bedbugbilly
10-18-2020, 05:33 PM
Long story short – I fell in love with the .223 after shooting a friend’s and I got a Ruger All American Ranch bolt action - .223/5.56 and put a Leopold Freedom scope on it. Then the Covid crisis hit- then at the end of April, I had to have emergency surgery on a foot/ankle that resulted in a 6 month recover. So today, I finally got to the garage to do a little casting after a long dry spell. I had three different molds to try out for the .223. I am primarily a plinker/can killer and am not going to push the boolits hard – just want to play with different boolits using Red Dot or Bulls Eye along with data from the Lyman Cast Bulet Handbooks. Plan on playing with plain base as well as gas check. I do have a decent supply of 55 grain .224 FMJ and both Varget and H335 for those.
I started with the Lee C224-55 in a double cavity. I’m pretty low tech but am using some hard lead that I purchased from a member here. I ladle cast out of a 10 pound Lee pot. I got everything fired up – started casting and was very happy with the results of the Lee mold. They dropped like butter with excellent results – perfect cavity and base fill and couldn’t be happier. So – off to a very good start and I cast about 200 and will size and gas checkt them tomorrow.
The next mold I tried was a NOE 225-45 – a five cavity set of aluminum blocks that casts a nice round nose flat point 45 grain gas check boolit. I bought it off a member here. (I LOVE all of my NOE molds!). They dropped like butter from all the cavities with excellent results and excellet bases – ready to gas check. I’m anxious to try these with the Red Dot as well.
THEN THE TROUBLES STARTED . . . .
Quite a while ago, I purchased a double cavity Lyman 225-462 that is supposed to throw a 57 grain round nose gas check boolit. On a whim, I bought it off of evilbay and at a decent price – should have known better. At a casual glance at the blocks – everything looked good when it arrived. I put it away, knowing it would be quite a while before I would be casting. After the above two molds – “I was on a roll!”. NOT SO QUICK!!! I had preheated the blocks and got good pours from the start. Everything functioned good – sprues cut with no issues and after cutting the sprues and looking at the end of the bases before opening the handles to drop both cavities – all looked “perfect”. They dropped like butter so I kept going until I had a pile of about 80 or so – then I took a break and grabbed a cold can of water. I decided to take what was cast and inspect them and put them in a plastic container before pouring more. I put my “cheaters on” – hey, I’m old and you young ones will need ‘em someday too. As soon as I picked up the first one to closely inspect it, I knew “something ain’t right!”. I inspected another twenty or so boolits and ALL were the same! The bottom of the gas check portion of the base is “canted”. In other words, the flat bottom of the base of the boolit is NOT at a right angle to the length of the boolit. It is this way for boolits from both cavities. I don’t have a camera so I can’t post photos, but if you look at the gas check bases, there is no way that there is enough material to crimp a gas check on and even if you could, it would be at an angle.
My first thought was that there may be a problem with the sprue plate. This set of “used” blocks looks like new and the top of the blocks are machined smooth and square with the sides of the blocks and the sprue plate is in perfect shape – it functions perfectly to cut the sprues. On closer examination of the blocks, it is evident that borth boolit cavities are machined at a very slight angle to the top of the blocks. I don’t know how the blocks are machined as far as fixtures to hold them while the cavities are cut with the cherry, but the first thing that goes through my mind is that there was a machining chip under the blocks or they were not clamped square with the cherry.
My guess is that the fellow I bought these blocks from knew they were bad so decided to “dump them”. I won’t do that. If anything, I’ll keep the screws for spares as well as the sprue plate and the two halves of the blocks will take a long trip over a short cliff – I won’t pass on a set of bad blocks. I have decided that I’m going to load these up as a plain base boolit over a mild charge of Red Dot and see how they fly. If they shoot accurately that way – then I’ll continue to use the mold and shoot them as plain base. My guess is that with the angle base, they may not work well. I have owned many molds in the past 50 or so years and have always had good luck with used Ideal ad Lyman blocks with the exception of one set that was mis-marked – it was a hollow base single cavity and the cavity did not match the mold number stamped on the blocks. Fortunately, I had another firearm that I could use the boolit from the mis-marked blocks in.
I’m not complaining as it is what it is – just never have seen this particular issue with a set of blocks in all the years I’ve been casting.
I started with the Lee C224-55 in a double cavity. I’m pretty low tech but am using some hard lead that I purchased from a member here. I ladle cast out of a 10 pound Lee pot. I got everything fired up – started casting and was very happy with the results of the Lee mold. They dropped like butter with excellent results – perfect cavity and base fill and couldn’t be happier. So – off to a very good start and I cast about 200 and will size and gas checkt them tomorrow.
The next mold I tried was a NOE 225-45 – a five cavity set of aluminum blocks that casts a nice round nose flat point 45 grain gas check boolit. I bought it off a member here. (I LOVE all of my NOE molds!). They dropped like butter from all the cavities with excellent results and excellet bases – ready to gas check. I’m anxious to try these with the Red Dot as well.
THEN THE TROUBLES STARTED . . . .
Quite a while ago, I purchased a double cavity Lyman 225-462 that is supposed to throw a 57 grain round nose gas check boolit. On a whim, I bought it off of evilbay and at a decent price – should have known better. At a casual glance at the blocks – everything looked good when it arrived. I put it away, knowing it would be quite a while before I would be casting. After the above two molds – “I was on a roll!”. NOT SO QUICK!!! I had preheated the blocks and got good pours from the start. Everything functioned good – sprues cut with no issues and after cutting the sprues and looking at the end of the bases before opening the handles to drop both cavities – all looked “perfect”. They dropped like butter so I kept going until I had a pile of about 80 or so – then I took a break and grabbed a cold can of water. I decided to take what was cast and inspect them and put them in a plastic container before pouring more. I put my “cheaters on” – hey, I’m old and you young ones will need ‘em someday too. As soon as I picked up the first one to closely inspect it, I knew “something ain’t right!”. I inspected another twenty or so boolits and ALL were the same! The bottom of the gas check portion of the base is “canted”. In other words, the flat bottom of the base of the boolit is NOT at a right angle to the length of the boolit. It is this way for boolits from both cavities. I don’t have a camera so I can’t post photos, but if you look at the gas check bases, there is no way that there is enough material to crimp a gas check on and even if you could, it would be at an angle.
My first thought was that there may be a problem with the sprue plate. This set of “used” blocks looks like new and the top of the blocks are machined smooth and square with the sides of the blocks and the sprue plate is in perfect shape – it functions perfectly to cut the sprues. On closer examination of the blocks, it is evident that borth boolit cavities are machined at a very slight angle to the top of the blocks. I don’t know how the blocks are machined as far as fixtures to hold them while the cavities are cut with the cherry, but the first thing that goes through my mind is that there was a machining chip under the blocks or they were not clamped square with the cherry.
My guess is that the fellow I bought these blocks from knew they were bad so decided to “dump them”. I won’t do that. If anything, I’ll keep the screws for spares as well as the sprue plate and the two halves of the blocks will take a long trip over a short cliff – I won’t pass on a set of bad blocks. I have decided that I’m going to load these up as a plain base boolit over a mild charge of Red Dot and see how they fly. If they shoot accurately that way – then I’ll continue to use the mold and shoot them as plain base. My guess is that with the angle base, they may not work well. I have owned many molds in the past 50 or so years and have always had good luck with used Ideal ad Lyman blocks with the exception of one set that was mis-marked – it was a hollow base single cavity and the cavity did not match the mold number stamped on the blocks. Fortunately, I had another firearm that I could use the boolit from the mis-marked blocks in.
I’m not complaining as it is what it is – just never have seen this particular issue with a set of blocks in all the years I’ve been casting.