Jim
12-21-2011, 09:46 AM
I ran into a new problem yesterday. A member sent me a Lyman 462560 mold to borrow. I fired up the pot, got the mold up to heat and let the clutch out. Ran about 50 or so really nice boolits.
I sat down at the bench, put my .460 Lee sizer die in the press to start gas checking them and discovered they all came out of the mold at about .453!
What to do? First thing I thought of was Beagleing the mold. No foil tape and none in Floyd. I started thinking about bumping them.
After an hour or so of experimenting, I found out that the profile of a .308 F/L sizer die would do perfect. I took the expander rod out of the collet on a Lee die, lubed the boolits lightly and pushed them into the die. I had to drop a punch through the collet and tap it ever so slightly to get the boolit to dislodge and drop out of the die. It works, though.
I had to kinda' play around with getting the die set to the right height so they wouldn't bump too much. When I found the sweet spot, they came out .450 at the bottom of the shoulder of the meplat and .462 at the gas check. I just ran them through the sizer die after that to straighten out the profile and checked a few of them with the mic. Perfect.
That got me to thinking. If I could make a 'tap-out' rod shaped like an auto engine valve, that could go in the die from the inside with the stem through the collet, this might work for other boolits.
Below, as cast, bumped & checked and lubed.
http://floydpics.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/p10100045-e1324495705469.jpg
I sat down at the bench, put my .460 Lee sizer die in the press to start gas checking them and discovered they all came out of the mold at about .453!
What to do? First thing I thought of was Beagleing the mold. No foil tape and none in Floyd. I started thinking about bumping them.
After an hour or so of experimenting, I found out that the profile of a .308 F/L sizer die would do perfect. I took the expander rod out of the collet on a Lee die, lubed the boolits lightly and pushed them into the die. I had to drop a punch through the collet and tap it ever so slightly to get the boolit to dislodge and drop out of the die. It works, though.
I had to kinda' play around with getting the die set to the right height so they wouldn't bump too much. When I found the sweet spot, they came out .450 at the bottom of the shoulder of the meplat and .462 at the gas check. I just ran them through the sizer die after that to straighten out the profile and checked a few of them with the mic. Perfect.
That got me to thinking. If I could make a 'tap-out' rod shaped like an auto engine valve, that could go in the die from the inside with the stem through the collet, this might work for other boolits.
Below, as cast, bumped & checked and lubed.
http://floydpics.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/p10100045-e1324495705469.jpg