THANKS CAST BOOLITS: Just Finished My First Mould !!!

[Southron Sanders]

Thanks to this website and all the posts (especially those of Buckshot) that have inspired me to start making bullet moulds and equipped me with the knowledge to do so!

For the past several months, off and on, I have been experimenting with making bullet moulds on my Smithy-using both the "Lathe Boring" and the "Cherry" Method.

I am sure that I would have finished my moulds a lot sooner except for the fact that I have been determined to make a "Gardner" Bullet Mould. The Gardner round is a bit more complicated design than your regular bullet mould. This was a Confederate invention and became the "Classic Southern Minie Ball" of the 'Late Unpleasantness Between the States.'

The Gardner is cast with a flange just above the the bottom. Then the round is run thru a sizer that turns the flange down to not only grasp the top of the paper cartridge case, but also the turned down flange becomes the rear band on the bullet. I finally went with the "Cherry" method to make a .54 caliber Gardner mould.

I make no claim to being a machinist. I made enough mistakes along the way to realize what I was doing wrong-corrected them and have finally met with success!
Yep, I plan to keep on making bullet moulds. I enjoy doing the work and of course, shooting new bullets from moulds I make will give me just another excuse to go shooting!

[Halfbreed]

excellant work, but wheres the pictures, can't just leave us hangin here right?

[Southron Sanders]

Sorry about the pics-No camera.

Will try to borry a camera and post pictures one of these days!

[Boomer Mikey]

Good deal SS,

Congratulations, it's a good thing when a person's passion overcomes the perceived obstacles along way. We look forward to seeing more of your goals achieved.

Boomer

[Buckshot]

Sorry about the pics-No camera.

Will try to borry a camera and post pictures one of these days!

Yeah, I didn't see the 'Picture' icon by the thread header but I thought for sure there would be a URL to a photobucket deal or somesuch. No joy on that either, major bummer dude![smilie=l:

Ya know, no one is gonna believe ya until we see PICTURES :kidding:

................Buckshot

[StrawHat]

Just the fact that you know what a "Gardner bullet" is helps lessen some of the longing for photos.

Are you going to make the sizer for it also?

Other questions,

What weight?

What charge?

What are you shooting it in?

Keep experimenting and reporting.

[JSnover]

I make no claim to being a machinist. I made enough mistakes along the way to realize what I was doing wrong-corrected them and have finally met with success!
Yep, I plan to keep on making bullet moulds. I enjoy doing the work and of course, shooting new bullets from moulds I make will give me just another excuse to go shooting!

You have my sympathy, sir. On top of becoming addicted to cast boolits, you'll soon lie awake nights, thinking of better ways to machine the parts and equipment you need. But that's ok 'cause you're gonna love it!

[kjg]

OK fella's SS has been a great friend for over 10 years,(we were talking today) and went visiting him today and havent seen him his wife or son and his family, and his gardner bullet is rather ingiious, the design is vagly simmilar to the original garner bullet, and does work, after sizing, when sizing bullet a paper cartrige is appiled as bullet skirt is swagded, hard to explain how it is done, and is really cool. and yes he has been playing around with this thing for years and all gremlins are almost worked out, the bullet sould weigh close to 500 grains, to give a close idea on what it will look like a standard civil war bullet similar to lee origianal minni with differences, am going to get pictures of this process for him, in the next few weeks most likely within a month or less, and have talked him into, .30 cal molds, we were looking at some older cerry moulds and found one to work out shotgun slugs with my expireance with casting for centerfires and black powder were working on some good thing to come, so please encourage ss and some fine goods comming soon too this site. kjg

[JohnH]

..... 'Late Unpleasantness Between the States.'

The only unpleasantness is that the Yankees stayed and would'nt tolerate us shooten' at 'em no more. Took the fun outta everything. I just can't have nutthin' nice :) (All Yankee boolit casters exempted from contempt of course :) )

[kjg]

[smilie=1:[smilie=1::mrgreen: kjg

[StrawHat]

[smilie=1:[smilie=1::mrgreen: kjg

Whistling Dixie????

[kjg]

you betcha