JWFilips
Well-Known Member
Well on the encouragement of Ben, I bought some 8 mm drill bits and started on the adventure of Plain basing some of my 8 mm moulds.
Ben is a great teacher and he gives you good information to get you on track. On his advise I bought a 8.25 mm drill bit that he felt would work on my NOE 325-180 Ranch Dog mould. I also ordered a 8.30 mm drill bit to open up a Lee mould.
The time had come and I was nervous at first and spent the first evening going over in my head the steps as well as checking all the numbers from my cast boolits with my normal alloy.
I decided for the fist time up I would try it out on my $17.50 Lee 175 grain mould ...but then I remembered I sold that but I did have a Lee 329-205 mould. Now at .329" it was a bit large for my 8.30mm drill bit which is .3265" but since I size to .326" I felt it would all come together in the sizer (& I was correct in the end )
The actual drilling was done in a blink of an eye....but the setup took awhile (just wanted to be sure).
Squaring up the mould and the bit took some time but my biggest challenge was how to be sure I was centered in the center of the hole in the mould. I wasn't sure the drill bit would center in the hole even with the vise loosened from the drill press table because the mould was aluminum. (If it were steel I could have easily brought the bit down to the hole and the tip of the bit would center the mould relative to the bit) but In the aluminum I was sure it may just give a little since it is so much softer then the bit. So what i did was put in a 82 deg countersink into the chuck, bring it down into the opening with the vise loosed from the drill table and it did the trick ( helped it ever so slightly by my hand to feel it center).
I then reinstalled the drill bit. Cut the gas check shank of in 2 seconds and used Ben's stick polishing trick to finish it up.
Looked good so I fired up my pot and cast up about 40 pieces to see if i did it. The boolits dropped easily from the mould. They had the faint trace of a gas check line as dropped ( because the bit was not .329") however I sized them up and they came out perfect! They now weigh in at 213.5 grain on average.
Now I always let my fresh cast boolits age 3 to 4 weeks before shooting but I was too excited so I loaded 25 up last night using 2 powders: I decided on 8,9, & 10 grains Unique and 8&9 grains Red Dot.
The targets below were shot this morning at 50 yds with my GEW98
Redfield receiver sights and Lyman 17a Globe front with a Lee Shaver aperture disk.
The laser paper targets got ripped up badly with these round nose boolits but I measured the groups from the card board backer board. All are 5 shot groups; all at about an inch center to center!
I'm pretty happy with my new plain base boolit . I sure like to thank Ben for giving me the incentive to give it a try.
Now on to the Ranch Dog!
Jim
Ben is a great teacher and he gives you good information to get you on track. On his advise I bought a 8.25 mm drill bit that he felt would work on my NOE 325-180 Ranch Dog mould. I also ordered a 8.30 mm drill bit to open up a Lee mould.
The time had come and I was nervous at first and spent the first evening going over in my head the steps as well as checking all the numbers from my cast boolits with my normal alloy.
I decided for the fist time up I would try it out on my $17.50 Lee 175 grain mould ...but then I remembered I sold that but I did have a Lee 329-205 mould. Now at .329" it was a bit large for my 8.30mm drill bit which is .3265" but since I size to .326" I felt it would all come together in the sizer (& I was correct in the end )
The actual drilling was done in a blink of an eye....but the setup took awhile (just wanted to be sure).
Squaring up the mould and the bit took some time but my biggest challenge was how to be sure I was centered in the center of the hole in the mould. I wasn't sure the drill bit would center in the hole even with the vise loosened from the drill press table because the mould was aluminum. (If it were steel I could have easily brought the bit down to the hole and the tip of the bit would center the mould relative to the bit) but In the aluminum I was sure it may just give a little since it is so much softer then the bit. So what i did was put in a 82 deg countersink into the chuck, bring it down into the opening with the vise loosed from the drill table and it did the trick ( helped it ever so slightly by my hand to feel it center).
I then reinstalled the drill bit. Cut the gas check shank of in 2 seconds and used Ben's stick polishing trick to finish it up.
Looked good so I fired up my pot and cast up about 40 pieces to see if i did it. The boolits dropped easily from the mould. They had the faint trace of a gas check line as dropped ( because the bit was not .329") however I sized them up and they came out perfect! They now weigh in at 213.5 grain on average.
Now I always let my fresh cast boolits age 3 to 4 weeks before shooting but I was too excited so I loaded 25 up last night using 2 powders: I decided on 8,9, & 10 grains Unique and 8&9 grains Red Dot.
The targets below were shot this morning at 50 yds with my GEW98
Redfield receiver sights and Lyman 17a Globe front with a Lee Shaver aperture disk.
The laser paper targets got ripped up badly with these round nose boolits but I measured the groups from the card board backer board. All are 5 shot groups; all at about an inch center to center!
I'm pretty happy with my new plain base boolit . I sure like to thank Ben for giving me the incentive to give it a try.
Now on to the Ranch Dog!
Jim
