WILK gas checks

[cheshire cat]

anyone any experience of, or tools to make WILK gas checks?

[45 2.1]

anyone any experience of, or tools to make WILKE gas checks?

There is an article in one of Wolfe's Handloader annuals about this. All you have to do is punch the center out of the appropriate gas check concentrically to the right size and size the check to fit your hot mold properly. A decent machinist should be able to fix you up fairly easily. They do work fine as the article indicates and allow full jacketed velocity.

[missionary5155]

Anyone tried making this WILK CHECK out of other materials ? Popcans.. flashing.. Road grader blade ? Tank track ? (Sorry about the last two.. traffic is awful today)

[Newtire]

I made some up & placed them inside a 311291 mould & had a bit of trouble getting the mould to close but finally did & made some out of checks with the centers pucnched out with a punch like this one that a friend happened to have. I wasn't able to really push them very hard and they weren't that impressive over just a plain gas checked boolit.

You can try it if you'd like though of course. Here's a picture of the same punch my friend had from a Harbor Freight ad.

[shotman]

if you have a friend that is a sheet metal worker or a suspended ceiling installer they will have that punch[called a whitney punch] rick

[beagle]

I tinkered with this concept for a while when I was attempting to GC PB bullets. I made a sharp punch that was press mounted and punched from the bottom (flat side) of the check. The resulting hole (.190") left jagged metal inside the check. This check was placed inside the bottom mould band and I cast through the check. The jagged portion seems to set firmly in the lead and maintain a firmer GC grip.

It worked very well if I preheated the checks on top of the melt first Na dthe beautiful part was that any rejects could be recycled.

Now, I realize that this isn't the full Wilke's concept but it does work for GCing PB bullets./beagle

[The Dust Collector]

The punch illustrated by Newtire is made by ROPER-WHITNEY.

[docone31]

WILK gas check, what the heck is it?
I have always wondered if it would be possible to cast an half jacket.
It might be a lot of work. I would think, you would have to tin the inside of the check before casting. The half jacket would have to be hot!!!.
I am pretty happy with paper, just kinda of an hmmmm. What with the price of jacketeds these days.

[HeavyMetal]

The Wilk Check was a standard gas check with the center punched out. You placed one or two of these in the mold where the driving bands would be cast and then poured your alloy as usual. The boolits came out with copper driving bands instead of lead.

45 2.1 has it right an article was printed in Handloaders Bullet Making Annual first addition. Handloader did 4 of these! Volume 1 was dated 1990 this is the issue with the Wilk check article. My understanding is Wilk passed either just before or just after this article was printed. No one seems to have pursued the idea to make tools as it was a real pain to get these in a hot mold!

Wolfe has now got these on a DVD if you can't find an original copy.

[cheshire cat]

cheers chaps

[338-06 GASCHECK]

I found the wilk gascheck idea intriguing and am working toward trying it on a custom mold for the 338-06 using 2 checks

[Dusty Bannister]

This idea keeps coming up from time to time and I keep thinking it a good idea except for the possibility of a lost gas check in the bore. The Wilk check seemed to have a rather large hole punched in the middle and that would be necessary for any placement other than the base or the bullet would be very weak and prone to fracture at that thin point. I keep thinking that a base check with a smaller hole would be more likely to clear the muzzle if it ever did have an issue with grip on the shank of the bullet. I may end up trying it in a contender since I can check the bore after every shot, but keep thinking "what if"?

The trend to preheat molds on the hot plate would certainly make it easy to preheat the checks and they would be clean and easy to pick up with tweezers this way.

[Freightman]

here is the article on page 34 and following of the August 1988 Rifleman https://www.riflemagazine.com/magazi...134partial.pdf

[Bent Ramrod]

I've messed around with the concept a fair bit. Both SAECO and Lyman made moulds especially for the driving band gas checks and at least a couple outfits besides Wilke (Henninger-Barnes and Craft Industries) made the "gas checks," or driving bands. The rings used to turn up, rarely, at Gun Shows; the specially-marked moulds, almost never. I never found the Wilke brand; maybe, as HeavyMetal mentioned, he never got to market with them. Here are some pictures:

Attachment 159024 Attachment 159028 Attachment 159025 Attachment 159027 Attachment 159026

I used a Lyman 150 gr "H-B" mould (apparently specially made for the Henninger-Barnes gas checks) for most of my experiments. It had two driving bands, a gas check shank and a conical flat point. The rings also would fit into the Ideal 311291 and the SAECO designs that look like a long drilled cavity with lands for grease grooves added at the bottom.

I had a great time experimenting. I would heat the mould up by casting regular boolits and when it was good and hot would insert the rings in the front band, the rear band, both bands, all the bands, concave side up or down, etc. There was no trouble inserting the rings with tweezers once I got the knack of putting them in one half cavity and closing the mould carefully. (I didn't try the little rod.) The rings were very well sized to the land cavities on the moulds; they neither kept the blocks apart nor were they so undersized that the lead came over the tops. They were well locked into the lead; didn't spin loose. I used Hornady crimp-on gas checks. The results looked pretty impressive; like those artillery shells with the "bourrolet" around them in miniature.

Regardless of the breathless claims for these gimmicks, I couldn't get any more accuracy out of any of the variations in driving band placement than I could with the plain cast boolits (with gas check, of course; those work). They also were notable failures when it came to increasing the velocity with any accuracy at all, although at least they didn't lead the bore. I shot them in my .30-06 Springfield, my Remington 30 in .30 Remington and my .30-40 Krag with Douglas barrel. After almost a dozen shooting sessions it was beginning to dawn on me why this idea didn't catch on. The lead boolits out of the moulds shoot just fine, at lead boolit velocities. So now the driving bands are just historical curios to ponder on.

[Dirtdgger]

deleted

[Dirtdgger]

Found this on another site. Looks interesting.

[bruce drake]

I was reading the 1979 Cast Bullet book put out by the NRA and edited by Col E. H. Harrison (so yes, old) this evening and there was a snippet of an article about the Barnes bands for cast lead bullets and the author mentions cutting 5/16" copper pipe into bands using a plumbers pipe cutter and inserting them into a Lyman 311291 mold with tweezers and then being able to successfully shoot them at close to jacketed velocities.

I think I might be doing some experiments with this idea this winter.

Bruce

[longbow]

I've seen pictures of boolits cast into lengths of copper tube. I would figure that would be simpler to make, simpler to install and basically a half jacket. I think you would want a lead base band to ensure you didn't leave a tube in the bore but a base band and gas check shank should allow jacketed velocity of very near at least.

I've also seen pics of copper wire coils used the same way. Can't recall where I saw those but they would be easy to make if you have a lathe ~ turn an appropriate size mandrel, wind copper wire onto it, trim to length, insert into mould and pour.

Then again, paper patching works and doesn't take anything special except a mould to cast the right size or sizing die(s) to produce the right size boolit for patching.

Lots of ways to skin a cat (I often wonder why there are so many ways to skin a cat...) but if these worked well and were cost effective I'd have to think they'd still be in use commercially.

[andrew375]

I use rings cut from 3/8" copper tubing in bullets for the .375 H&H. They work great but real fiddly to install in the mould, so not practical for large volumes.