grooves, tumble or fill?

[Rodgervich]

I am new to the forum and not a huge caster but I have the gear and can cast decent boolits for as little as I do. I am a capable machinist and hobby smith and recently got turned on to big bore handguns. I got a custom revolver chambered in .480 Ruger and want to make some .475 wadcutters.
The plan is to make a mold myself and wonder about tumble lube style or more conventional "fill" lube grooves. The Alox tumble lube works pretty well for low velocity stuff I have shot in .38's but no experience in anything bigger.
If velocity is kept low on the .480 WC would a tumble style have adequate lube to keep from leading the barrel too bad or do I need to go with full size grooves and make a sizer die and punch and stuff?
It would be much less work to go tumble but not if I have to scrub the barrel every 12 shots.
What insight can you guys give me?

[redbear705]

Well from my limited experience tumble lube works ok.

I usually tumble lube two times with a day of drying then enough drying time after the second coat....usually a couple of days before loading.

I did not size the 38spl bullets and I found a size variance that was too great so I found a lyman 450 on ebay and now just size and lube em up on it.....using white label red carnuba lube....no leading!

JR

[38-55]

Hey Rodgervich,
For relatively low velocity stuff the tumble lube bullets have worked great in my experience. When I say 'low velocity' I mean 1000 fps and under. If you need dimensions for the tumble lube groove I believe lee has a 'design your own boolit' thing on their site.
Hope this helps some
Calvin

[Rodgervich]

Thanks for the responses! I checked Lees website and got their design guide and modeled these two versions accordingly. Both calculate out to be about 340gr give or take, seems reasonable but what do you think?
I think the tumble lube looks OK and will be easier by a long shot to make and shoot so I'll try that one first.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/RMEngineering/475WC.jpg

[dromia]

When we had pistols I used a Lee 6 hole mould throwing a micro groove 158 gn bullet tumble lubed with LLA in my 38 S&W Webleys, Enfields and Albion. I was a fine bullet and cured any prejudice I had towards LLA and Lee's micro groove Boolits.

[38-55]

Hey Rodgervich,
Look's good to me ! If ya make your own and it doesn't work you can always play with the length and make it lighter or heavier... I like the tumble lube one.. Sure would like something like that in about 240 gn and .433 in diameter... and maybe one in .455 at about 255 gns... Ah just a passing thought..
Just as an aside... it's been my experience with LLA that you only have to put enough on to 'color' the bullet. I've found that anymore is just a waste... if I get a hint of leading it's because my alloy is not right. Softer always seems to work better for me...
Good luck and let us know how it turns out...
Stay sharp
Calvin

[Rodgervich]

OK, so here is the mold I made and a few boolits from it. The results are not fabulous but since I have gotten this far I'll shoot them anyway just to see what happens.
Started with a cherry cut to the Lee design dimensions and a Lee mold for a .44 BP pistol boolit I don't cast any more.
Took the 2 cavity mold apart by drilling the top to knock out the handle pins then indicated centers and cut to depths.
The resulting boolits are not totally round and neither cavity is significantly better than the other, they each have issues. I cast these with some soft lead I had and they weigh 336-337gr. Hindsight is great, I am pretty sure I know where my setup failed, the execution was OK but I know I can do better on another try. I'll keep the cherry and maybe try another set of cavities if these boolits don't shoot for beans.
So far it has been a fun little project, if I can iron out the setup I bet I could have some fun with these.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/RMEngineering/make%20a%20die/makeamold004.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/RMEngineering/make%20a%20die/makeamold006.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/RMEngineering/make%20a%20die/makeamold008.jpg

[twoworms]

Nice job on the mold, I bet they will shoot good out to 50yards.

Tim

[lastmanout]

Welcome to Cast Boolits Rodgervich !!!! I am a big fan of your websight!! :drinks:

[45nut]

Welcome to Cast Boolits Rodgervich !!!! I am a big fan of your websight!! :drinks:

Website? got a link?

[georgeld]

At first I thought you'd used a worn out tap, but, know it's not.
I'd suggest the slightest nose be formed on it though. The lee WC mold I have for .308" has a round button on top, this gives a cutting ledge around the rim.

Where you get the roundness is with the sizer die. SO, make one of those up the right size for the bore plus .002" and push them thru, then alox 'em. Over nights long enough in your heat to cure. The alox never gets over being sticky.

Is that your lead, or some of the ingots I sent?

Mighty good looking job, you've got it fairly well figured out.
I'd like to know more about how you cut them. One side at a time?
Now that I've seen your setup and result do believe I'll try it too.

Glad you got on here.

[Rodgervich]

Yeah, what website do I have? I hope it's cool!:)
This cherry is actually measuring .475 so I won't be able to size the .002 over unless I make a swage/bump die, which I suppose I could do.
I thought about putting some kind of button on the end but thought I'd start with a plain cylinder to start with then if the plan worked I could go fancy. Probably will make another cherry and add some kind of front feature like a ball button or point, shouldn't be hard to do. I cut these cavities one side at a time.
These are cast from some stained glass lead I have a few pounds of, pretty soft and I don't get much but I get it for free every now and then. Ididn't want to waste the good stuff until I know the boolits are shootable.

[Wayne Smith]

How soft is your lead? If it's pure, that's not a bad result. If it has some tin in it, maybe not enough. Try casting with some WW just as they are and see what happens.

[Greg5278]

Since the mold halves didn't come out round, you could try something else on your next mold. If you have a lathe, you could make a profile tool, and Lathe bore it. Or use the profile tool in a boring head on you mill. I think it could be done on a radial table on the mill, so the mold block sets can turn around the cherry and be concentric, the problem is the cutter diameter would have to be smaller, because the halves would be mated together. That might work for you, and the bullet you drew with the larger bannds should fill out better with WW and 2% Tin.
Greg

[Rodgervich]

I got to shoot a dozen of these today. I made up 4 loads of 3 shots each all fired from a single chamber one after the other at a range of 15 yards. Forearms on sandbags, two handed grip, seated at a concrete range bench. I am NOT an experienced revolver shooter but did the best I know how.
I mentioned the bullets were tapered and all were loaded small end down so the crimp would even out the "big" end of the bullet. All bullets seated flush with case mouth and WLP primers used.
The "step" bullets were loaded over 6.0 and 7.0gr Unique and vel was 750 and 800 ft/s respectively. Neither load grouped worth a darn and two of the 7.0 loads keyholed. BUST!
The "good" bullets were loaded over 9.0 and 10.0gr BlueDot and vel was 850 and 900 ft/s respectively. The 9.0gr put all three .61" CTC and the 10.0 at 1.0" CTC at 15 yards.
I will try the "step" bullets over the 9.0 B-Dot to see if it's the bullets or the Unique. Basically I'll call this experimental mold very successful, encouraging enough to try again and get them round next time!
Thanks for your input and encouragement, this was a cool project!

[38-55]

Congrats Rodgervich !!!!
Don't yeah just love it when an idea works out !!! I just wonder if the unique load is a velocity thing.... Like the boolit needs to be going 850-900 fps to stabilize. If you have a bullet that is narrower on one end than the other try putting the small end forward.. it may 'self center' that way.. Just a passing thought.
Calvin