311299 Clone??

[rikkit]

I have already posted this question on another forum, so here it goes again. Does anyone know if any body out there is making a copy of the Ly 311299. I have the Lyman mould and it shoots really well in several of my rifles, but when I run it through my sizer I can see by the rub marks that the bullet is not truly round. My thinking is that a "well ground" ground mould might fly "even better". Just a thought!!

[longbow]

I find most of my moulds are slightly out of round by 0.0005" to 0.001" especially at the seam where there is almost always a small ridge or offset. This small amount shouldn't hurt anything.

I have had moulds out of round by 0.004" which is a bit much. Also, most of my moulds cast at or under the stated size which is generally undersize for my bores so I wind up lapping many moulds. I just finished doing 3 in the last month or so: Lyman 314299, Mihec H&G 503 and Lee RD 265 gr.

Out of round isn't too bad (within reason) as long as the boolit casts somewhat oversize and is symmetrical so it can be sized to a thou or two over groove diameter.

You can try lapping the mould which should bring it round if done right and if only a small amount of metal is removed.

There is a term used on this site (and maybe others) which you may not have heard ~ "Beagling" ~ which is the handle of the fellow that came up with the idea. Beagling is the use of shims to open the mould up to create larger diameter boolits without permanently altering the mould.

By its nature, out of round boolits are the result but they can be up to about 0.003" larger than the mould is cut then sized, which rounds then out again. Even if a little out of round, as long as they are symmetrical they shoot fine.

All this is not to say that a poorly made mould casting out of round or undersize is acceptable, just that it can likely be fixed.

From your description, it sounds to me that the boolit is slightly undersize for the sizer so is only being sized at the high spots. If the sizer is the right size for your groove diameter at 0.001" to 0.002" over groove diameter then Beagling or lapping the mould will increase diameter enough to size properly.

So, I guess I have worked around to the first question I should have asked ~ have you slugged your barrel? If so then is the sizer 0.001" to 0.002" over groove diameter? If so then Beagling and/or lapping the mould should produce larger boolits that can be fully sized.

I have to assume the boolit and sizer are not far off if you are getting good results now. A little tweaking may indeed improve things though. If you decide to lap, do some reading first if you have no experience or you could ruin a good mould. There is a good write up on lapping here:

http://www.castpics.net/

Under "Mould References"

Beagling would be the easier and non permanent method to test then. Info is also in the above articles.

Longbow