I dumped my pat marlin check maker and made a single stroke myself.
Id never go back to a two stroke system
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I dumped my pat marlin check maker and made a single stroke myself.
Id never go back to a two stroke system
I should not say never but I will never pay that kind of money for gas checks.
I made several two step check makers before I figured out how to make a one step maker. Being retired, I now have more time than money. The mini lathe has paid for itself many times making tooling for my hobbies and although are not cheap neither are guns.
I made my first gas check maker as a two step design and while it worked it was slow and tedious so next one I made was a single stroke Ed Smith design and it is great. I made the first two for .30 cal. 3rd one I made was also Ed Smith design in .44. I wouldn't go back to a two step system.
I'm using old gutter material so that is free. A bit thick but it works fine and makes a deeper check than normal.
Next I plan to make .30 cal. and .44 cal. for PB boolits to see how those go.
I'm with barrabruce... I wouldn't pay for gas checks. I'd shoot PB boolits or paper patch.
Longbow
I must be older than I thought. I've got boxes of checks marked $16.00 and $18.00. But even at $40.00 it's not worth my time to make my own.
It's curious to me how expensive they are, given that they're probably made on Minster "Hummingbird" machines capable of 1000 pieces a minute.
At more than 4 cents each, I would not make my own. I just will shoot plain base and jacketed. Gas checked bullets are a knitch thing and while I shoot a bunch of them with checks that cost 2 cents much more than that they are just not worth it. If I really need that performance I probably should be shooting jacketed unless jacketed bullets go thru the roof. I could shoot plain base bullets for everything I need even selfdefence but I rarely hunt. For hunting I can just go big bore plain base and keep ranges shorter. For hunting I really don't mind dollar a piece jacketed bullets but like I said, I rarely hunt.
Tim
checks over here are £45 x 1000 .i think i will cast heavier boolits and go pb.i hope i can keep the accuracy i get with gc boolits.
The designs they have up at the top of the check forum is nice. If you know somebody good with a lathe you could have one for pretty cheap, thats the route i went.