Maiden Voyage with Steel Mold

[Chunky Monkey]

RCBS 22-055-SP mold and handles came today. Came home ate dinner and scurried off to the basement to try my hand at rifle boolits. This was also my first time with a non-Lee mould. Took a while to get er heated up. Finally started getting some decent boolits but problems with the sprue plate made it hard to get good consistent bases. The plate was either too loose or too tight. Tried to tighten it up and put a dab of bull plate lube on but then it would loosen up again. Guess I'll need to get a cupped (belleville) washer or two. Just gotta sort thru the boolits and weed out the 'not so good ones'. Got Hornady gas checks but I can't size until my #506 top punch that is on backorder from Midsouth gets here.

I've only ever cast pistol (44 and 45) boolits and can kinda empty a Lee pot fairly quickly. With 55 grainers seems like you can pour all night and the pots still full.

[copdills]

Looks Great, yep the smaller boolits make a pot last along time but you get more boolits amen and GREAT JOB

[Calamity Jake]

Tighten the set screw against the screw that holds the spru plate on.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Another use for this mold is to cast up a small supply of this mold out of pure lead. Then next time you are casting your 44 or 45 boolits out of ww or another hard alloy. Drop a soft 22 into the hot closed mold then move the mold under the spout of hard lead and " viola" a soft nose hard based boolit. I`ve been doing this trick with an old lyman Ideal 22 50 gr. mold for quite a few years. Robert

[Heavy lead]

Another use for this mold is to cast up a small supply of this mold out of pure lead. Then next time you are casting your 44 or 45 boolits out of ww or another hard alloy. Drop a soft 22 into the hot closed mold then move the mold under the spout of hard lead and " viola" a soft nose hard based boolit. I`ve been doing this trick with an old lyman Ideal 22 50 gr. mold for quite a few years. Robert

Not trying to hijack here, but do you have to preheat the lil boolits?

[Chunky Monkey]

Tighten the set screw against the screw that holds the spru plate on.

Thank you sir!! Didn't even see that. These damned, blasted, fancy, steel molds . . .

[Vly]

Nice job, CM ! I have that mold and it is a joy to cast with. Be ruthless in your inspection process of the little 55gr boolits. Any flaw you detect with your eye is a greater per cent variance than what you see with your 44 and 45 boolits. It will make a difference on the target.

For years I resisted getting a hot plate for mold warming. Now I wish I had one years ago. Go to WM and get a cheapo hotplate. It will save you time and anguish. Soon you will have steel 4 banger molds, and then the hot plate really shines.

In what firearm are you shooting the 55 grainers?

[Bret4207]

I like that design, but I wish they'd chop about 1/3 off the nose and make it a 45 grainer.

[Chunky Monkey]

Nice job, CM ! I have that mold and it is a joy to cast with. Be ruthless in your inspection process of the little 55gr boolits. Any flaw you detect with your eye is a greater per cent variance than what you see with your 44 and 45 boolits. It will make a difference on the target.

For years I resisted getting a hot plate for mold warming. Now I wish I had one years ago. Go to WM and get a cheapo hotplate. It will save you time and anguish. Soon you will have steel 4 banger molds, and then the hot plate really shines.

In what firearm are you shooting the 55 grainers?

Colt AR w/ 20" HBAR

[RU shooter]

Colt AR w/ 20" HBAR

Let us know how that goes for you ,I've been wanting to try some in mine What twist is your barrel ? 1:9 I assume?

Tim

[Hardcast416taylor]

Yessir I do heavy lead. I have an old electric hot plate that I leave on low heat with a discard pie pan with the 22 softies in it. A pair of needle nosed pliars are used for doing the transfer of boolit from pan to mold. Swing the sprue plate back and pour the hard lead. It has worked well enough for my uses in a 45 LC Ruger for deer and whatatever else. This is the trick a friend, yes I have a friend, blew up his trash can of water with checking for expansion. Yes the nose expanded back until the harder lead stopped it, at slightly more than body diameter using a RCBS 255 gr. mold and ww ac and my standby load of 6.3 gr. Red Dot. Robert

[Mike Venturino]

RCBS moulds are iron not steel.

[Chunky Monkey]

Let us know how that goes for you ,I've been wanting to try some in mine What twist is your barrel ? 1:9 I assume?

Tim

Yes, its 1:9. Put together 9 this morning just to test a few. Still got a lot of work to do but it was a good start!

[AZ-Stew]

Cull out all the ones that aren't completely filled-out and don't have sharp edges on all the corners, especially the base. You might also want to weigh each boolit and sort them accordingly.

Regards,

Stew

[eka]

Heavy,

Here are some good threads about softpoint making.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ight=softpoint

Keith