tony1960
posted this
14 March 2020
Well I scrubbed the mould with Propanol and gave the hinge a slight oil as it was tight to open. The mould blocks don't quite close together as I can see light through the cavity, I was hoping this would get better as the mould heats up. Just put this down to very old techniques, these days our block free float and find there own place in life, with a fixed block this becomes difficult.
Duly put the blocks on top of the pot whilst it heated up and gathered the essentials.
The first couple of drops were as expected, rubbish, but having a good look at them prior to putting them back in the pot found slight finning due to the block not closing, bases looked OK even with the sprue not as tight as I would like but certainly wasn't rounded.
Throwing caution to the wind I cast about 50 and then turned everything off, this session was about does it work, if it was 1890 and I was hunting buffalo could I cast over the campfire and get a half decent projectile.
The usual amount of rejects but I wasn't too concerned with the odd wrinkle. I ended up with 30 odd usable pills, weights between 113.8 and 114.2, slight out of roundness .314 to .3165 but as I was going to put though a .314 sizer anyway. Tumble lubed what was left and now will wait until I can get to the range safely. With the COVID19 threat around and the fact I may be locked up in work for a couple of weeks just in case it may be some time before i can test these for minute of buffalo. I even passed up on a local gunshow as there was too much of a threat.
A couple of photos to keep the spirit alive. What was interesting is that the nose shape has changed slightly over the years, modern projectiles even though they are spruced as "original" design have a larger nose, these have a slightly sharper taper.