1 piece paper-patch mould?

[.22-10-45]

Has anyone made a paper-patch mould out of solid metal..what I mean is, chucking up round stock..metal of your choice..roughing out cavity with drills & finishing to size with a half-reamer. bullet would probably need a slight taper to allow removing. I know you could drill thru & use a small dia. ejector..with added benifit of hollow point if so desired..but I am wondering if a slightly tapered cavity, free from tool marks & using soft lead..which shrinks more, the bullet would fall out by itself or with light tap?

[Frank46]

All of the paper patch molds I have seen were two piece. Just like a regular mold but some were nose pour and had an adjustable screw at the bottom so the user could adjust the length and weight. Frank

[Southern Son]

A Kiwi fellow on this site (I think 303 in New Zealand) made one. There have been a couple of others, here we go, I will try and make an attachment..........
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...r-Patch-Bullet

Stuffed if I know if that will work.

[Bent Ramrod]

Look up "Ideal Cylindrical Moulds" on your favorite browser. A lot of people have used round stock instead of the flanged casting Ideal used for the mould body. I've used a couple originals. Using them has a different "feel" from a regular split mould, and in my experience the single handle is more fatiguing to use than two well proportioned handles in a split mould. The cylindrical mould handle tends to twist more in my hand, and more weight is out on the end, so it feels heavier.

The weak point that I can see is the plunger bottom that was the nose former and adjusted for length. If the former slipped out of adjustment, it would come up above the top of the mould body and the sprue plate could crush it when it was pushed, or knocked, shut. The thin sides of the nose former would deform easily.

However, the slight line at the junction of nose and body of the casting was a good index of how high to wrap the patch.

[country gent]

Never used one but seen pics of them and one a guy had years ago. Interesting concept. I doubt the bullet would just pop out easily from the mould with out the spring loaded ejector assembly to start it moving along. Another plus to the ejector is diffrent nose styles could easily be tried along with hollow points. The Ideal cylindrical mould was said to cast the roundest, truest bullets possible. It would be an easy mould to cut in the lathe only. It could be done with drills and appropriate decimil reamer. The ejector assembly with a simple boring bar or form ground drill bit. Brass stock with a steel sprue plate. would cast great bullets Id bet.

[runfiverun]

D-bit reamer.
make hole and ream out.
the 'hollow point pin' could be used to pop out the boolit, by locking it in place then turning it free and pushing.

[longbow]

Yup!

DoctorBill made a one piece and I am sure others have. I did originally but found that occasionally boolits did not release so had to be melted out. This can happen due to slightly rough cavity or cutting the sprue a bit early and mushing the soft boolit base. It doesn't take much to cause a hang up though they are pretty rare.

My solution was to use the plunger idea whether for HP, flat or formed to match boolit nose. All work well and allow making of simple effective mould with just a lathe and no complicated work.

I use D-bits turned to the shape I want then cut in half to form a 0 rake tool, home the flat face to ensure sharp edges then heat treat. Drill a slightly undersize hole then run in the D-bit. It will ream to size. I also lap after using a boolit cast in the cavity to ensure very smooth cavity and to put a very slight taper in the cavity (maybe 0.0005" or so).

Another option is form tools or spoon bits to shape cavities.

These smooth boolits can be loaded and shot as cast with tumble lube (not very successful for me), a grease cookie under (if straight walled case ~ worked well in my .44) or knurled and lubed, which is what I normally do.

I have made push out moulds in 20 ga. slug, 12 ga. slug, .44 for my Marlin, .301" for paper patching for my .308 and several for knurling and lubing for my .303's (about 0.003" undersize to allow for knurling). So far my most accurate boolit for my Lee Enfields is from one of these home made moulds and it has beat out Lyman, NOE and Mihec so far.

If you have a lathe, give it a go, I am sure you will like the results.

Longbow