Mould Rework?

[Kraschenbirn]

A few months back, I picked up an NEI 380304 SC mould for a quite reasonable price. Mould drops really nice boolits weighing 331 gr (+/- .5 gr w/o GC) at just over .381 diameter from 30-to-1 alloy. Unfortunately, the boolit seems a bit too heavy for 1-18 twist of my Uberti 38-55...and it's a gascheck design.

Did a bit of fiddling around, using a razor saw to remove the gascheck shank and...'lo and behold...weight of the shortened boolit comes out right at 300 gr!

I'm looking for someone who can mill off the top of the mould so that it drops a plain base boolit. Anyone on this forum tried this kind of modification? Any recommendations?

Bill

[Scrounger]

I believe NEI might do it for you. They will also "rechamber" molds for you; That is take an iron mold that you send them and recut it to one of their designs. The "new" cut design must be at least 0.05" bigger than the max diameter of the donor mold. Sounds like that has possibilities for some older, possibly damaged molds.

[Blammer]

PM incoming on the NEI 'repair'.

[Cap'n Morgan]

If you know someone with a lathe, the mold can easily be trimmed to size in an ordinary 3-jaws chuck. Just don't run it too fast as the mold will be off balance.

[xr650]

An independent 4 jaw will work even better. :wink:

[2Tite]

PM sent concerning the modification

[HeavyMetal]

Bought some molds at a garage sale advertised in the local paper. 4 of thwem worked just fine but the 5th had been "adjusted" by a yahoo with a dremel tool.

This was a Saeco Mold 067 which is a TC mold for the 45 auto. Seems the original owner didn't like the bevel base and decided to make a plain base out of it with his dremel tool.

Didn't even have the sense to tape the mold half's together so he could keep the mold round and then he beveled the corners of each base so the thing threw some great fins right off the base!

If I had seen this in the fading light that day I wouldn't have taken it!

Once I realized the issue, and that the mold was a loss anyway, I put it in my mill and took about .070 off the top of the mold before the "Fins" went away!

The 230 Gr. boolits this mold would have made are now closer to 200 I think, haven't cast with it yet, will get to it this weekend I hope.

So if your guy has some skills with a mill this can be done with no problem!