PDA

View Full Version : How wide or deep should a hollow base be...



Swagerman
04-28-2005, 08:49 AM
Been experimenting with swaging my .45 caliber boolits with big hollow bases. How big should a guy try for. Revolver velocity is around 850 maximum. By the way, using them in .455 brit S&W barrels with conveted .45 Colt cylinders. You know about the bullet bump up process in these older guns.

Cast bullets are usually .454 diameter.


Swagerman

fourarmed
04-28-2005, 11:00 AM
Back about 45 (hah!) years ago, my brother had a .455 1917 Smith that had been converted to .45acp. Somewhere around I have the mold that he used. IIRC, it dropped a .457 hollow-base bullet. Seems like the wall thickness at the base was around .050" or a little less. I saw the mold the other day. He and my dad had somebody make a second base plug for the mold that produced a heavier - but still hollow base - bullet.

StarMetal
04-28-2005, 11:25 AM
fourarm

Is that the Lyman mould we were discussing on the forum here and I said I have one and that when I bought it Lyman originally cataloged it as a hollow base conical for the 1858 Remington blackpowder revolver?

Joe

beagle
04-28-2005, 01:23 PM
Oh man, the stuff you guys want to know......

Bullet Cav Cav
Diam. Diam. Depth

0.358 0.225 0.225
0.458 0.345 0.185
0.454 0.315 0.125
0.431 0.250 0.195
0.533 0.380 0.350
0.500 0.352 0.320
0.450 0.326 0.280

I've had to make a few HB pins from time to time and have colleted these figures and saved them for just such a purpose.

Round HB pin profiles work best instead of sharp in case. Swaged would probablt be about the same./beagle

Swagerman
04-28-2005, 02:25 PM
Thank you, beagle.

According to your data I'm not too far off swaging these babies to your figures..

Though my swages are more conical than rounded, but have a small flat bottom meplat point of about 3/16 th of an inch.


Swagerman

fourarmed
04-28-2005, 02:46 PM
Joe, I'll have to look at the number on the mold this weekend. This is a heavy bullet, as I recall. Maybe too heavy for the cap & ball revolver application. Seems like the original (i.e. Remington) conicals were pretty light.

Buckshot
04-29-2005, 01:51 AM
...........Beagle, how about that! I just went out and miked one of the HB's Ly 35863's I made for the 38 S&W. The slug is .363" diameter and the cavity is 0.220" wide, 0.225" deep. At the bottom it has tapered to 0.130" diameter. I guess it just looks right, as that's the way I cut the HB plunger......... by eye till it looked right. My HB pin is flat topped though, not rounded.

..............Buckshot

Ballistics in Scotland
04-30-2005, 05:17 PM
The figures Beagle and Buckshot mention sound about right, but those forearmed found are a bit thin in the walls for comfor. I think there could be a risk of the skirt breaking off at a groove, and i don't know where it would go, but probably the worst place you can think of.