Hey Walter....
- Thread starter Ian
- Start date
uncle jimbo
Well-Known Member
Oh,, now that is cold.
Don't know what you fixed , but they look good.
Don't know what you fixed , but they look good.
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F
freebullet
Guest
In yards?
Ian
Notorious member
Naw, we're good....I think.
Some silly person had taken a sharp center punch and raised a huge crater in the nose portion of both cavities, off-center. Bullets would lock into that one block half and when pried out had a big gouge in the nose right in the middle of the bore ride part. I wanted to see if it was salvageable so I ground and polished a dome of the correct radius on an old punch and carefully peened the metal back ito place. Got 95% back in place at least. Bullets shuck out on their own, no tapping. Now all that's left to fix is the usual Lyman problems like a full thousandth out of round due to block misalignment (actually cherry torque and worn vise guides) and a light lapping to even everything up.
Some silly person had taken a sharp center punch and raised a huge crater in the nose portion of both cavities, off-center. Bullets would lock into that one block half and when pried out had a big gouge in the nose right in the middle of the bore ride part. I wanted to see if it was salvageable so I ground and polished a dome of the correct radius on an old punch and carefully peened the metal back ito place. Got 95% back in place at least. Bullets shuck out on their own, no tapping. Now all that's left to fix is the usual Lyman problems like a full thousandth out of round due to block misalignment (actually cherry torque and worn vise guides) and a light lapping to even everything up.
waco
Springfield, Oregon
Yep.
JonB
Halcyon member
It looks like a 225415 to me.
I bought a brand new one of those about 8 years ago. I had all sorts of trouble with it, and sold it...as I was too much of a newbie to understand how to fix it. Last year, I found a super inexpensive older 2 cavity mold (with handles) at a gunshow, that casts like a dream...But I haven't done nuthin with the bullets yet.
I bought a brand new one of those about 8 years ago. I had all sorts of trouble with it, and sold it...as I was too much of a newbie to understand how to fix it. Last year, I found a super inexpensive older 2 cavity mold (with handles) at a gunshow, that casts like a dream...But I haven't done nuthin with the bullets yet.
CZ93X62
Official forum enigma
I had a #225415 during my early years of casting. I didn't know much about casting or managing cast rifle bullets back then, and gave up on smallbore casting for several years. Time went on, and RCBS 6mm and 22 moulds showed me that small bores could be made to do good things IF YOU PAID ATTENTION TO BUSINESS. 22 Hornet, 223, and 22-250 have started behaving themselves with castings for me--just in time to have them disallowed for hunting in my home state. It's a &^*% conspiracy.
Lyman #225438 does some decent work in all 3 calibers for me, and the RCBS #22-55-SP shows promise in 223 and 22-250. That smaller Lyman Loverin was instant goodness in 22 Hornet, and stayed that way in 223 and 22-250. Some dated writings by Mike Venturino was a BIG HELP in 22-250, Rick Tunell/Buckshot gave me copies of his articles that I turned into results. The #225438 is an older Ideal 1-cylinder model, and it takes a while to fill a 1# coffee can using that tool. In 92/6/2 it casts just a couple tenths under .226", and gets "full clean-up" in a 'true' .225" H&I die. Same deal with the RCBS mould, nice and thick.
Lyman #225438 does some decent work in all 3 calibers for me, and the RCBS #22-55-SP shows promise in 223 and 22-250. That smaller Lyman Loverin was instant goodness in 22 Hornet, and stayed that way in 223 and 22-250. Some dated writings by Mike Venturino was a BIG HELP in 22-250, Rick Tunell/Buckshot gave me copies of his articles that I turned into results. The #225438 is an older Ideal 1-cylinder model, and it takes a while to fill a 1# coffee can using that tool. In 92/6/2 it casts just a couple tenths under .226", and gets "full clean-up" in a 'true' .225" H&I die. Same deal with the RCBS mould, nice and thick.
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Ian
Notorious member
It only took me a year, but I finally shot some of these for realsies. I'd played with a few previously and had dismal results, but then I took some powder coated ones and bumped that front band off in my tapered nose die, loaded them with some?? jump (no idea) over 24 grains of H335 and sent them downrange with my Mossberg MVP today at 100 yards.
Ian
Notorious member
What, like your .308? 
Nope, one rotation per nine inches. Quarter million RPM or whatever. Alloy was straight wheelweights at about 2.5 Sb/.5 Sn, air cooled and aged to 12 BHN.
I loaded 15 of those to just fit a Magpul magazine, and put a light crimp on ten of them. The crimped ones grouped about 4" and averaged about 20 fps slower with single-digit SD. The first five (shown) had some bell left on the case mouth.
Nope, one rotation per nine inches. Quarter million RPM or whatever. Alloy was straight wheelweights at about 2.5 Sb/.5 Sn, air cooled and aged to 12 BHN.
I loaded 15 of those to just fit a Magpul magazine, and put a light crimp on ten of them. The crimped ones grouped about 4" and averaged about 20 fps slower with single-digit SD. The first five (shown) had some bell left on the case mouth.
Ian
Notorious member
Another load was with some MP NATO bullets that I had powder coated but lubed with LBT soft a couple years ago but never loaded. I shot those through my M4 clone, one turn in seven inches, same powder charge, and got a 1.5" group with one flyer at 50 yards and a 2" group at 80 yards, but didn't chronograph them.