results from thread nov 1, 2009

[Gently]

Hello everyone, Yes I know you all thought I had gone away....your not that lucky!

I have sucessfully molded, plated and test fired my "cast Boolits" it has been very sucessful in a larger caliber, a .300 savage, with no problems or loss of accuracy.

I decided to use .300 savage for a few reasons:
1. it is a rifle I already have.
2. it is a 2500 or more FPS hot round (for the Cal.)
3. it has a strong action (lever action model 99A)
4. I have molds (.309) that I can size up to .306 to be able to plate .003 on them
and a moderate amount of other reasons...mostly I like the Savage!

I am now going to start with another caliber, it has taken way longer to do simply because of life events (mostly an illness of my wife, who is MUCH better now) and since things have settled down quite a bit I can get back to my smelting and metal making processes, as well as casting bullets.

In the spring I intend to try to make my own mould for smaller calibre bullets (.223 and .240) to see how far I can go to hit the "fragmentation" stage. But based on calculation (my wife) durability and hardness it should go past 5500 fps and higher if I decide to "chrome plate" over copper.

The savage allows for a hotter round with the chrome....BUT it is actually less accurate at anything over 125 yards. The barrel does not seem to have any ill effects from the chrome but for some reason the accuracy falls off dramatically after 125 yds.. I think what happens is the bullet does not expand enough to set properly in the barrel. The marks on the expended bullet are MUCH less than on the copper jacketed ones.

so that is the "annual update" but hopefully I will be much more active now that life events have stabilized.

And thanks for this forum! it is a GREAT place for information!

[Matt3357]

what kind of price per bullet are you getting? sounds expensive when you add up electricity for the plating process plus all of the different metals.

Matt

[Gently]

Matt, I have my own plating business. so it is not really that expensive for me right now, I guess it would be in the area of about 2 or 3 cents at most per round. the copper plates are durable and all the electric is in D.C. only, I use converters (which I already have). and yes if I was just doing it to sell them they would be more expensive than regular jacketed rounds. But in the future I will be able to make plate and load all my own ammo, and not have to worry about deformation of the rounds at higher MV's. I will be able to copper, chrome, tin, or aluminize, cobalt or tungstunize any lead bullet. That is when I finally figure out this darn lathe thingy I bought and put in my garage! And how to "make" a "cherry" I have blocks of aluminum and steel just waiting to ruined by me!

[leftiye]

Wouldn't chrome be (isn't chrome) way too hard to be put against a rifle bore? How about nickel (maybe)? Or even zinc?

[hickstick_10]

nickel would be just as hard as steel.

[Bambeno]

Glad to hear your wife is doing better. Sounds like an interesting experiment. Just be carefull you don't ruin your rifles bore, chrome and several other platings are harder than barrel steel and would cause accelerated wear. What kind of results have you been getting on your copper plating?

[Gently]

Glad to hear your wife is doing better. Sounds like an interesting experiment. Just be carefull you don't ruin your rifles bore, chrome and several other platings are harder than barrel steel and would cause accelerated wear. What kind of results have you been getting on your copper plating?

The copper is amazing..Once I cast the bullet I put in a vibrator cleaner and a little extra ceramics And the come out smooth as a baby butt, once I get to there I treat with solution #2 I dip in to a very light mix of muratic and distilled water (30 oz water to 1 oz acid) and the plate works great, cannot tell if it is plated of factory. Resulys are very good group at 50 yards with my Savage is about 1 to 1 1/2 inch.
Taking into account these are "low power rounds" and the chrony says avg 1835 fps I think 50 yards are a good indicator. I am going to make up a copper tin plated bullet just to see if it will increase FPS.

So far they have been much better that I expected...all but the all chrome ones, they like to "go 90 out"! like out of the barrel and make a left turn ( maby Icould use that for a military speciality round...to shoot arond corners and such???:holysheep

So any information on how to make a cherry so I can go hog wild and try to make my own moulds, out there???

[nanuk]

post of the old link?