Opposite of Beagling?

[jabilli]

If someone beagles their mold, it modifies it so the boolits will drop out slightly larger.

Is there some trick to make them come out smaller? (Rather than running through a sizer)

Maybe electroplating....Or something of that nature?

[Bullshop]

You could build up layers of spray on mold release. Be sure to keep it out of the vents.

[williamwaco]

You could build up layers of spray on mold release. Be sure to keep it out of the vents.

This will make smaller bullets but they sure are ugly.

[.22-10-45]

Pure lead..or close to it?

[HangFireW8]

I've done it.

I picked up some mold handles for cheap on a certain well-known auction site. In each case the lead listing picture was a poor condition single cavity Ideal mold, often badly photographed (out of focus, both camera hand and item hand in motion, thumb blocking view of most important part of item, you know, the usual level of amateur photography found on that site). Succeeding pictures revealed handles, which is the reason I bid. (Probably hard to execute this money saving strategy during the current craze).

Anyway, once de-rusted and cleaned up, one particular mold cast oversized boolits. The problem was obvious: warpage. I simply drove the alignment pins in and lapped the curved mold face surfaces until they had something less than a freightliner's gap between them.

Before anyone objects "out of round boolits!", well of course, but Beagling produces out of round boolits as well. The results were a usable mold that cast slightly out-of-round boolits that clean up nicely in the lubrisizer. Since it is only handgun and a practice style boolit at that I'm not overly concerned about hair splitting accuracy.

HF

[runfiverun]

that's when you lap it rounder.

mold release will make a mold smaller,so will a higher percentage of lead in the alloy.
you can run a mold cold too, it will generally pour thinner lighter boolits.

[geargnasher]

If it's aluminum you can have it anodized.

Gear

[jabilli]

Anyone ever try something like this?

http://www.vhtpaint.com/products/flameproof/

Says it's a Silicon based spray that's good up to 2000*F

[jabilli]

So I ran and got a can of this stuff. 61354

Sprayed on a light coat- heated to 200*F as directed for 30 min, let rest 30, heated to 400*F for 30, rest 30, 600*F 30, rest 30....Heated up some alloy and poured it in- it held up. Only, I only got about .001 smaller bullets. >< Too light of a coat.

It says let it cure 7 days before throwing on another coat but, whatever. I sprayed it on thick. Now curing at 200*F. Important thing I learned though- A light coat holds up. I did it with a Zinc alloy too so, upwards of 700*F...Whereas wheelweight alloy is much lower.

[jabilli]

Alright- cured the stuff nice and thick like on the mold- Results:

Bullets did shrink. .221 was about typical. The texture, however was less than impressive. Maybe more coats with some polishing might do well (I want to shrink to about .215, for paper patching)- As for now, it works, not terribly impressed with aesthetics, my guess is they aren't exactly tournament accurate either.

The paint did hold, though. Cool to know. :-)

[10x]

I suspect you can plate the cavity with nickle or cadmium. This would involve covering the areas of the mold that you do not want to plate with a silicon grease.

[fredj338]

Isn't that what a lube/sizer is for? Really, most of us go thru all kind of girations to get a bullet larger. Smaller is easily done with sizing.

[10x]

Isn't that what a lube/sizer is for? Really, most of us go thru all kind of girations to get a bullet larger. Smaller is easily done with sizing.

Sizing is only swagging the boolit. I have found the less I have to upset a boolit with the sizer, the more accurate that bullet will likely be.
Every step in the cast bullet process does 1 of three things, a) makes the bullet more accurate, b) makes the bullet less accurage, and c) does nothing and is a wasted step but we do it anyway...