Bumping undersize boolits

[Jim]

I ran into a new problem yesterday. A member sent me a Lyman 462560 mold to borrow. I fired up the pot, got the mold up to heat and let the clutch out. Ran about 50 or so really nice boolits.

I sat down at the bench, put my .460 Lee sizer die in the press to start gas checking them and discovered they all came out of the mold at about .453!

What to do? First thing I thought of was Beagleing the mold. No foil tape and none in Floyd. I started thinking about bumping them.

After an hour or so of experimenting, I found out that the profile of a .308 F/L sizer die would do perfect. I took the expander rod out of the collet on a Lee die, lubed the boolits lightly and pushed them into the die. I had to drop a punch through the collet and tap it ever so slightly to get the boolit to dislodge and drop out of the die. It works, though.

I had to kinda' play around with getting the die set to the right height so they wouldn't bump too much. When I found the sweet spot, they came out .450 at the bottom of the shoulder of the meplat and .462 at the gas check. I just ran them through the sizer die after that to straighten out the profile and checked a few of them with the mic. Perfect.

That got me to thinking. If I could make a 'tap-out' rod shaped like an auto engine valve, that could go in the die from the inside with the stem through the collet, this might work for other boolits.

Below, as cast, bumped & checked and lubed.

[Reload3006]

Good for you great info.

[geargnasher]

I've used a .44 Magnum Lee carbide sizer to size the bore-riding nose portion of the Lyman 500 grain round-nose boolits before and used a concrete nail as an ejector, it worked very well too.

Gear

[stubshaft]

That's using the old noggin Jim!

[Reload3006]

if you want to make a great bump die Jim go to your local hardware store and buy a 7/8-14 bolt cut off the hex if you want to. Drill and ream a hole in the center of it the size you want to bump to. then all you need to do is put a cap on the top end and make a punch for the bottom end. Cheap and effective. If you dont have a lathe you can do the same thing with a drill press and you really dont need a bolt any steel will work you can use two rods the same size as the hole and a hammer will work too.

[Sonnypie]

If you would flux the pot with butter, you could fatten them up....


Ducks, runs...

Jim, Ya left the door open friend.

[Jim]

Reload, no need to re-invent the wheel. I've already got it.

Sonny, I use corn bread mix. Really puts the pounds on!

[Sonnypie]

Looks like that middle one got a skosh shorter when you bumped it wider...
Is that correct? Or is it my tired eyes? Just curious about how much bumping shortened them.
Sure looks good.

I have a batch of 30 calibers I sized before I honed my sizing die out a bit.
Now you have me wondering about bumping them, and running them through the sizing die again.
I might sprinkle them with corn meal while I'm at it.

If it doesn't work, I suppose the corn meal would make interesting flux.

[MtGun44]

Good job.

They look great except for that brown crud all over that right
handed one.

[Sonnypie]

Good job.

They look great except for that brown crud all over that right
handed one.

I think he sneezed on that one with a chaw of Red Man in his mouth.....

[Jim]

Sonny, I hadn't noticed it, but you're right. The 'as cast' is 1.297" and the 'bumped & checked' is 1.293".

And that ugly brown stuff is............well, suffice to say we got a lot of cattle up here in these hills.

[44man]

I am not going to bite on this one!
You guys already made my morning.

[Jim]

44man, never say 'I'm not gonna' do anything. Sometimes, ya' gotta' 'bite the boolit'!

[DLCTEX]

I have bumped boolits a couple thou. by pushing down on the handle of my RCBS lubesizer.

[DukeInFlorida]

I ran some 45-70 boolits (415 grain, NOE mold) with 75% linotype, and 25% ww alloy (don't ask....), and found that they had shrunk to .457".......... I was thinking that I would have to melt them all down and start over. I very much like the idea of bumping them up to size.

I noticed a year ago or so, while putting some stubborn gas checks on another cast boolit, that the shank had expanded while squeezing the bullets into the gas checks, making the gas check install impossible.

Hadn't made the jump to actually doing a bump on purpose.

The next time I run that 45-70 mold, I'll be sure to run a proper alloy mix.

In the mean time, I'll be doing the bump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLtrkfcyVjQ

[Jim]

Duke, if you decide to use the method I described, MAKE SURE you put the checks on BEFORE you bump them! If you don't you'll never get the checks on afterward.

[jandbn]

In the mean time, I'll be doing the bump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLtrkfcyVjQ

I don't spose that is you and your significant other "bumping it up"?