Beagling

H

Hog Buster

New member
I’ve been reloading for many years so I’m not much into experimenting anymore. I’ve settled on which cast bullets I like and the charge behind them. Still I guess that you’re never to old to learn something new. Today, for me, it was Beagling.

Beagling is when you shim a mold so that it will cast larger diameter bullets. While there’s probably several ways to do this I accomplished it with aluminum tape. It worked like a champ. An old Lyman .429 mold that dropped bullets of .427 in diameter was my test platform. The aluminum tape measured .004 in thickness so I simply stuck 3 small strips, sides and bottom between the mold halves, leaving some room between strips as an air gap. Bingo, I now cast bullets .431 in diameter from a old mold that was almost useless.

Getting caught up in my new experiment I cast about 150 bullets. Even with the heat the tape stayed in place, I was amazed. Measured the bullets and found that they were still fairly round. After a pass through the sizer they were a nice round .429 and I had a useful mold again.

I had read about this procedure some time back, but hadn’t thought much about using it. It sure as shootin’ works and is extremely easy to do. It also helped me kill time while melting a batch of stinky stick-ons.
 
I’ll leave the mold unchanged. Lapping that much steel, .004, could be a bit time consuming. As long as I can size the bullet back to round at the proper measurement I see no point in lapping the mold. Even if the bullet is not perfectly round it can be sized round providing that it’s overall diameter is larger than the sizing die. To a point, of course.

Of course it depends on how much shim you put between the mold halves. There has to be a point that the alloy will try to fill this gap. I’m not sure how wide this gap would have to be. Too large and I presume that you would have to shim, cast, lap, then shim again, cast, lap again and so on until you reached the desired diameter. Otherwise suffer egg shaped bullets.

Most undersized molds are just a couple of thousandths too small so opening it up .004 should cure the problem in most cases. It did for me.
 
Where do you get the tape from? How do you keep it in place? I have a Lyman 410459 that casts undersized, and I'd like it to cast around .412 so I can squeeze them just a bit when lubesizing. The only alternative I have is to send it out to Hollowpoint mould services and have him lap the bands.
 
I got the tape from a local hardware store. It’s aluminum with a paper backing that you pull off before use. It’s about 2 inches wide so has to be cut in narrow strips. Easily done with regular scissors. It’s used for sealing dryer vent pipe sections and such. It’s very sticky so all I did was stick it in place and it held and didn’t move while casting. Looks like it will last awhile too. Messing around with the mold after I had cast some I tried to pull the tape off. It was really stuck.

I checked another partial roll I had and found that it was only .002 of an inch thick. However I see no reason that 2 layers, or more, couldn’t be used, up to a point.
 
As to why it is called 'Beagling'. My good friend over on Cast Boolits developed this method after many tried and some successful and not so successful attempts at making undersized moulds cast a little larger. His forum name is, yup, you guessed it -- Beagle, which actually is Bald Eagle.

Anyway, the standard aluminium duct tape works okay. What is even better is flue tape. It is rated for 600dF. This stuff does not move around or leak glue. 3M makes the stuff. I had to have it special ordered at my hardware store, but it came in on the next shipment. Flue tape is less on a roll and more $$$, but I like it 'mo betta'.
 
Beagaling works very good . I use it on a few of my molds and I have a few molds that I've lapped.

I like both methods tho beagaling is EASIER and TEMPORARY if you dont need to lap it.
 
Hogbuster , I`ve seen very good results using diamond dust to lap the mold ya sprinkle some on a steel plate & roll ya bullet over it with another plate to impregnate the lead with diamond dust , then use oil to lap with .

Another way is to make a paste , but seems this method may be tuff on the corners .

But I agree Beagling works !!!

Too bad bout the 429421 mold throwin 427 bullets , have ya called Lyman ???

Or tried #2 alloy to see if it`ll throw bigger???

Erik at Hollow Point Service will open up the mold , but he charges by the band !!!

I held my breath on the last Lyman I bought !!
 
Yeah I’m familiar with grinding compounds. I’d like to open it up other than Beagling , but .004 is a bunch of grinding. That much would round everything off some too. Not that I care, the mold is years old. I still may give it a try, nothing ventured nothing gained.

Over the years, every now and again, I tried different alloys with this mold. Some were smaller, but none produced larger diameter bullets.

The last molds I lapped were years ago. Steel Lyman’s, so I used valve grinding compound. Worked OK just time consuming. I’ve got an aluminum one that needs to be opened up, but lapping aluminum can be a PIA galling.

With the advent of tumble lubing no one’s new molds seem to be much oversize. I guess not many folks take time to run them through a lube-sizer, opting for the easy and cheap way out.

The molds I’ve had for years, with the exception of this one, all seem to be a bit oversize and drop bullets easily sized properly.

I’m from the old school. I like round bullets that are sized for the bore of what they’re to be used in. Apparently that ain’t so important for folks today.
 
If anyones lookin for the beagling tape electric shielding tape will also work & mine is .003" thick

The aluminum tape is the 1 AC/Heating use to seal ducts with & most is .004-.006 thick .

If you use the .006 tape you start gettin fins & stuff with warm casting temps .

Just for clarification;)
 
I’m from the old school. I like round bullets that are sized for the bore of what they’re to be used in. Apparently that ain’t so important for folks today. ​
Sad, but true.
 
OK; field test report. First, thanks to Edward 429451 for the strip of aluminum tape. I cut a piece to place on the bottom of the mould to make the top band a bit larger, and it worked! Boolits went from .408 to .410 on the first band. I had a bit of fin, but nothing serious enough to worry about; I get more concened when the air vents load up.
Upon sizing, I could feel all 3 bands as they went down into the sizer die telling me that the as-cast diameter was correct.
Now all I have to do is shoot a few to see if there is any better accuracy.
 
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