Nose Damage on mold

[cabezaverde]

I picked up a 2 cavity 44 swc Lyman mold for a song at a show a while back, knowing that it had some scratches on the nose of the SWC.

After casting a few, the mold runs well, just has this damage where it looks like someone took an ice pick only to the flat of the nose, making some fairly deep scratches.

Any ideas on how to repeair something like this? Is it even worth it? The scratches are in one side of the blocks only, i.e. 1/2 of the boolit.

[Wally]

You are best off casting with it and trying it out to see if it shoots accurately with the scratches. You could take a wooden dowel of the same diameter of the bullet tip (sand to fit) and glue a small piece of sandpaper and put in a drill to polish out the tip--but the bullets cast will be a bit longer & heavier, if you do so. I'd opt to do the same to the other side to try to get them to match.

I bought a used 429215 that someone used a small jewelers file to open up the vent lines...have more weep with it but the bullets shoot accurately..

[cabezaverde]

Great idea Wally.

The person who did this ice pick job was kind enough to do both cavities for me, just they don't match.

[MtGun44]

Nose damage, even pretty serious looking nose damage has never made any effect that
I have been able to see, other than irritating me a bunch when I look at them!

Probably irrelevant, but you might be able to lap them out carfully by putting 280 grit or
320 grit or something ONLY on the nose and be careful to keep it out of the driving band
area, spinning the boolits in the mold, slowly closing it tighter as you wear and embed
the grit.

Bill

[cabezaverde]

I was thinking about building on Wally's idea and using the eraser end of a pencil with grinding compound on it. Should be an almost perfect fit.

But it is probably more cosmetic than anything as Bill says. Just bugs the heck out of me.

[mooman76]

If it's that minor, wouldn't lapping it do the job?

[Doc Highwall]

It will get plenty of nose damage when it hits something. Shoot it as is then make a decision unless you think it will keep the bullets from falling out of the mould.

[theperfessor]

Are there any cylindrical cratex tools the right size available? I love the little rascals for polishing and deburring. I use a pneumatic die grinder but I'm sure they would work fine in a power drill only slower, which might actually be better for what you're trying to do.

[turbo1889]

You could have Eric or Buckshot convert it to a HP mold. Scratches on the flat of the nose sound like a really good excuse to have that flat bored out for a HP pin. :)

[Wayne Smith]

If it doesn't affect accuracy you have an ideal way to know which boolit came out of which cavity! Which may have been the original intent?