200 fps and many more at under that speed and no leading ever.

Two wraps of tape is what works best for me regardless of caliber...if your mold is somewhat undersize more wraps will usually make it shoot better.. sort of like paperpatching to increase diameter.

You can do 3 to 4 boolits a minute once you are used to doing it and as it s proved more accurate in my rifles than any other lubes i've tried, it' s well worth my time..

max..

[BluesBear]

How close do you trim the ends so that the wrappings are equal?
Seems to me if one side had more tape than the other accuracy would really suffer.

[Ernest]

The paradox shooters in Australia use it a great deal on soft paradox bullets to stop leading.

[hs45/70]

Blues bear

The bigger the boolit ie: 500 gr vs. 155 gr .30 cal the easier the process is as its a matter of a little bit of dexterity....if you have long thin fingers its easier than the rest of us who have chunky ones..

Go to an office supply store and get one of those scotch-tape dispensers that have about 1 pound of ballast in them ..$10....these will accomodate your roll of teflon tape...here it's 50 cents/roll of 40 feet..small pair of "sharp" scissors with short blades..2-3 inches. Tape dispenser is put on any flat surface you choose ..I use my kitchen table and with a comfortable chair.

Pull/roll off 3-4 inches of teflon tape from the dispenser...place start of tape on base end of bullet and roll tape around boolit and keep spiral rolling it untill you get as far forward as you want to cover any part in contact with bore.... you have one wrap now..keep rolling back towards the base now until you have 2 wraps and I usually allow some to over lap the base/gas check as it later helps in boolit seating into the belled case mouth...its not important how much the overlap is as each will vary as you roll them.
Once you have 2 wraps, cut the tape and repeat until you have as many as you want. I just roll the tape on, I don't stretch it and then try to roll it on.

I just butt the boolit base in to the palm of my hand and twist a bit and the tape overlap is now flat...briefly roll the boolit between the palms of your hands and that will firm the tape up on your boolit. ....

This procedure is slow at first and after you've done a dozen or so you can do 3 per minute assembly line style.

[Last Spike]

Clyde "Snooky" Williamson was doing this teflon tape thing back in the 1980s according to his book "The Winchester Lever Legacy" which was published in 1987.

[Paladin 56]

I did it back in the early 80's as well. Never had a problem, but saw no real benefit, and it was time consuming, but I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just did it to see if it worked.

If stretched tight enough on unsized bullets there won't be a problem seating the bullet.

I also applied the tape first, then sized the bullet on some. The tape just flattens out and becomes nearly transparent, but seemed to work just as well.

As I said, I didn't shoot for accuracy or velocity, just to see if it worked. It did.

David

[BluesBear]

HS4570, thanks for the info.

About a dozen years ago I used Post-It brand tape for paper patching .45/70 boolits and it worked very well. It was much easier to apply and you can buy it in several different widths.

It seems to me that Teflon tape may be the 20th century equivilent of the paper patch. I just wish I had thought of it first.


Has anyone every experimented to see if keeping the wraps equal, that is if the tail of the tape isn't overlaping the nose, makes any difference in accuracy?
I know that it does with paper patching.
But the teflon tape is thinner.

It seems to me that if tension was kept as constant as possible when stretching the wrappings that the tape thickness would remain stable. If there were, let's say, two complete wraps of tape then accuracy should not be adversely affected and may even be enhanced.


Dang it! Now y'all have me wanting to get another .45-70.

[Freightman]

Every once in a while Harbor Freight has it on sale for 10 rolls for .99 that is how I had this lying around and had read you could do the wrap thing.