Beagling

[Shiloh]

When one put aluminum, tape or other hold open device on a mold to open it up for larger boollits, it is called beagling the mold. Were did the term Beagling come from???

Shiloh

[Dean D.]

Beagle, a member here at Cast Boolits, came up with the idea.

[beagle]

Yeah, Petey, Orygun Mark and I worked with enlarging the diameter of a mould without drastically modifying it some years back and we came up with the aluminum tape as the easiest, non-destructive way to do it.

I wrote it up and used my handle to name the process but the others all collaborated with me on the project. Petey was an old time Shooters member and has left the range. Orygun Mark goes by the handle Crazy Mark and is a regular poster here./beagle

[Doby45]

*pointing* IT WAS BEAGLE, HE DID IT!

[Charlie Two Tracks]

By golly it works! I did that to one of my moulds and it works perfectly. It's a very quick and easy fix.

[Doby45]

I did that to my Lyman 358477 and it worked perfectly too. I just happen to have a few rolls of aluminum tape.

[462]

It's worked for me.

[cwskirmisher]

Please explain how to do this! Do you put AL tape on one side to keep the mould from closing? What about the resulting flashing that will be on the bullet? Trying to picture this...

[HORNET]

If you watch your melt temp and don't get carried away with it, you can get away with about .003 thickness of the aluminum take on both sides of the cavity without any significant flashing. You can do one block on one side of the cavity/cavities and the other block on the other side or both sides of the cavity/cavities on the same block. Some have reported being able to go as high as .005 in some instances, but I wouldn't bet on it. The boolits end up out of round, but that's why they make sizing dies. It's an easy way to see if you just need more diameter and, unlike lapping, it is reversible. The Beagle done good....

[Charlie Two Tracks]

I cut very narrow strips (1/16th of an inch) and let the tape adhere to one side of the mould in three different places. I have a two cavity mould. About 1/2 to 1/3rd of the mould area is covered with this tape. That is it. If you look in CastPics at the bottom of the page and then click on articles by members, you will find it explained along with a whole bunch of good stuff. My beagling only produced about 0.0015 of a difference and that works for me. If you have trouble finding this tape, send my your address and I'll send a piece your way. A one inch piece would beagle about two or three moulds.

[Shiloh]

Thanks Folks!!

Shiloh

[PacMan]

I have two molds that i Beagled with one layer of tape to help speed up casting and helps with fillout also by giving more venting to the mold.

Dwight

[Centaur 1]

I read somewhere that a guy was using a strip of tape placed across the nose of the boolit. When they come out of the mold the boolits are all stuck together on the tape. He then sliced along the contour of the nose to cut the boolits free. The idea was that the boolit would split in half lengthwise when you hit the animal. I made a couple 9mm ones the last time I was casting and they look pretty good. They would probably work good for small game hunting. If I ever get a good plinking round working in my 30-30 I might try this for squirrels.

[Wayne Smith]

I read somewhere that a guy was using a strip of tape placed across the nose of the boolit. When they come out of the mold the boolits are all stuck together on the tape. He then sliced along the contour of the nose to cut the boolits free. The idea was that the boolit would split in half lengthwise when you hit the animal. I made a couple 9mm ones the last time I was casting and they look pretty good. They would probably work good for small game hunting. If I ever get a good plinking round working in my 30-30 I might try this for squirrels.

That's an old idea. Read about it in, I think, The Bullet's Flight based on research before the turn of the last century. It was apparantly a pretty common thing to put a piece of paper between the mold blocks to create a boolit that would expand. I think the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook covered it too.