Put GC on PB?

[Will]

Does anyone have a way to put a GC on a PB boolit? I have a 311410 that I want to shoot at about 2000fps but it gets wild above 1600fps.

Will

[kodiak1]

Mighr be a little tough Will, There needs to be that inst at the bottom of the bullet for the gas check to go on.
A plain base bullet you would be trying to squeeze it so hard to get rid of the lead that has to be displaced for the Gas Check.
Ken.

[muffinman]

Will go to the castpics site I just read a article there lastnight about putting gas checks on plainbase boolits, looks pretty simple gonna try it this weekend. mark

[JSnover]

There are a couple of threads about flat gas checks; basically putting a washer under the PB boolit. A couple of guys had decent results but I got the impression it just wasn't worth it.

[Will]

The article in castpics is interesting. I think I'll give it a try.

[muffinman]

Yep, why not? Im not going to worry about making any tools till i try a few and see how they work. Let us know how yours turn out.

[44man]

I don't think the gas check will cure the accuracy problem.
What you can try is just put the check in the mold, make sure it is all the way down and cast a boolit right on it.

[Larry Gibson]

I don't think the gas check will cure the accuracy problem.
What you can try is just put the check in the mold, make sure it is all the way down and cast a boolit right on it.

That's kind of hard to do with a bottom pour mould.

Larry Gibson

[Larry Gibson]

Will

I've done it with several PB bullets that have sufficient taper to enter the GC. I use a GC seater and scrunch the bullet down in until the base bottoms out. I then run it throught the sizer to crimp the GC. Never tried it with 311410 but have done so successfully with a couple others.

Larry Gibson

[crazy mark]

I made a sizer die without any lube holes and the bottom part is the proper size for a GC on a 35 cal bullet and the top part is .359 so the boolit can't bump up too much. Using the right top punch makes it much easier. I lube the boolit first in a .358 die. Making one to do 30 cals shouldn't be too hard if one had the time. Mark

[beagle]

The problem with GCing a PB .30 is that it's hard to find a sizer die the proper size to swage the base band. Not everyone has one laying around.

Mark's idea is best if you have access to a good machinist.

It is possible to punch a hole in the GC from the convex side and cast through the hole. This does very well and the ragged edges on the hole tend to cast into the metal and bond the GC to the bullet. Float the punched GCs on top of the melt and pick them up with a pair of forcepts and drop them in the mould, straighten and cast. Works well for the 358430 195 grain and the .35 Remington. Also does well with the 45712X series of Lyman moulds for the .45/70.

If you mess one up, drop it back in in the pot and recycle./beagle

[beagle]

The 311410 may not do that well at higher velocities. I had factory HP mould once and tried it in the .30/30. Did not work for me. The 311410 has a fairly short bearing surface and this may be the reason. The best light bullet I've found is a 311465. That's been a winner in everything from the .30 Carbine to the .30/06 as a lightweight bullet./beagle

[44man]

It is hard with a bottom pour. But I made a punch to cut the center out of the check and it works fine. Just have to get it level with the top of the mold.
It's easy with my nose pour though.
I have also tried the check at various drive bands.
I did it just to see if there would be a difference and never found any over the PB in my revolvers.
Usually if a boolit shoots good at one velocity and won't if driven faster, the boolit does not match the twist at the higher speed. A different length boolit would solve it but I don't think just adding a check will cure it.
Unless of course the pressure is so high it is destroying the base. Hard to tell unless some are caught undamaged to inspect.
Here is one with a front check, hard base and a pure lead nose.

[Scrounger]

This is probably weird and unworkable, but... You know those inside/outside deburring tools Lyman and other companies make? I wondered if it would be possible to make/alter one of them to cut the gas check shank on a plain base bullet.

[felix]

Sizing dies would be faster and more appropriate, Art. I have requested they be made to order by Saeco several times, just like they (Redding brand) do for the neck sizing dies. Sizing rings in half thousands to be inserted into a mother die. ... felix

[black44hawk]

We folk are tinkerers by nature, however, in light of all that trouble I wonder what sort of velocity you could get with a simple wad?

[Scrounger]

You missed the point, Felix. I mean it to cut the lead away from a cast bullet like it cuts the brass in the case mouth.

[racepres]

Maybe this will help... drop me a note for more info.. MV
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=23276

[mroliver77]

So while we are here, do we really know what the gas check does and where in the barrel it does it? I have recovered many boolits with and without checks. It is amazing how the check is flattened and conforms to the boolit base. I guess I have never examined a plain base that was pushed to the point of failing.
J

[Poygan]

Buckshot recently made me an H die to put a taper on a .358 diameter boolit. I've tried it on an RCBS SWC and a .358429 and it seems to work just fine but I'm waiting for better weather to try some of the loads with it. The workmanship was great and the price was most reasonable.

[yeahbub]

I agree with CrazyMark and Felix. Having the boolit already in the die and perfectly aligned with the GC shank dia portion at the bottom would be a way I would trust to produce repeatable results. Actually, given a gently angled step from major to minor diameter, I don't see how it could mess up. A few years back, a friend and I made up a two-dia size die to bump the Lee C312-185-1R nose portion to the right dia for his rifle. Running the driving band portion into the minor dia was also no problem at all. A size die and heel post to match. Sounds simple to me.

Scrounger's idea of a cutter to skin the heel band down to GC shank dia would work also, but how would alignment be maintained? This suggests the need for other pieces of tooling to accomplish that part. In the past, I tried to skin some .430s down by lightly chucking them in a drill chuck and holding a file against the heel band as they spun, to get the dia down. It worked, but precise consistency wasn't my forte. A collet would have been a huge improvement over a drill chuck, but t'was not to be.

There is another low-cost low-tech gas checking technique for a Lyman 450 that worked well for me in the past, and it can be done on any flat base boolit that is several thousandths larger than the desired finished diameter. It involves a little machining, but only two pieces and doesn't use a conventional GC:

1. Machine some round stock (half hard 4140 or grade 8 bolt?) so the OD is a close drop-in fit inside the die retaining nut on a Lyman 450. Bore and finish ream a hole through the center .001-.002 greater than finished boolit diameter, deeper than .38", .50" will do nicely. Cut the end off the stock .25 -.38" long. Chuck it up and smoothly radius the hole edges (.06 is plenty) for an easy start for the boolit on both sides. I used a burr knife and polished with 400 grit sand paper. You now have a very short "partial sizing die ring" with a hole radiused on both ends.

2. Chuck up and counterbore the face of the Lyman die you plan to size with to .445 dia x .010 deep concentric within .003 with the sizer hole. I used .006 soft copper shim stock and this face will house the GC material in disk form centered on the sizer hole. Then, radius the entry hole on your sizer die (.010 approx), so tthe GC material will flow around it without being stretched much by going over an abrupt corner. How much is a matter of experimentation. It should provide enough resistance to smooth the shim stock onto the heel of the boolit without pleats and wrinkles, but not so much that the heel tears through it.

3. Buy or make a 7/16 punch to punch disks out of the copper stock. I punched them against smooth end grain wood which was ash, I think. I expect harder woods will be better for this. Lead would also work. The disk edges should not have a pronounced radius, since the counterbore on the sizer is only .010 deep and they would be hard to center. Whatever wire edge they do have should face upward so they'll become ironed into the heel band and help hold the check on.

Install the sizer in the 450. The way it works is put the copper disk in the counterbore of the sizing die, put the sizer ring on top and put the boolit heel in the hole and push the boolit through the ring and into the sizing die in one smooth motion, lube and eject. Remove the ring, center another disk on the sizer, replace the ring and you're ready to go again. The downward force exerted by forcing the boolit through the ring is to hold the ring against the sizer, keeping the disk flat rather than allowing it to bunch up into a "cupcake paper" and be wrinkly around the boolit heel. Depending on the as-cast dia, sometimes they did wrinkle up a bit, but I could tell no difference in performance. I also tried this with aluminum pop can material, but found that it needed to be annealed to result in a clean corner at the heel. This can be done with a torch, but I really didn't want any extra aluminum oxide wearing on my bore. I wanted to try some 7-UP cans, which used to be steel, but they had switched to aluminum by then. Might've been hard on the punch as well. Using .4375 dia copper disks will work well for .30 through the various 8mm's. These are a good bit cheaper than conventional GCs and can use a number of different materials. There's no GC-maker to build or buy, since the boolit itself accomplishes that. For those with access to the tooling it's a simple thing to do and isn't one of those 10-minute jobs that takes three days.

[Dieselhorses]

Resurrecting old thread here. Has anyone discovered any innovated methods of installing gas checks on PB bullets? Specifically-I have an NOE .503 350 GR mold that casts PB's. Someone mentioned in thread about an article at Casptpics.net but was unable to find. Thanks!

[Muddydogs]

Geez, I was reading this thread wondering if I was in the twilight zone thinking whats the big deal with GC a PB bullet and why isn't someone telling the OP to purchase a PB check maker and have at it. Well I finally noticed the date and realized the thread is 10 years old.

Dieselhorses
If you can find this old thread surly you came across other threads about GC PB bullets? Pat Marlin makes PB GC maker dies, a few vendors sell PB GC's and at the top of this forum there are a couple threads where guys have made there own PB check maker dies.

[RogerDat]

What he said. Buy or make a PB check maker, make checks out of thin aluminum from beverage cans.

[Dieselhorses]

What he said. Buy or make a PB check maker, make checks out of thin aluminum from beverage cans.

I want to put a regular "gas check" on a plain base bullet. But evidently the thin aluminum is better alternative. And "yes" I have run across other threads mentioning the latter. I guess I was curious if there was a way to ream the base to accommodate a standard check.

[fatboy]

i have pat marlins check makers and use the thin copper sheet (.011 i think) for plain base boolits. i have also used the beer can aluminum, which i should use all the time just because i keep making empty beer cans. that is a recycle program i can get behind..

[HCH]

Sage Outdoors checks work real well for me.

[longbow]

I can't say I have ever seen a way to put a GC shank on a PB boolit.

To cut one you'd likely need enough bearing surface on the boolit to allow use of a collet to hold the boolit while you used a single point tool to "machine" a GC step.

Alternately it may be possible to swage a GC shank but that would take a swaging press and with hard lead may not even be practical/possible.

PB gas checks have been around since about the 70's or maybe early 80's. First I saw of them was Paco Kelley and Ed Wosika made the Free Chex system which used a punch like a gasket punch to cut disks from beverage cans then the disks were dropped into a manual die and hammer formed with mallet and punch to make the check.

Just a bit of history.

I made an Ed Smith gas check maker for regular GC .30 cal. boolits and plan to make the same style check maker for PB boolits in both .30 and .44. I guess I'll try one first to see how they do.

Longbow

[Dieselhorses]

I can't say I have ever seen a way to put a GC shank on a PB boolit.

To cut one you'd likely need enough bearing surface on the boolit to allow use of a collet to hold the boolit while you used a single point tool to "machine" a GC step.

Alternately it may be possible to swage a GC shank but that would take a swaging press and with hard lead may not even be practical/possible.

PB gas checks have been around since about the 70's or maybe early 80's. First I saw of them was Paco Kelley and Ed Wosika made the Free Chex system which used a punch like a gasket punch to cut disks from beverage cans then the disks were dropped into a manual die and hammer formed with mallet and punch to make the check.

Just a bit of history.

I made an Ed Smith gas check maker for regular GC .30 cal. boolits and plan to make the same style check maker for PB boolits in both .30 and .44. I guess I'll try one first to see how they do.

Longbow

Good information. I think I’m on to something that will easily transform plain based bullets.


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[Terrence Clarke]

In straight walled cases like 45/70 and others, i have put a gas check up side down, behind the the projectile and seated it,done this hundreds of times with no problems

[cwlongshot]

If a bullets design calls for a GC... I put one on. If I don't need a GC, I choose a different bullet.

https://oimg.photobucket.com/albums/v465/CWLONGSHOT/Temp%20stuff/sporting%20pics/Bullets/Casting/Powder%20Coating/EADF6004-7CEB-4F2F-BC65-FD48D5947D4C_zpsxya7ocxj.jpeg

[sparky45]

Beautiful job PC'n that bullet longshot.

[cwlongshot]

Thank you sir!
:cbpour:

[Ozark mike]

I tend to shoot a lot of pb 45-70 ammo as far as protecting the bullet a grease cookie will suffice your mileage may vary

[longbow]

Here is a link to Ed Wosika and Paco Kelly's Freechec tool:

http://www.lasc.us/TaylorFreeChec.htm

The first gas check maker I made was like this where I punched disks wit a gasket punch like punch then dropped the disks into the forming die. It worked well but was tedious. Next check maker I made was the Ed Smith version which is posted here and still available. These were both for GC shank boolits but by simply changing punch and die diameters they could be made to produce the thin checks needed for PB boolits.

I like the single stroke punch and form tool Ed smith came up with. I used it with a mallet because so far I have been using old gutter aluminum for my checks and it runs about 0.019" thick so much thicker than regular checks but the aluminum just extrudes a deeper cup and still work fine. For PB checks the punch would need to be larger for the full boolit diameter and die as well with smaller gap for the thinner material. Easy to do.

If you have a lathe or friend with a lathe the tool is pretty easy to make.

Longbow

[Dieselhorses]

Sage Outdoors checks work real well for me.

Just for the record .458 is the biggest Sage offers

[Dieselhorses]

In straight walled cases like 45/70 and others, i have put a gas check up side down, behind the the projectile and seated it,done this hundreds of times with no problems

Dumb question. How do you seat a gas check upside down?

[El Bibliotecario]

If one goes to the MidwayUSA website and wades through the customer reviews for the Hornaday cam-lock bullet puller, somewhere there is a detailed description about using this tool to modify bullets to accept gas checks. I have never tried this.

I have successfully crimped gas checks on Missouri Bullets bevel base .358 pistol bullets without any special tools or modification to the bullet.

[Handloader109]

Do it the other way.... Put the Gas check on the bullet and then powder coat it. I've done it with my 22tcm bullets. But found at 2000fps it really didnt help any. So I just powder coat and fergit it.

[jjarrell]

Sage Outdoors sells aluminum gas checks made for plain base bullets. I tried them and they didn't make the grade. It didn't fit my bore correctly. Slapping a GC on a bullet that doesn't fit your bore properly won't cure leading issues. I like Gator gas checks on bullets from a mold designed for copper gas checks. If you're using White Label Carnauba Red for lube and getting leading with a Gator GC then the bullet doesn't fit your bore.

Google the name, go to their site, and buy them by the 1000, 500, or 250. Easier than buying another tool and spending time on such a tedious task. If someone wants to make their own I think that's great. Live and let live. I just have no desire to cut up pop cans and punch out little disks. Rather buy them.
240489

[jjarrell]

Just for the record .458 is the biggest Sage offers

I'm sorry but you are incorrect.
https://www.sagesoutdoors.com/500-s-w-caliber-gator-gas-checks/

https://www.sagesoutdoors.com/50-rifle-caliber-copper-gas-checks/

[Ozark mike]

I think it would be pretty quick if you punched them out with a circular cutter

[jjarrell]

If making your own GC's is something you enjoy then by all means have at it. Reloading is all about enjoyment. I would just rather open the bag and use them as I need them.

There comes a point where the work involved in trying to combat leading becomes more labor intensive than using a bore brush to clean it out. If you have a GC bullet properly sized to your bore and use a lube designed for the velocity you're achieving then leading won't be a problem. An improperly sized bullet won't give the accuracy one is looking to attain no matter what you do to it, and you WILL get leading if that is the case.

Here's food for thought. I get over 1700 fps from a black powder rifle with a pure lead dead soft bullet. No leading at all. Why? Because the bullet is the proper size that it seals the bore completely. People tend to get a mold because the like how it looks and then use it because that's what they have. They don't slug the bore to see what size they actually need before getting the mold. A properly sized bullet needs to be .001-.002" larger than the groove diameter to seal the bore properly and travel squarely down the bore. A .457 bullet will not seal a .458-.4585 bore and will not be aligned as it travels the length of the barrel. GC's will not fix this problem. It will be the same for larger calibers also.

Say you have a .457 plain base bullet in a .458 bore. It leads, so then you add a GC. It seals the base of the bullet but it forces the bullet to travel down the bore slightly canted because the base is larger than the driving ring at the nose. Which causes even worse leading. Now you have more time and money invested than you would have if you had just ordered a larger than bore mold and sized it to what your particular bore requires. But you are still scrubbing lead from the bore. It can be maddening.

[Petander]

Does anyone have a way to put a GC on a PB boolit? I have a 311410 that I want to shoot at about 2000fps but it gets wild above 1600fps.

Will

I used to seat 50 cal checks on 458 pb bullets. It took lots of brute force, I used a modified Lee sizer die and a Rockchucker press. Pushed them in base first. Checks re-formed and swaged into bullets quite ok but not always perfectly centered.

I pushed those 460 grainers up to 2000 fps with a 45-70,accuracy was 2" / 100 meters.

I wouldn't bother with that any more, swaging/seating 50 bullets was just too much excercise. Surprisingly the press was able to handle it,I made some 200 altogether one summer years ago.

But it can be done unless the alloy is very hard.

[longbow]

I am surprised you managed to get them swaged on in a reloading press!

I haven't done any PB boolits with the tin checks but even that is supposed to take a bit of "oomph" to get them on. Reforming full thickness .50 cal check onto .458 boolits must take some significant "oooomph!"

That speaks well of your press I'd say and you likely have forearms like Popeye!

Longbow

[Petander]

Yep it took some force,I was shooting 500 S&W at the time and had Hornady checks. Those Rock Chuckers are strong.

I'd post a pic but can't find any of those bullets right now. The swaged GC walls are much higher than normal and look good. I found a few dozen of those boolits last fall,soaked the old lube out with gasoline and then Hi-Tek coated the boolits. Then I stored them in a too safe place.

[cwlongshot]

241368

[Alferd Packer]

I have dipped a Plain Based bullet in tumble lube and stuck on a centered gas check upside down while lube was still wet.
Also used a doubled aluminum can thickness punched out and centered on bullet base while still wet. You need a piece of wood with shallow holes to stand the bullets on their nose till the lube dries kind of like a varnish. Experimented with slightly thinning lube with mineral spirits or paint thinner.
You can size the bullets first, although the Aluminum checks seemed to stay on after sizing, but not always.
The inverted gas checks of course must be added after sizing. Also used punched paper discs and plastic coffee can lid punched out discs glued on same way using tumble lube.
They also added after presizing

[bld451]

Does anyone have a way to put a GC on a PB boolit? I have a 311410 that I want to shoot at about 2000fps but it gets wild above 1600fps.

Will

I have the same question. I will be doing a initial test this week on that very bullet. Made a pretty basic checkmaker and think I might have dimensions narrowed down for the real setup.

Here's how it turned out so far...262088


Also doing some NOE 153's
262087