Milling down mold

[silverjay]

I somehow managed to end up with two NOE 41 cal 225 grain SWC molds. Was thinking about milling one down to drop a 190 grain boolit. Will this take too much material off the base for it to shoot well? Anyone done this change before?

[Mitch]

sell it and get another mold.i do not see any NOE molds I would mill down.no point in screwing up a good mold and have it be useless.

[country gent]

If a grease grooved bullet then it would have to go from base to bullet dia one groove at a time. and may not end up exactly where you want. Also simply milling off the base leaves a "long Nose" and shorter driving band section which could become an issue. I woud sell it or cast with the 2 together and buy what you want for the second.

[dubber123]

If you have access to a lathe, mill the amount you are considering off a handful of boolits and shoot them. May tell you what you want to know before nibbling at the mold.

[ukrifleman]

177912
I somehow managed to end up with two NOE 41 cal 225 grain SWC molds. Was thinking about milling one down to drop a 190 grain boolit. Will this take too much material off the base for it to shoot well? Anyone done this change before?

I skimmed the base of a 6.5 Lee `cruise missile` mould to reduce the bullet weight from 170gn to 150gn with no issues.

ukrifleman.

[Oyeboten]

177912

I skimmed the base of a 6.5 Lee `cruise missile` mould to reduce the bullet weight from 170gn to 150gn with no issues.

ukrifleman.


With the right Mold, this could also be a nice way to have a little lighter, non Gas check Boolit.

[NoAngel]

It will work...if done right.

I have a 311291 that I set up in my lathe and faced off the gas check shank and bottom lube groove, making the next driving band the bottom driving band. It is now, a 130g plain base that works in my .30 Badger extremely well.

If you have a four jaw chuck, it can be done in a lathe just as easy as a mill.

[725]

I like the idea of milling a cast boolit in stages to see what it's new weight will be at the various lengths. Should tell you exactly where to millthe mold.

[WALLNUTT]

I had a tool&die friend convert a RCBS 180FNGC to a 138gr PB and it works fine. But with your NOE I think I'd sell it and get what I wanted unless you're doing it yourself. I will say however it seems PB bullets with wider base bands shoot better than narrow base bands.

[Highway41]

I somehow managed to end up with two NOE 41 cal 225 grain SWC molds. Was thinking about milling one down to drop a 190 grain boolit. Will this take too much material off the base for it to shoot well? Anyone done this change before?
If that's a HP die I would definitely be interested in taking it off your hands.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[silverjay]

I like the idea of milling down a few to try. I think I will try that first.

[silverjay]

If that's a HP die I would definitely be interested in taking it off your hands.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

Not a hollow point, sorry.

[Chill Wills]

I was just doing one the other day. Not to shorten the bullet or make a plain base but rather to repair / remove the galling on a used mold I acquired that cast bad fins on the bullet base.177976

The base of what started out as a really well made bullet mold had been scared to the point of uselessness. I lost 0.010" of base band but gained a mold. Rather than change the setup on the mill to use a wide cutter, I just made 10 passes and in about ten minutes I had a brand new, flat base for the plate to mate to. 100% fix of that area of the mold block.
There were a few other problems with this mold too. That can be another story.

[MT Gianni]

A used NOE will generally sell for 75% -85% of new cost. I believe set up time on a lathe would be more than that.

[blikseme300]

Here is how I modified a mold in a mill:

http://www.bliksemdonder.com/hobbies/cast-boolits/lee-mold/