Has anyone got any good results from milling a Midsouth 6.5 cruise missile mold?

[Yodogsandman]

Has anyone had any good results from milling a Midsouth cruise missile mold? I tried my boolits from a new Midsouth 6.5 mold. It shot well using 9.0gr Unique on the first try with an O.A.L. of 2.935". I got a 1 1/8" group at 50 yards and a 2 1/2", 10 shot group at 100 yards in my M38 6.5x55 Swede. All the bullet holes were oblonged a half caliber, indicating yawing. I expected it from prior threads. Some of those prior threads say they were going to try milling the mold off to the top of the first band and use the lube groove for the gas check. I can't find any results from those tests.

[texassako]

I was wondering the same thing, and thought I had read a thread about it. maybe it was just the cut down molds and no tests. Lee had them on their clearance page for $17, and I couldn't pass up on adding it to my order. I have not tried it in my Carcano yet to see how it flies, but figured on cutting it down from the get go. Eric at Hollow Point Mold Service told me it could only be cut down .07" before getting in to the pins.

[ukrifleman]

109570 I use the `Cruise Missile` in my M91 Carcano, cut down to 150gn.

I had the mould machined to remove the lower driving band and fix gas checks to the base with Lok-Tite, then tumble lube with 2 coats of Lee liquid Alox.

The mould drops at .2695, I shoot as cast and I can achieve 3" groups at 100m with 11.0gn of GM3, with an average m/v of around 1500 fps.

Avoid seating the bullet below the case neck into the shoulder, as this will tear the gas check off.

ukrifleman.

[Yodogsandman]

ukrifleman, did you try lapping the lube groove to open it up to fit the gas check? Do your bullets fly straight with no yawing? As stated, I got a 2 1/2" group the first time out but, the holes are oblonged indicating bullet yawing.

[Yodogsandman]

ukrifleman, BTW, pretty boolits and nice photo!

[ukrifleman]

I just glued the gas check to the lube groove with Lok-Tite with no lapping.
My bullets fly straight with no `tail out`, I suggest you play around with the BHN of the alloy and the powder charge to get an optimum load to suit your particular rifle.

It took me a while to come up with the optimum load for my M91 Carcano, the gain twist rifling was the biggest hurdle to overcome.

I tried different alloy mixes from 11.9 to 20.9 BHN with minor difference,(the softer alloy was marginally better). The 11.0gn charge of GM3 produced the best groups with an average m/v of around 1500fps.

I think you will just have to tinker until you get it right.

One thing I will say is that in my M91 Carcano, the lighter bullet performed better, you might come to a different conclusion.

Best of luck!
ukrifleman.

[Yodogsandman]

ukrifleman, I haven't milled my mold yet. Glad to hear someone has had good luck with it. Did you have to adjust the alloy to get the boolits from the milled mold to fly straight? Or was it to give you the best accuracy? Thanks so much for your help!

I've never modified a mold and I'm trying to decide whether to do the milling job. I'm thinking of cutting and filing off the bases of some of the boolits to try it out first before I cut anything. I also want to try hollow pointing the boolits first, just to see if that stabilizes it's flight. I'll hollow point them with my drill press and if it works, put hollow point pins in the mold.

[ukrifleman]

I used the harder alloy 150gn bullets with a variety of powders and pushed the m/v to about 1800fps.
All the faster loads were either using H4895, B-LC (2), Rel 15 or TR140. None performed well, either erratic groups and/or tail out/key holing problems.

It could be just my rifle with its gain twist rifling but, by far the most accurate and consistent loads I have produced are with 11.0gn GM3 with a m/v of around 1500fps. I have to say at this point that the farthest I have pushed these loads is out to 100m where I managed 3MOA groups.

The bullet hardness had a much less effect on performance than the type of powder used.

If it were me, I would continue with load development using Unique and if you can, chrono the loads.

I would imagine a m/v under 1400fps would be too slow for bullet stability.

It took me a while to get the `Cruise Missile` to fly straight, but I am satisfied with the way it performs now.

ukrifleman.

[Yodogsandman]

Made a jig for my drill press but, still had problems getting the boolits centered. I used a 5/64" drill bit and drilled .510" deep to hollow point the boolits from the 6.5 cruise missile mold. Lubed and checked the original design weighs 176gr with my alloy. After hollow pointing they weigh 168gr. Lots of rejects. Took the five best for loading.

Using the same jig, just turned some other boolits around and hack sawed the first driving band off and filed them to length. Left the lube groove alone and used it to seat new hornady gas checks. What a hack job! I did note that the gas checks seemed to crimp on OK. Boolits were now 1.085"-1.90" and weigh from 145gr to 150gr. Made just five to try out.

I loaded both up with same load as before, 9.0gr Unique. Hollow pointed came out with a C.O.A.L of 2.940". The shortened boolit load was a C.O.A.L. of 2.935" as before. This length kept some of the gas check in the case neck. I'll shoot these in my 6.5X55 Swede next time out. I don't expect much, too much variation using hand tools. I'm hoping that one or the other will show straightening of the boolit in flight with no yawing..

[35 shooter]

It'll be interesting to see how all this turns out! Kind of betting on the hollow point for now!:)

[Yodogsandman]

Guys, I think I'm going to need to bring a big piece of cardboard, to catch bullet holes off the target. I'll keep the range short, too. 50 yards only. Last week, initial groups showed oblong holes at 50 yards also.

ukrifleman, I'd chronograph the loads if I could find the tripod to set it up on. I used the tripod for coyote hunting just last winter with a shooting rest attached on top. I know it's here somewhere!

[ukrifleman]

Best of luck with your bullet trials, I found it a long and rocky road until I got it right.

Hang in there!

ukrifleman.

[Yodogsandman]

Well, it turns out I didn't need that big ol piece of cardboard after all. All shots were on paper at 50 yards. I shot today after most of the aftermath of huricane/depression Arthur. Still had 10-20 MPH gusty winds, 85 degrees and sunny. Groups were about the same size. The last two shots opened up the group just a tad on the ones I cut off, shots 9 and 10 in a row. I didn't stop at all to alow the barrel to cool. I had to run off to work as soon as I got home, so from work, can't give exact group size. Both about 1 1/8" as before though, at 50 yards. I'll try to upload some photos tommorow. Here's what happened...

Cut-off boolits seemed to fly straight. No oval holes. Needs more investigation. Maybe hack some more and try at 100 yards!

Hollow Pointed boolits still shot oblong holes! Shocked that they flew so well! They weren't perfect.

[35 shooter]

I am surprised the cut offs shot straighter than the hollow points. Must have come up with a better balanced boolit with the cut offs?

[Yodogsandman]

Those hollow points would have been just the ticket for hunting. At about 168gr, hollow pointed....WoW! I also tried the oversized Lee cruise missile with another grain of Unique at 100 yards. Larger group and seemed like more oblonged holes. The wind was pretty gusty though.

There's a real good thread on hollow pointing the mould with a drill press and some bushings. I might want to really study that one.

There's also a great thread on milling the mold off to the top of the first band.

1 + 1 =Maybe WoW!

[nekshot]

when I run into a cruise mold I have long ago settled the fact I will mill it shorter. It blows me away how hard it is to learn from the big league guys that this mold is too long for the normal folk like me. I am not surprised at your results and it is encouraging me to maybe let a barrel on a carcano if one happens upon me again!(they are so cute in nice short american cartridges that I can't help myself from heading to the vise!)

[Yodogsandman]

In this case, I couldn't find a thread that included the results of milling the mold off. Dead silence after they cut it. I'm looking for results from prior posts.

Here are results from my shooting... notice the oblong holes in photo #1 and#3 and how the cut-off ones flew straight.

[texassako]

Thanks for putting some results up. I was going to cut down some bullets in the lathe before cutting the actual mold.

[Yodogsandman]

Note that the velocities were low, maybe 1400 ft/sec. Will have to try at 100 yards and try some with more powder.

[Yodogsandman]

Talked to a guy, who knows a guy, that might be able to machine my blocks down. I was so happy....I forgot to ask to have one cavity hollow pointed, too! I'll find out if he got to it next Monday, I think he's doing it at work.

[bigted]

just a thought here from the peanut gallery ... why not cut your mold off at the base of the next grease groove ... flat for no gas check? seems like the problem is too long of a boolit ... maybe in the grooves ... so if you took it off plumb with the bottom of the next grease groove it would reasson that the rite track is being followed.

also you do not run these fast enough to matter but if leading occured ... then stiffen up the mix for some harder boolit material ... also if the hollowpointing is a real advantage to varminting then the harder mix should benefit there also.

if you have access to a lathe then i think i would experiment with the bottom length as well as the hollow pointed boolits before adjusting the mold length.

just some thoughts.

[Yodogsandman]

texassako, I certainly wanted to see some improvement, or some posts about the improvement, before milling anything. As you've read, I just hacked em off and filed them kinda flat. I'm as surprised as anyone that I got as good as I got.

bigted, glad to have you chime in! I didn't even think of a PB! Too late for this cut, I just handed off the mold this afternoon for milling. It's certainly another option if this doesn't work out. I don't have a PB mold for any rifles, yet.

These are just my first loadings. I've really only shot about 150 boolits from two molds in the 6.5 Swede. I would like to run these faster but, from what I've read, I'm limited mostly by the twist rate. The alloy of course can stretch these limits a bit. For this and most rifle loads I use AC COWW +2% SN, aged about a month or so...It seems pretty tough. I just HT'd my first batch of boolits for my 35 Whelen, I think the last load I shot was about 2100 FPS with a 306gr dressed boolit. Before HT'ing, I figure I started losing accuracy at about 1800 FPS. I'm not sure if HT'ing is what you meant by "also you do not run these fast enough to matter but if leading occured ... then stiffen up the mix for some harder boolit material"

I don't feel that I'll need hollow pointing, really. What a PITA to mold! Greater frontal upset, on a 6.5mm, could help with a clean kill, though.

I've been toying with the idea of powder coating boolits for the 6.5x55 Swede. I think this caliber, with it's twist rate, may benefit from the higher velocities achieved by PCing, that's being tested now by others. With or without a GC. They're coating the bases on PB's and getting better velocity. So I'm thinking that if you heated the GC'd boolit to about 400 degrees for a half hour, PC'd them, heated them back to 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes for curing, then dump them in cold water immediately. Then re-size and wait a week or so to shoot them. You'd have a HT'd, PC'd boolit for trying higher velocities. Now ,if you didn't coat the noses and if you stood those boolits in a pan of water, with the noses poking out, you could re-heat the noses with a torch and allow them to air cool. This would reduce the "temper" of the nose, softening just the nose, for better frontal upset. I'd want to use a heat indicating, welding crayon thingy of about 400 degrees on the nose to prevent them from melting.

For now, I'm just looking to try to get boolits from this mold to shoot straight and be accurate.

Just my thoughts....while my mind spins in place!