Designing a swc boolit

[Boomshakalaka]

Hi guys,

I'm tinkering with the thought, about making a smooth walled swc boolit mold, for my .357 Mag.
But my Google-fu draws a blank, on designing the boolit.

Where do I find some information, that can assist me, in my boolit-design?


Thanks.

[Wayne Smith]

Mountainmolds.com. I don't know if his site will do a smooth side boolit, though.

[NavyVet1959]

Are you planning on cutting the mold yourself or are you going to have someone else cut it? Your question was kind of vague. What sort of information are you needing?

[Maximumbob54]

This guy is slowly doing the same thing:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ds-Suggestions

[Boomshakalaka]

I'll make everything myself.

I'm a toolmaker, specialized in pressure molds. So making the mold itself is no sweat. I just don't know squat about designing bullets.

The Mountainmold program, won't do smooth walled.

I've sketched my own idea of a bullet, but have no idea how it will shoot. It just looks like a SWC, but other than that... No idea.

The meplat is rather large, to accommodate a hollow-point, if I feel like it someday.

[NavyVet1959]

Well, if you are doing it for a .357, you're probably not having to be concerned about whether it will feed well in an autoloader, so your design is going to be a lot more flexible. As a toolmaker, I suspect that calculating the expected weight of a design would not be a problem for you.

[Boomshakalaka]

My CAD program tells me the weight of the boolit, with the right density.
With pure lead, my boolit will weigh 152 gr. I haven't checked with the hollowpoint.

Seing that folks on this site shoots "tin can" boolits. I don't see why this wouldn't work either.
What do you think?

[NavyVet1959]

I could see needing a CAD program to calculate the weight if you are using some sort of special curve in the nose profile, but most of the SWC designs that I've seen just use a truncated cone, so it's an easy calculation to determine the volume of that section of the bullet. The rest of the bullet is just a cylinder solid, so that's easy also.

[Boomshakalaka]

I click two buttons. Boom. Done. No need for calculators.

I can do it manually, no problem. But that's just a waste of time. When I have a good tool for it in my CAD program.

[ddixie884]

If you are going to use it in hard kicking revolver, you might consider putting a crimp groove into your design.

[RobS]

I would look at working a 70%ish meplat if you plan on any hunting. This will also allow for large or smaller sized hollow point options, possibly even a cup hollow point, and in turn gives you more variables to work with for alloy selection too.

[Boomshakalaka]

I will only use it for plinking and paperpunching, using mild/medium loads. The cartridge will be crimped with a Lee Factory Crimp die.

The hollowpoint idea, is purely "because I can". And smashing fruits is a lot of fun.