First Mold

[44-henry]

Hello,
After watching lurking and reading a lot of old posts I decided to take a stab at making a mold. I have been playing around with an older TC Contender in 30 Herrett and I have been using Hornady 130 grain spitzers out of it with good success. Unfortunately the cost of bullets has made it kind of spendy to go on with this so I thought it might be worth seeing what a paper patch bullet would do.

Please keep in mind that this is my first venture into paper patching and mold making so I am a rank amateur at this and a lot of my methods are probably not the greatest. But I thought some of you might get a kick out of seeing the way I did it and hopefully can offer some suggestions to make the job easier, or more effective. Also, my bullet design is probably flawed and I realize that the nose is probably going to be too weak, but I made a couple extra cherries in other styles so if it doesn't work I will have some others that I can fall back on. In any event this was my strategy.

I wanted to make a D reamer so I started off by centering short length of 3/8" water hardening steel in my Sherline lathe using a dial indicator and a four jaw chuck.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/SherlineLathe.jpg

I adjusted it until I had very little movement on the indicator, something under .001. I have access to much larger lathes, but the Sherline works nice for small stuff and the spindle speeds are much higher than on the other lathes. Once everything was dialed in I started turning down the blank. I was shooting for a diameter of about .303 at this stage and planned on reducing it down to .302 in finishing operations.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/SherlineLatheFirstCut.jpg

Once my target diameter was reached I moved the head on the Sherline for a taper cut. This is the only easy way to cut tapers on the Sherline as it does not have either a compound slide, or an off settable tailstock. I actually have come to like this feature.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/SherlineLatheTaperCut.jpg

Once the taper was set at about 14 degrees I proceeded to shape the nose of the blank. I actually adjusted the taper a couple different times to keep the nose concentric. When I was finished I smoothed out the steps with a fine cut file and than polished the blank with a progression of wet and dry sandpaper ending at 400 grit and backed with a steel parallel bar.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/SherlineLatheFinishedProfile.jpg

My finished blank diameter was .302 at the base.

I wanted to avoid warpage as much as possible so I hardened the cherry next. I used a simple hand held propane torch and heated the cherry as evenly as possible inline with the flame. I don't have photos of this step since I was alone, but I used a magnet to check the temperature. When the magnet was no longer attracted I heated it a bit longer and than quenched. I quenched in cold water and tested with a file to ensure that it was hard. This is the cherry after hardening.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/CherryAfterHardening.jpg

After hardening the cherry went back in the lathe for polishing and this is what it looked like after that step.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/CherryAfterPolishing.jpg

Following this I again went with the seat of my pants approach and tempered the cherry with a small flame from the propane torch. I was shooting for a light straw color along the length of the cherry moving to a deep straw, purple color further back.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/CherryAfterTempering.jpg

Once this was accomplished I placed the cherry in a small vise and attached this to the magnetic table of the surface grinder. I carefully ground the cherry to a thickness of .151. Following this I stoned the cherry on a fine oil stone and set it aside.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/SurfaceGrinder.jpg

I next chucked a piece of 1" bronze bar stock in a another lathe and proceeded to turn down the diameter to .980 and face the ends. I than used a series of step drills to rough out the bulk of the cavity. I placed the cherry in the tailstock and set the lathe into reverse. With the spindle speed at about 60 rpm I proceeded to ream out the cavity. I would turn the tailstock hand wheel one full turn and than back the cherry out and clean the cavity with compressed air and brush off the chips from the reamer. I have heard some don't recommend cutting oil with bronze, but I used it anyways and it seemed to help. After a considerable amount of time the cavity was cut.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/Reaming.jpg

I got sloppy and didn't record the next few operations, but here is what I did. I thoroughly cleaned out the cavity with alcohol and than proceeded to soot the interior. Next I cast several boolits in the unfinished mold and selected the best one. I was using Linotype for this step as I figured it would shrink less. As I had not fitted a sprue cutter I simply left a puddle and knocked the boolits out. I than took the test boolit and installed it in the three jaw chuck on my lathe and proceeded to face the base off. I than center drilled and tapped it for a 5-40 tap and left the tap in place as a handle. Next I used a fine valve grinding compound and liberally coated my lap with this and than worked it in the cavity with water as a lubricant and with the aid of a cordless hand drill. I would lap for awhile, clean the cavity, re-cast, and make a new lap. Eventually I ended up with a cavity that was smooth and consistent and would drop a boolit with little effort. The final boolits drop out of the cavity at .304.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/TestBullet.jpg

I still need to add a sprue cutter and handle on the mold. Right now I am just using a set of old vise grips. I plan on facing the mold down so that it will drop a boolit that weighs in at about 130 grains. I will be making a push through sizing die to size this boolit down to .302, but I haven't had a chance to do that yet. I also gave some thought to making an ejector pin for the mold. At this point I decided against it since the boolits are coming out easily on their own. I also worry that the ejector pin might be a source of trouble down the road, but I am open to hearing opinions about that matter.

In any event it was fun and I learned a lot in the process. If you have any comments I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

[303Guy]

Welcome aboard 44-henry.:drinks:

My first comment is - Wow! That's great! Very interesting. Doubly interesting because I've just been thinking of making a new mold and was wondering how I might do it this time.

I'll be looking forward to the results.

I'm in the process of fitting a vertical mill-slide to my lathe (but lack a suitable piece of steel to make the adaptor).

I have little bit of 4140 - would I be able to turn it and mill the flat before hardening?

On your boolit design, while it might work just fine, I'd suggest a stubby-er nose with much less unsupported length. Softer alloy can then be used. I'm not sure but I think the nose bit can be made under-bore so long as the patch itself give a firm support but what happens at the muzzle is unclear. I use a 'test tube' in my shed for testing but anyting fast enough to fragment the patch gets so distorted on impact that I cannot deduce anything from the boolit. I look for patch fragments and at higher velocities I get no nose section fragments but at lower velocities I get the piece or pieces of the first wrap that sit on the under-bore section of boolit. At very low velocities I get the whole patch.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-844F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-597F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-605F.jpg

This last patch was during the work up of a load that would confetti the patch and the next load did and was accurate. That was a fun exercise as I developed the load entirely based on patch fragmentation before taking it into the field. My powder was 4227 (AR2205) with wheat bran filler. I personally get good results using wheat bran filler and slow powders.

I suspect that longer and heavier for caliber boolits are easier to get to shoot well.

My boolit designs have a parrallel seating shank section with a taper to the ogive. This requires a curved patch to make for easier patching. You've no doubt seen this one .

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/PIGGUN011.jpg

Might I suggest aquireing some green bar tracktor printer paper and designing your boolits for it? I don't have any but others get good results with it.

[44-henry]

303guy,
Thanks for the feedback. I also suspect the nose might be too long so I had made some different profiles and just finished reaming out identical bronze rounds for them. I did some initial casts, but the molds still need to be lapped to bring the boolits to the proper diameter. Here is a picture of the two additional profiles that I made plus the one from my previous post for comparison.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/alternateboolitdesigns.jpg

The one on the end was much shorter than I had intended it to be. I did not drill the pilot hole deep enough, but I figured it might be an interesting size to experiment with so I left it as is.

Here is a picture of the other two reamers I made with the original as a comparison.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/alternatecherrydesigns.jpg

The middle reamer is a multi flute design that I did by using an indexing head and rotating the reamer 90 degrees each time. I cut the flutes with a 1/4" end mill and than relieved them with a needle file. It turned out to be a lot more work to make, but does seem to cut smoother than the D type. I might have to experiment more with this style in the future.

As for your earlier question about 4140 I am a bit confused. Are you thinking of using this for your mill slide, or for a reamer? I have only machined the stuff a few times and it seemed to cut alright, but it is tough steel. Years ago I worked for Bobcat in Gwinner ND and I used to be able to pick through their scrap pile and get scraps of different alloys, 4140 was one of them. If I remember correctly I could buy the stuff from them for 10 cents a pound. I heard they discontinued that policy, but it was good while it lasted. If you can give me some more details about what your doing I might be able to help. Thanks again.

Regards,

Alex Johnson

[303Guy]

The 4140 was for the reamer. I like the shape of your stubby nosed boolit.

At the moment my favourite alloy is scap lead drain-pipe with some of the soldered joint/repair jobs thrown in. It is a tough enough alloy and I think hard enough for my purposes which is actually fairly soft. I don't heat treat.

Have you considered shaping your reamer to exactly fit your gun's throat? I try to achieve ful boolit to throat contact on chambering with the nose section inside the bore. My best PP rifles (I think) are the ones that are well worn so that the bore-ride nose section only bore-rides in the throat area. Wonderful cordite era rifles with fire-lapped throats (plus one rust modified bore - my Pig Gun).

Oh - I shaped a drill-bit or two for some of my molds. A bit hard to control the shape and size.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/HollowNoseDesign.jpg

The hollow nose is from the casting funnel thing I used.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-002F.jpg

[44-henry]

I haven't tried creating a cherry to match the throat, but as I go further with this I definitely will.

As to 4140 for your reamers, I personally feel there are better choices, but with proper heat treatment it should work. You should be able to get it up to the mid 50's on the Rockwell scale. However, if you don't heat treat it would be a bit iffy. I would suggest W1 drill rod instead and than employ some basic heat treatment.

At the university where I teach we have a pretty sophisticated foundry area that is equipped with electric and gas ovens with programmable controllers. I can do pretty much anything I want as far as heat treatment goes. When you start getting into the air hardening alloys it is nice to be able to control your temperature with a great deal of precision; however, I don't worry about it too much with simple tool steels. All you really need is a small propane torch and a magnet (or good eye). In the past when I wanted to get high tech I employed a second hand toaster oven for tempering. I have worked with a lot of engineers that would say that it is not possible to heat treat in this fashion, but I have made a lot of knives and other tools over the years that would tend to suggest otherwise. My advice is to give it a try, its not too difficult and you will find your options have definitely increased.

[303Guy]

Magnet? You mean in heating to the point of no magnetic response?

I would only be cutting brass or bronze and was thinking in terms of out the scratch bin availability of something that I can turn and harden somewhat.

[44-henry]

Yes the magnet does give a pretty good indication when your steel has reached the critical temperature, generally though it is not quite hot enough when it loses its magnetic attraction so I heat to a point a bit beyond.

Something else you might try would be to caseharden your tools. If you don't know what alloy you have it is still a good idea to temper them afterwords, but the casehardening process could allow you to make good tools that will work in brass and bronze. A lot of cheap files today are low carbon steel that appear at least to have been casehardened. I use to have students make small knives out of old files, but we started finding many that would not harden and we have since discontinued this practice in favor of working with known alloys. Even so, when these files are new they certainly cut steel.

[44-henry]

I did a bit more work on the mold today. I was trying to find a system that would allow me to use one handle for multiple mold blocks and this was the result. It still needs to be cleaned up a bit as the mill marks are still there, but it seems to hold tight. I might have to install a pin in the mold block to keep it from slipping, but we'll see how it works first. Tomorrow I will tap the other side of the block for a handle and do a bit more work on the sprue plate. I need to deepen the chamfer and lap the back of the plate. I will also contour it a bit more so it does not have to sweep as far to release the boolit. I have not installed the stop in the mold block yet since I think I will need to shorten the block somewhat to regulate the boolit weight. In any event I hope to be casting by tomorrow evening.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/DSC_0529.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/DSC_0530.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/DSC_0531.jpg

[303Guy]

Wow!

Don't clean the mold top face or the sprue plate bottom face - air needs to escape somewhere.

[44-henry]

Well I slapped a maple handle on it and did a test run. It is not a thing of beauty by any means, but it should work as intended. I followed 303guy's suggestion and didn't do any more lapping on the sprue plate or top of the mold, but I did deepen the chamfer in the sprue plate. It definitely picked up some character during its first molding session. I am holding off on installing the stop for the sprue plate until after I have regulated the boolit weight. The first boolits were sticking badly in the cavity so I made another lap and charged it with some pumice and worked at it for awhile. I think when I faced off the top of the mold earlier it left a slight burr that wasn't helping.

After cleaning up the mold again I switched the lead in the pot to some softer stuff and started casting again. The boolits dropped from the mold freely and the base diameter is a consistent .303 all the way around. I was planning on making a sizing die to bring them down to .302, but I'm not sure if that is necessary or not now. In any event it has been a fun project. Now that I know the basics I will probably try my hand at some more molds. Here is a picture of the somewhat dirty mold and a few of the first boolits cast with it. I still have to weigh them to see what grain they are, but I am actually thinking of leaving them a bit on the heavy side to begin with.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/DSC_0537.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/DSC_0532.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/DSC_0533.jpg

Regards,

Alex Johnson

[montana_charlie]

Excellant ...

[longbow]

44-henry:

Very nice work!

I make a similar mould but I do use an ejector pin. Some are full body diameter with the nose profile in the ejector/nose form so the boolit weight is adjustable by raising or lowering the ejector/nose form in the cavity. Some I do in hollow point or flat point but cavity formed as you have.

My solution to one handle for multiple moulds was to bore out a piece of 1 1/2" round bar to 0.750" then use interchangeable "cavities" made using 3/4" round bar that drop in and lock in place. That way even the sprue plate stays on the main body.

Your solution is more elegant than mine though. I like it!

I have made this type of mould from .30 cal to 12 ga. and all work well.

I think you will find a lot of satisfaction in making your own moulds and shooting the boolits cast in them.

Again, great work and super write up.

Also, if no-one has said it welcome! Good to have you aboard.

Longbow

[303Guy]

Wow! :2_high5:

I've been puzzling on how to finalize my molds and you have given me the answer. Thanks!:drinks:

By the way, my 'successful' boolits were what most would call culls. The only thing good about them is an absence of internal voids. And the bases - they're good.

I'm keen to make a new mold now. I might add a nose ejector punch just for good measure (we'll see how the lazy-itus is at the time of making. [smilie=1: )