Abused 38-150 KT mould

[DLCTEX]

I bought the mould off Ebay for cheap several years ago and it had been badly abused. the sprue plate was not warped, but bent and had obviously been hammered with a steel hammer and the body of the mould had corners dented. I removed the sprue plate and hammered it with a steel block laid on it to protect it from further dings to get the bends out of it. I then sanded it, holding it flat with the sandpaper on a flat piece of steel in my shop that is 5X6X8" until it was reasonably flat. There are some dings that still show, but they don't intersect the boolit base. I tried casting with it and the boolits stuck in the mould like glue. I laid it aside for a couple years and recently decided to give it another go. I first tried "Leementing" it (spinning a boolit with some valve grinding compound on it). This helped the boolits to drop a little more freely, but they measured .354X.359. I tried to bump them up in the lubrisizer but the nose was too deformed with the required battering it took. It looked as if the mould had been squeezed, but both cavities were equal in measurement. I decided I had nothing to lose, so I selected a drill bit that was just larger than the the .359 diameter and laid the top end of the bit in the bullet base and gave it a good rap with a plastic hammer. I did this with all 4 cavity halves and then Leemented the cavities again to eliminate any burrs I caused. It is now casting .360 across the parting line and .3595 the other way. I then sanded the top of the mould flat just a small amount due to slight finning where the top of the mould had been it. :drinks:

[DLCTEX]

I then turned my attention to the pistol I have in 38 Special that I bought used and a little abused that prompted buying the mould. It is a Charter Arms with a 4" barrel. It wasn't as accurate as I thought it should be, with two shots per cylinder going astray by several inches. I slugged the barrel and found it to be .357 across the grooves., bore and crown looked great. The gun looks as if it had been dropped as there is a slight chip out of the aluminum barrel shroud on one side of the barrel. I then slugged the cylinder throats and they were .356 with two of them leaving a groove in the slug that looked like a 1/ and 3/16
wide rifling groove. I used a split dowel and fine sanding cloth to smooth and enlarge the throats slightly, turning by hand and finishing with crocus cloth. I did locate the burrs at the mouth of the chambers and worked them down with a sawing motion. The cylinder looks good and slugs .357 in the throats now. I resisted the temptation to go for .358 as the gun is shooting very well now shooting all six into a nice group a 25 yds. I did size the boolits to .357 and lubed with 50/50. In the course of doing this I found that my .358 die (bought used on Ebay for cheap), is large, and out of round by .002 (.359X.361), bummer. I'm quiet happy with the way this turned out, except for the die being out of round. I may have to bore it to .460 for the RD boolits for the 45-70.

[leadman]

Sounds like you only put a little more work in that old mold than what you might have been required of a new mold.

[Gar]

Thanks for the detailed narrative. I find a little TLC goes a long way with most of the garage sale molds I've be able to pick up.
$10 or $15 molds and some quality shop time = :D