Casting a 5/16 inch diameter lead rod?

M

Mauser Rat

New member
It takes me a while but I generally get there. I am still chewing on all of the barrel slugging information you guys were kind enough to give me so I could slug the barrel of my M48 Mauser. The bore on that rifle is theoretically .323 inches which is just a hair over 5/16 ths of an inch. Well, a THICK hair....

I was wondering if I could cast a 5/16 inch diameter lead rod about 2 inches long and insert it in the end of a partially lead filled brass case to make a chamber end "jig" to use as the slug. Chamber it and then go after it from the muzzle end of the barrel?

This is a variation on the "chamber a lead filled case with a seated lead bullet...." type of slugging that was mentioned in that previous thread about barrel slugging.

Does anyone have any ideas on what to use as a mold to cast that 5/16 inch rod?
 
Make your bullet then send it to RCBS and ask them to make you a mode.

I have a mold for making 375 bullets. I cut a piece of 3/8 copper tubing to fit the mold, the pour in the lead. It makes a great jacked bullet right at 270 grains. Accurate in my 375 H&H.

You can do the same thing with 5/16s tubing.

jacob%20066.jpg
 
Hello, Kraigwy. I don't know how your set up..but for only a one-time use..you could find some brass or copper tubeing...hobby store? & plug one end & punch out when solidified. Or...how about some quick hardening plaster of paris & a 5/16" rod for mould..break off plaster when hard?
 
kraigwy and Ideal Tool,

Thanks! I like the copper tubing idea and I have some out in the shop and can go try it right now. I can use a Dremel to cut off the copper and be left with a perfect lead rod to slug the barrel with.

I like the plaster of paris idea too for finer stuff. Then a guy could even get a lot of detail into the casting! I can think of a hundred things I have been wanting to do for years where the plaster of paris idea will let me get all sorts of details directly in the casting and then just smash the mold off.

I actually just bought a big cake of natural beeswax yesterday and now I can see 1) carving whatever figure or shape I want in the wax, 2) Making a mold by casting the wax in plaster of paris and 3) then pouring lead into the plaster of paris mold of the original wax carving! :D

Thanks a lot to both of you kraigwy and Ideal Tool.

I just had another thought. I wonder if you could just roll some of that metal tape that some one was using to "beagle" molds and roll it up into a long cylinder with the right diameter and then plug one end and pour the lead right down into that? :confused: viola' instant lead rod?
 
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do you have any .357 molds? Or 9mm molds? If so, just cast a semi-soft lead boolit, smear some lube on it, and shove it through.

K.I.S.S. is my motto. (most of the time ;) )
 
Kraigwy...
I had read about Paco Kelly doing that, but never got to try it while I had my .375 BigBore. I REALLY like that idea, though. Your bullets look nice... have you harvested any game with them, yet?

sorry for the thread semi-hijack...
 
Nice looking boolits kraigwy. It's a neat idea. Let us know how they shoot?

Another good idea hornetguy. I DO have a 158 gn .358 mold and a bunch of lubed boolits I am just fixing to load. I'll use one of the .358 diameter boolits when I slug the whole barrel.

But I stole an idea from Richard Lee today and bought a length of 1" x 2" 6061 aluminum flat bar stock. I'm going to saw a 3 inch long piece in half and make two 1/2" x 2" "halves" 3 inches long. Then I'll just flip each of the halves over so that the un-sawn, flat faces fit together, lap them on a glass plate if they need any smoothing, clamp them back together and drill a hole 5/16ths inch diameter about two inches long.

Ready to fill with melted pure lead. I thought about doing it this way because I can make one of these sort of "Lee" molds in each caliber that I want to slug.

By the way :D I know what that second "S" stands for and are you calling me stupid?

What I want to know is, since we have never met in person, how you knew? I thought I was keeping it a secret! ;)
 
You could load a single round with 1 grain of Bullseye and climb a 5 ft step ladder and shoot it into a 5 gal bucket of water...
 
I've read about your "plugged case" method for finding throat deminsions, but not for slugging bbl. Are you asking about pouring lead down the bbl? Are you wanting to make a "lap" to lap the bore? or are you intrested in finding bore/groove deminsions? Just yesterday I slugged the bbl of my 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser; I used a bullet sinker (plastic worm "Carolina Rig"). I used some 3-in-one oil, started the sinker with a plastic mallet, used a brass punch to push the sinker a couple inches down the bore, finished pushing through with cleaning rod (with 8-32 brass screw in the end). .266". Piece of cake...
 
mikld,

I'm just trying to get the throat dimensions with what you call the "plugged case". There is a custom mold for an 8mm round that I am interested in and have been told that the problem is that the meplat is too large to fit the throat of my Yugo M48.

I am going to slug the entire bore as well and there are a lot of lead objects to do that with. Someone mentioned using a .358 diameter slug from my 357 Mag. to slug the bore of the .323 inch bore of the M48 and I think that I am going to do that.
 
I haven't tried it, but the "plugged case" method works well for what you need (a lead filled case and a soft lead slug swaged to chamber dimensions). Another method is a chamber cast with Cerrosafe...
 
mikld,

I'll let you know how the "plugged case" works and post a pic of it after I pound on it for awhile. It gives you the largest OAL for the rifle as well. Heading out to the shop now..... :)
 
By the way I know what that second "S" stands for and are you calling me stupid?

What I want to know is, since we have never met in person, how you knew? I thought I was keeping it a secret!
Click to expand...

ha ha.... nope.. not calling you stupid. The KISS reference was for ME.

Besides, it could have stood for "silly"... but that sounds a little, um, well, feminine.. :rolleyes:

Not that there's anythig WRONG with that....:D
 
Chapter 10:Take a simple job and make it Complicated

Silly! Now I don't mind a guy callin me stoopid but silly? Them's fightin words Buddy! :D

To Anybody that cares: Under the general heading "Overkill".......

I know, I know. I already admitted that I am just a tiny bit OCD. Just a tiny bit. Really a microscopic amount....er....Anyway :p here is the mold for the rod. A section of 1" x 2" 6061 Aluminum bar stock 3 inches long. Split down the middle into two halves each approximately 1/2"x2"x3". The first half drilled and tapped in two places to fit a 5/16"-18 bolt and the second half through drilled oversized in two places to allow a 5/16 in bolt to slide through without catching to facilitate opening the mold.

A 5/16" (0.3125 inches) rod to slug a barrel that is theoretically 0.323 inches in diameter. Careful to drill the mold hole down the split line between the halves and 2 1/2 inches deep. The 2 1/2 inches was so there would be enough rod to show the end of the throat and beginning of the barrel so that I could determine the maximum OAL for the rifle.

Second pic shows the split mold and some cast lead rods (carefully remembering to spray the mold with AeroKroil BEFORE pouring the stupid lead in. Absently rubbing the sore spot on my forehead where I bitc% slapped myself while peeling that first rod out in pieces that had been cast with no bond breaker :eek:)

and the last pic is of the "plugged case" throat slug.

I started casting rods with what was in my pot - a 92-6-2 mix that makes great boolits but makes rods that are harder and a little too brittle than they need to be to slug a barrel. So I started melting a dipper full of lead at a time in a Lyman dipper using a Mapp gas torch. The resulting pure lead rods were better for slugging the throat and barrel. All of this in support of gathering information on how to modify the Karabiner and Maximum boolits to fit a Yugo M48A.
 

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Guys, with respect, you are complicating a simple job. If you want to slug a barrel it is probably because you intend to shoot cast bullets through it. Cast bullets are usually two or three thousandths bigger than groove before sizing. Therefore, a pure lead bullet cast in that mould makes a perfect slug. I've slugged lots of barrels, all with that method. Takes five minutes. I wrote a little 11 page booklet with lots of photos about it, to publish on the internet, just hasn't gotten published yet.
 
Clarification of the acronym;

Actually saw a nose bloodied over application of KISS. Thereafter the expanded words are: Keep It Short (and) Sweet. Offends fewer.
 
The chicken or the egg?

dikko,

Haven't seen you around before but then I have not been around that long myself. Welcome and nice to meet ya.

I appreciate the feedback but if one is attempting to find out what size MOULD to get then one does not have the slug that you refer to yes? This might occur, for instance, with a person relatively new to casting that had no inventory of moulds for a particular rifle that had previously only seen jacketed stuff.

I was attempting to determine if a mould that I was considering trying to have made would produce a boolit that could be fired from that particular rifle. The given mould carried a "note" that the boolit cast by that mould would NOT fire through the bore of a particular rifle that others had fired it through before.

The whole setup was an attempt to determine if that boolit really would or would NOT fire through a milsurp rifle.

:D Soooooo.....if you can scramble through the crazy bad grammar it should be as clear as mud now!
 
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