Hybrid 30 caliber PC Smooth Sided Bullet Mold
After reading a few of the threads about getting good repeatable MOA 100 yard accuracy at 2000 FPS and above, I am surprised to find that few if any of the Powder-Coat guys seem to have gotten to that stage yet. I haven't either but, I'm just about three weeks into the Powder-Coating craze.
In similar fashion, when I first joined this forum I looked for ways to get good repeatable 100 yard accuracy at the highest possible velocities with Cast and lubed rifle bullets. My best accuracy was found at about the 1600 FPS velocity levels.
I thought maybe with the synthetic jackets that Powder-Coating now gave our cast lead bullets this might be just the thing to give my rifle bullets the kick in the pants to up the velocities and accuracy. I have yet to get to the range to shoot my first batch of PC'd bullets cast from a conventional mold. I'm more than sure my PC'd pistol bullets will perform the same or better than they already do with just lube on them. It's my 30 caliber rifle bullets that I want to get more velocity out of; without loosing accuracy.
To that end, I fished around in my junk box looking for a few chunks of scrap aluminum stock, some steel bar stock and a good strong spring. I found all of the above but I still had to shell out about seven-bucks for some drill-rod. (tool steel)
I used it all to make up a double cavity smooth-walled Hybrid 30 caliber bullet mold. It was designed to cast large mouthed Boat-Tailed, Hollow-Pointed Soup-Can shaped lead slugs; which in turn will get their noses swaged to final form.
I made the Hollow-Pointing pins adjustable so that I didn't have to build various bullet molds in order to get different weight bullets. The size of the Hollow-Point cavities remains the same but, by adjusting the Hollow-Point pins inward, I get a shorter lighter bullet. Conversely, by adjusting it out, I get a longer heavier bullet. The nose is swaged to the same shape regardless of bullet length.
I finished up the mold and the swaging die today. I have yet to cast with it. It's been raining cats and dogs here in Arizona lately. If I get some free time this weekend I'll see if this project was worth while or not.
From what I've read, I've come to the conclusion that PC'd bullets really don't need lube grooves so I did away with them, which made the building of this mold a whole lot easier.
I had to make three different reamers to finish this project. One to shape the profile of the nose-swaging-die, One for the bullet cavities and another Boat-Tail shaped reamer for forming the cup on the end of my push-thru-pin on my sizer.
I have a busy day at work tomorrow so it may not be until thursday that I can take some pics to show you all what I'm talking about. With any luck, the design of this Hybrid bullet mold will address some of the issues that may be keeping us from attaining the velocities and accuracy we strive for.
HollowPoint
30 Caliber Harbor Freight White-Boys
We bullet casters have a ton of acronyms associated with our hobby. Here's a few more.
SW, CB, 30-Cal, HP, RBT, PC'd, HF-WB's
That's; Swaged, Cast-Bullet, 30 Caliber, Hollow-Pointed, Rebated-Boat-Tail, Powder-Coated Harbor Freight White-Boys.
Just a quick update on my latest efforts.
I took a little more time to figure out the nuances of swaging my newly cast lead slugs. I found a flaw in my swaging die but I was able to work around it for now.
I'm going to go ahead and load these up as plinking loads using lighter charge weights. I want to see if they'll fly straight; no wobbling or key-holeing.
If they fly true, I'll push the next batch a little faster. In the mean time, I'm still working of gathering up the stuff I'll need to make my Revolving Powder Coating Jig.
I decided to coat them with some Harbor Freight White powder.
With the bullets that still had visible hollow points, I was able to stand them nose-down on a metal pin and powder coat them in one session. Those bullets effected by the flaw in my swaging die, I had to coat them in two sessions; one for the nose and one for the tail. I much prefer applying the Powder Coat in one session. It makes for smoother looking bullets.
Under the pressure of the swaging process, the hollow pointing pin hole on the end of my nose-forming die acted as a Bleed-Off hole. Lead extruded out of that hole causing a Pinocchio-nose effect.
When I went back and trimmed off that extruded noses, it caused my hollow point cavities to be plugged up so I wasn't able to stand them up for Powder Coating in one application.
Live and Learn. I ended up making a new hollow pointing pin to plug the hole at the nose of the nose-forming section of my die. This new hollow pointing pin actually screws into place so I'm hoping it will keep me from having to make a new nose forming section.
I'll be back when I get farther along.
HollowPoint