Worth Fixing?

[2ndAmendmentNut]

As most of you know from a confession on another thread of mine. I recently tried to convert a Lyman 358627 mould from a gas check base to a plain base, using the dowel and sand paper trick. I am debating about whether or not it is worth fixing. I do not have the machinery to do it so I am going to have to hire someone. I am guessing that the blocks will have to be shortened followed by the gas check portion being properly converted to a plain base. So what do you all think? To do or not to do? The boolits without the gas check work quite well in my 357, but the flange left on the boolits is annoying to size out.

[R.C. Hatter]

:groner: If you are satisfied with the boolit as it now is, but can't abide the flange,
contact Eric Ohlen @ Hollow Point Mould Service, for his opinion and estimate for the fix you desire.

[deltaenterprizes]

It would help it the drawing and the mold pic were facing the same direction. The base can be milled down to the light grey area giving a lighter boolit with a narrow bottom driving band.

[markinalpine]

Try this thread by Catshooter: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=68205

Mark :bigsmyl2:

[2ndAmendmentNut]

Try this thread by Catshooter: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=68205

Mark :bigsmyl2:

Catshooter had a great idea and the machinery to do it. However I want a PB boolit not a GC.

[markinalpine]

Catshooter had a great idea and the machinery to do it. However I want a PB boolit not a GC.

Seems to me that someone near the end of that thread mentioned having plates made to allow GC, PB, or even BB (Gas Check, Plain Base, or Bevel Base) Boolits.

You could try to contact Catshooter to see if he would be interested in helping you.

Mark [smilie=s:

[2ndAmendmentNut]

Seems to me that someone near the end of that thread mentioned having plates made to allow GC, PB, or even BB (Gas Check, Plain Base, or Bevel Base) Boolits.

You could try to contact Catshooter to see if he would be interested in helping you.

Mark [smilie=s:

Oh I see.

That is a good idea. However I use them in 38/357 loads, and as it is these boolits already take up a lot of case capacity. I would not want to make these boolits longer with a plate screwed on top.

[Philngruvy]

Mark, I can really appreciate your frustration with this situation, but, you said the boolits work quite well in your .357. I would be happy with it and just deal with the resizing issue.

[Shiloh]

If it works, keep it. Chalk it up to the price of education. Now you know who to send a mold to in the future, should you want it altered.

Shiloh

[2ndAmendmentNut]

I can really appreciate your frustration with this situation, but, you said the boolits work quite well in your .357. I would be happy with it and just deal with the resizing issue.


If it works, keep it. Chalk it up to the price of education. Now you know who to send a mold to in the future, should you want it altered.

Shiloh

I can live with it. Although if I can have it fixed for a reasonable price I would gladly do so.

[EDK]

Do a little measuring to determine where it goes over size and then have someone mill it down to that point. You will lose a little bit of weight, but not enough to be too upset about. As you mentioned, this boolit takes up a lot of case capacity...so you would get some case capacity back and a little bit lighter boolit for less pressure.

I'm a power plant machinist...actually a mill wright. Normally I get a machining job about once a year...not enough to keep up a skill level. BUT I have some guys who did and do a lot of machine work to bail me out on projects like this.

Contact Eric @ Hollow Point Mould Service as was suggested and he'll get you fixed up at a reasonable price. Buckshot could probably bail you out also. Both of them have an excellent reputation. This isn't the end of the world and might actually be better in the long run.

Good luck

[dragonrider]

2ndA/nut
"I would not want to make these boolits longer with a plate screwed on top. "
The boolit will not be longer, it will end up the same length it is now. A potion of the block will be milled off and replaced with a plate that will be machined to give a plain base on the boolit. I think this is your best option.

[Catshooter]

Nut,

Mmm. Well, the plates I installed in my 375249 didn't add any length to the boolit. If you look closely at the pic, you can see that I inlet them into the tops of the blocks.

The same method I used to create a gas checked boolit would work fine to either return your mould to it's former gas checked design, or, it would work to fix the oversized bases it has now and turn it into a plain base design. It all just depends on what you machine out and in. :)

Never say die.


Cat

[blaser.306]

Size with a nose first type of lube/sizer Lee , or star . It would likely be cheaper to get the mould fixed however !

[theperfessor]

I see two possible problems here. One problem is the very topmost edge of the cavity is round and that is causing your base end fin. To eliminate that you could have the top milled/precision ground to take 0.015 to 0.030 off the length. For a .358 diameter slug that is a loss of about 4.3 grs bullet weight (pure lead) for every 0.015 taken off. That would leave you with a 4 to 8 gr lighter bullet. There is plenty of base band length so bearing surface length etc. is a trivial issue. The cost would probably be pretty reasonable. It just needs to have the sprue plate stop pin pulled out, followed by milling or precision grinding the top, then a debur and reinsertion of stop pin.

The second problem appears to be a severe overall taper in the base band, most evident in the leftmost cavity of your mold photograph. How severe it is, or if I'm even seeing something that's not there, might be something you want an evaluation of from the professional you consult for this work. If its not very bad, and the small amount of taper doesn't cause you any sizing problems then you're probably OK. Stop there.

If not, then you could consider having a lot more taken off the base and follow Catshooters idea of replaceable plates for the top. It opens up a lot more base combinations, but I think the work involved would make it much more expensive. You're not only doing everything here that you're doing with option one, you're adding a lot more time to make one or more sets of plates, drilling extra alignment pin holes (I wouldn't trust flat head screws alone for long term alignment), drilling and tapping the blocks, and then accurately aligning with the existing cavity center to drill/ream/bore the plates to the proper base configuration. And the worse the existing cavity is wallowed out the harder it is to find the true center of the cavity. I would think that even a skilled toolmaker would need several hours to do this.

Let one of the straight-shooing professionals recommended by others on this site help you evaluate the mold's condition and cost to repair. If it was me I'd take off enough to get a square top edge and live with end result. It will probably be fine.

[Bret4207]

Let this act as an example of why the "sandpaper and dowel" method is a poor one to use for jobs like this. A reamer or a lathe is the proper tools for this.


BTW- I did the same thing once.

[deltaenterprizes]

I see two possible problems here. One problem is the very topmost edge of the cavity is round and that is causing your base end fin. To eliminate that you could have the top milled/precision ground to take 0.015 to 0.030 off the length. For a .358 diameter slug that is a loss of about 4.3 grs bullet weight (pure lead) for every 0.015 taken off. That would leave you with a 4 to 8 gr lighter bullet. There is plenty of base band length so bearing surface length etc. is a trivial issue. The cost would probably be pretty reasonable. It just needs to have the sprue plate stop pin pulled out, followed by milling or precision grinding the top, then a debur and reinsertion of stop pin.

The second problem appears to be a severe overall taper in the base band, most evident in the leftmost cavity of your mold photograph. How severe it is, or if I'm even seeing something that's not there, might be something you want an evaluation of from the professional you consult for this work. If its not very bad, and the small amount of taper doesn't cause you any sizing problems then you're probably OK. Stop there.

If not, then you could consider having a lot more taken off the base and follow Catshooters idea of replaceable plates for the top. It opens up a lot more base combinations, but I think the work involved would make it much more expensive. You're not only doing everything here that you're doing with option one, you're adding a lot more time to make one or more sets of plates, drilling extra alignment pin holes (I wouldn't trust flat head screws alone for long term alignment), drilling and tapping the blocks, and then accurately aligning with the existing cavity center to drill/ream/bore the plates to the proper base configuration. And the worse the existing cavity is wallowed out the harder it is to find the true center of the cavity. I would think that even a skilled toolmaker would need several hours to do this.

Let one of the straight-shooing professionals recommended by others on this site help you evaluate the mold's condition and cost to repair. If it was me I'd take off enough to get a square top edge and live with end result. It will probably be fine.

A very good evaluation of the situation and explanation of the effort and expense involved in various suggestions for repairing this mold.
The more exotic the repair ( milling and making plates) the more time it will take. Machining time equals more money and can soon exceed the cost of a new mold.
People with home shops spend a lot of money on tools and years learning how to use them. Metal machining tools wear as they are used and need to be replaced and considerable mess is made that needs to be cleaned up, consuming time and money.
They will do projects for that will take many hours of trial and error, sometimes many errors to accomplish a goal for personal use that is not commercially viable.
This is one of those situations where the cost to restore these blocks to original condition or the owners goal of the mold with a cavity like the original with a plain base will cost more than a new set of blocks.

[Catshooter]

Well, it may be somewhat expensive to repair, but is this boolit still available from Lyman? It's not on their web site.

That changes the picture maybe.

A pity you didn't try this experiment with something they still make! :) I can just see it now, mould in one hand, dowel & sandpaper in the other. "What could go wrong?"

I've done the same sort of thing, and I'm sure I will again.

If the mould was mine, I think I'd install a thick enough plate so that it would completely take out the wobbly base and make it a plain base from there.


Cat

[deltaenterprizes]

How many hours did it take to do yours from set up to clean up? Multiply that times $40/hr and tell me what you get, plus how many dollars do you have invested in your tools?How much time has it taken you to get proficient with using your tools?
You did yours for your own use as an experiment and succeeded, can you reproduce that result? How much will you charge to do the repair like you did your blocks? If your price is right I may find plenty of work for you.

[Char-Gar]

I don't know how you size, but a good Lee nose first push through sizing die, mounted in a good press with compound linkage should make short and easy work out of that bulge in the bottom of your bullet.

If you have or know somebody who has a lathe will a milling attatchement or a milling machine. It should not be much of a problem to mill off the top of the blocks to get rid of the bulge and then fit the factory or another spru cutter.

Or just pitch it and get a new mold. Your choice.

[docone31]

The Lee sizeing dies do not take much effort to push thru.
It will make short work on that.
I use the Lee dies to paper patch with. I size .312 down to .308. Very little effort.

[Catshooter]

How many hours did it take to do yours from set up to clean up?I think about two, total. Multiply that times $40/hr and tell me what you get, plus how many dollars do you have invested in your tools?Tools? Tools? If you won't tell my wife, probably about $2500.How much time has it taken you to get proficient with using your tools? Ten years?
You did yours for your own use as an experiment and succeeded, can you reproduce that result?Yea, I think so. How much will you charge to do the repair like you did your blocks?Well now, here's where the boolit meets the bone. To help out a friend, probably not much. If your price is right I may find plenty of work for you.Thanks delta (I think :) ) but I ain't looking for work. Not as long as my retirement holds out.


Cat, who, despite all my typing above still has to enter more than five charactors or my message is too short. 'Puters, don't ya just love 'em?