donhuff
05-11-2013, 04:35 PM
So I bought a lyman 4 cavity mold a few months back and when I finally got around to trying it out, I found out that Lyman likes to make them so that they drop at .429. I cast up a couple hundred and loaded them over 9.0 Unique, my favorite load for 44 plinking. I shot these in a new Rossi 92 that I had just gotten and these were the first boolits to go down the barrel. I slugged the bore before I ever shot it as I have learned by reading on here the importance of a proper fit. It measured across two set at .429-and the other set .430. So now I have too small of a bullet. At the range, the gun shot these too small bullets extremely well, but as you might guess, I was getting a little leading. I would brush it out every 50-75 shots and it kept on grouping just as good.
But back at the house I tried casting some more bullets with tape between the molds and it did make them a little bigger, but not enough to make me happy. And the tape will fall out sometimes without me knowing it and then I have small bullet in the water bucket mixed in with my big bullets. I dont like having to do it like this but I dont want to toss the mold and buy a good one.
I have a bunch of cutting tools that one of my sons "borrowed" from one of his previous jobs at a machine shop. And in the bunch were several 7/16th" hand reamers. Hummmmmm, that's .4375" and the holes in the mold are a little smaller. So I tried reaming the bottom band of one of the cavitys. It looked pretty good! The end of the ream is cut on a 45* so I took it all the way down until it cut a nice 45 on the grease groove metal, just enough to make a clean cut all the way across. This mold has the flat bottomed grease groove and it is BIG a plenty so that I'm not losing much grease capacity.
I fired up the lead pot and cast a few. I can't remember what size they dropped at, but they ran through my .431 sizer perfectly, with that pretty slick, shinny look all the way around. Now I had boolits that were the just right size for my gun, at least on the bottom band. My thinking was it doesn't really matter which band is bigger, as long as one of them is. One band should do for sealing the gases and pressure. Ideally, the whole bullet should be bigger but I dont see me cutting the ream so that it can take metal off all the bands and not screw up the grooves. Plus I would have to cut while closing the mold on the cutter. NOPE that aint gonna happen. I do know my limits and that is one of them.
So at the range, did it do any good? Don't know for sure about the accuracy as to whether it messed it up or not as I was having a bad group day. Even the same bullets/load that I had shot previously that grouped so well, AND my 22 that I know shoots better than me all grouped poorly. Just one of those days. BUT, after 181 shots, there was not one speck of lead. NONE. I am very happy with that.
So there's maybe one more way to save those molds that are too small, and from what I have read on here, there are a lot of them. I also have a Lee 429-310 that I milled the gas check shank off of, and it is now a 265 grain slug which better suits my kind of plinking. I dont need 300+ grains for paper and beer cans. I did the reaming on it too as it was also small at .429. It worked as well for it, as it did on the lyman, but you have to be a little more careful with the aluminum and also the grease groove is on the small side. Also, these should help my ruger blackhawk as the throats are .431-.4315. It takes a little tap with a hammer and the new bullets go right through.
Don Huff
But back at the house I tried casting some more bullets with tape between the molds and it did make them a little bigger, but not enough to make me happy. And the tape will fall out sometimes without me knowing it and then I have small bullet in the water bucket mixed in with my big bullets. I dont like having to do it like this but I dont want to toss the mold and buy a good one.
I have a bunch of cutting tools that one of my sons "borrowed" from one of his previous jobs at a machine shop. And in the bunch were several 7/16th" hand reamers. Hummmmmm, that's .4375" and the holes in the mold are a little smaller. So I tried reaming the bottom band of one of the cavitys. It looked pretty good! The end of the ream is cut on a 45* so I took it all the way down until it cut a nice 45 on the grease groove metal, just enough to make a clean cut all the way across. This mold has the flat bottomed grease groove and it is BIG a plenty so that I'm not losing much grease capacity.
I fired up the lead pot and cast a few. I can't remember what size they dropped at, but they ran through my .431 sizer perfectly, with that pretty slick, shinny look all the way around. Now I had boolits that were the just right size for my gun, at least on the bottom band. My thinking was it doesn't really matter which band is bigger, as long as one of them is. One band should do for sealing the gases and pressure. Ideally, the whole bullet should be bigger but I dont see me cutting the ream so that it can take metal off all the bands and not screw up the grooves. Plus I would have to cut while closing the mold on the cutter. NOPE that aint gonna happen. I do know my limits and that is one of them.
So at the range, did it do any good? Don't know for sure about the accuracy as to whether it messed it up or not as I was having a bad group day. Even the same bullets/load that I had shot previously that grouped so well, AND my 22 that I know shoots better than me all grouped poorly. Just one of those days. BUT, after 181 shots, there was not one speck of lead. NONE. I am very happy with that.
So there's maybe one more way to save those molds that are too small, and from what I have read on here, there are a lot of them. I also have a Lee 429-310 that I milled the gas check shank off of, and it is now a 265 grain slug which better suits my kind of plinking. I dont need 300+ grains for paper and beer cans. I did the reaming on it too as it was also small at .429. It worked as well for it, as it did on the lyman, but you have to be a little more careful with the aluminum and also the grease groove is on the small side. Also, these should help my ruger blackhawk as the throats are .431-.4315. It takes a little tap with a hammer and the new bullets go right through.
Don Huff