Salvaging a damaged mould

[Ian]

462 generously passed on an RCBS
.45 rifle mould to me that had been beaten up in a few places by a previous owner. The top of the blocks had some big dents around the cavity which displaced metal into the gas check shank area and the corners of the cavity had a gap.

Since I was looking for a plain base mould of this caliber and weight design, the most sensible thing to do was to plain base it and face down the blocks a little to clean everything up.

Step the first was to drill a hole through the bottom part of the RH block so I could punch out the sprue plate stop pin.




Next I checked the blocks for parallelism and set them up in the mill vise to check roundness. After indicating the base band on center with the spindle I found .002" oval so out they came for dressing. I couldn't get an accurate roundness measurement on the check shank due to damage and distortion so the only other way I had was to use the test indicator and sweep the cavity a little deeper inside.



I reinstalled the mould in the vise, trammed the face square, indicated on center with the base band just above the check shank, put in my boring head, and started making a scratch cut. Here's where it went off the rails. The cut was off center and cutting a weird arc inside the check shank. I stopped and pulled the blocks out of the vise to have a better look.



It looked as though the cavity wasn't square to the blocks so I set it up once again in the mill vise and trammed the face square to the spindle with the test indicator. Then I indicated the base band on center and then checked the nose band in front of the crimp groove. Turns out the cavity was crooked by .009"/2 along the parting line and .005"/2 perpendicular to it. I shimmed the mould with paper to fix it to within .001"/2 of straight up and down. I'm going to re-face the mould anyway, might as well make it square too. The second attempt at boring made clean, straight cuts that followed the check shank into the base band without any weirdness. I went ahead and bored it out about .002" larger than the other bands because like most RCBS moulds it's just a touch undersized for what I like.



After cleaning out the check shank and base band, I switched gizmos and flycut the top of the blocks.



All done and back together, will try casting with it tomorrow or next week and see what I have.

 

[Spindrift]

Nice work, Ian!

 

[RicinYakima]

You did a great job. I hope it will shoot better than the original not square bullets.

 

[462]

So you all know what is was that Ian had to start with, this is what the tops of the mould blocks looked like when I received the mould from Jon and he received it from whomever.

Excellent work, Ian!

 

[JonB]

It was a gunshow purchase.
There are these two old timers from Faribault that have tables at my local gunshow. They were either in the bullet making biz or they did a ton of shooting back in the 70s-80s, They've told me a number of different stories, too many to keep straight. Anyway, they always bring some casting/gun stuff, "from the back corner of the shed." It's almost always dusty, rusted, or busted. Usually, we negotiate on a purchase/swap over the entire weekend of the show. Two years ago, that RCBS mold came with some handles and two milk jugs full of oxidized soft lead alloy ingots, which were touted to be pure.

 

[JonB]

Years back, same fellows sold me some Monotype. Tiny tiny print type. New, unused, in boxes like they come from the manufacturer. 60 lbs of it. I haven't melted any yet, cuz I just gotta believe there is a market for it?
.
Side note: reported last week, a large newpaper company is closing half a dozen local newspapers (last editions April 30) all within 50 miles of my area...the closest one also had a print shop that printed all those newspapers and some others that were not owned by the large company.

 

[Wasalmonslayer]

Nice work!
With some good tools and a little knowledge it’s amazing what the outcome can be…

 

[fiver]

not only the top look down in there.
the story of how the mold got into that condition is probably as good as the fix.

 

[Ian]

not only the top look down in there.
the story of how the mold got into that condition is probably as good as the fix.

I fixed that too with a punch, I don't like fins in my lube grooves.

The top could have been made a lot better with some strategic massaging, too (Michael cast with it like it was and said it actually made okay bullets), but I want to try loading this in my .45/90 for BPCR competition so it was a good opportunity to make a mould like the Lyman 395 round and flat nose bullets but that has a thicker base band than either of the equivalent Lyman designs do.

 

[462]

Yep, bullets were .002" out-of-round, finning was apparent along the parting line and nose, and gas check shanks showed evidence of the damage to the tops of the mould blocks. The sizing/lube die took care of the first two problems and gas checks covered up the third. Surprisingly enough, it was the first RCBS mould I've owned that cast large for its caliber -- .460" with my straight clip-on alloy. Bullets were sized to .459", but the top two bands had to be reduced to .457" to chamber.

Despite my lousy vision, that causes a round object to appear oval and its resultant inconsistent 6:00 placement of the small ball sitting on top of the front sight's post, this 50-yard 10-group is one I can live with.

 

[fiver]

they are close together but i'm maybe seeing a little wobble going on there.

 

[Ben]

We'll call that mould Lazarus.
I think you brought that one back from the dead.

Great job,
Ben

 

[Ian]

I found and melted some ingots marked "30:1" from at least ten years ago, couldn't cast a single keeper with it. After giving up and letting the alloy cool in the pot I noticed the lead crashing out of solution like it was allergic and a huge molten puddle of whatever else was in there floating at the bottom of the well. It reminded me of antarctic crevasses.

ANYWAY, the bullets are round, .459" on all but the .464" base band (oops), and weigh 406 grains. Next round I'll do with better alloy, the POS RCBS dipper furnace, and a 2# Rowell ladle. I hate ladle pouring but sometimes it's the best way and I can't keep the sprue plate hot enough without the surplus of heat from heavy overflow.


I sized the second one from the left at .459".

 

[Ian]

Yep, bullets were .002" out-of-round, finning was apparent along the parting line and nose, and gas check shanks showed evidence of the damage to the tops of the mould blocks. The sizing/lube die took care of the first two problems and gas checks covered up the third. Surprisingly enough, it was the first RCBS mould I've owned that cast large for its caliber -- .460" with my straight clip-on alloy. Bullets were sized to .459", but the top two bands had to be reduced to .457" to chamber.
View attachment 40314View attachment 40315
Despite my lousy vision, that causes a round object to appear oval and its resultant inconsistent 6:00 placement of the small ball sitting on top of the front sight's post, this 50-yard 10-group is one I can live with.
View attachment 40316

I'd be happy with a 97/3X too!

I'm enjoying blade and notch open sights a lot more these days because all of my scope wires have a couple of really bad kinks just below the cross. Not sure how that happened since even my etched reticles have developed the same kinks. I'm going to blame it on tectonic plate shift and the present administration instead of macular pucker.

 

[fiver]

tin,, too much tin.

 

[Ian]

tin,, too much tin.

That makes sense.

It makes loads of dross, too. Dull, dark grey dross. Whatever it is it's waaaaaay over-saturated with the lesser ingredient.

 

[462]

I'd be happy with a 97/3X too!

I'm enjoying blade and notch open sights a lot more these days because all of my scope wires have a couple of really bad kinks just below the cross. Not sure how that happened since even my etched reticles have developed the same kinks. I'm going to blame it on tectonic plate shift and the present administration instead of macular pucker.

Thank you.

The right eye's new prescription was increased and horizontal lines now have evenly spaced valleys, but with the old prescription they were almost non-discernible.

I really need to compare the sight picture of the rifle's original post and ball sight to Lyman's globe with an aperture insert.