Over the week end, I cobbled together.....

wittzo

I can not generate enough force to press six at a time but I made a coupla jigs that will press two at a time. I was having some trouble keeping the surface of the press lined up with the chambers so I braized a skirt to the bottom of the press surface. It is the pipe portion that can be seen surrounding the support pipe. I had to cut away a portion of the section so as not to interfere with the cylinder.

When I initially came up with this framus, I set two goals. I wanted it to be relatively fast and I wanted it to fit inside my shooting box. (I built a press a whie ago which I am sure generated a lot of laughter in the group. It was so big, I had to pay property tax on it.) I initially thought I could press six at a time but I gave up on that pretty quick.
 
I won't laugh too hard, for a second I got the idea of mounting a shop vise vertically to give more pressure. :)
 
Wittzo

Actually, I think if I used pure lead, I would have more success.

I get lead from two sources.

1. I have a bunch of marine ballast bars of which I think the purity may not be more than about 95 or 96 percent lead. These things are about 35 to 40 pounds apiece and I have about a dozen of them.

2. I have a bunch of ingots cast from wheel weights and I think those ingots may be as low as 96%. Consequently my bullets are a little hard.

I think if I used pure lead, I could press six at a time.
 
Marine ballast should be pure lead. Stick on wheel weights are 99.5% pure lead with a BHN of 6. Pure lead has a BHN of 5. Clip on weights are much harder at around 12-16 BHN. I use a lot of stick on weights and theres no noticeable difference in loading or shooting. Even my minies slide down the bore with the weight of the ramrod to the last three inches or so.
 
Hawg Haggen wrote:
Even my minies slide down the bore with the weight of the ramrod to the last three inches or so.
Click to expand...
That's what minies are supposed to do. Now if the lead is too hard, the skirt won't expand like it's supposed to do, and accuracy is an iffy thing!
 
As far as weights are concerned...

I am using a combination of stick-ons and clip-ons.

I called up the major manufacturer of clip on weights and she told me I could rely upon at least 95 percent, depending upon the cost of the alternate metals. But she also said that a lot of weights are imported from China and the alloy is not identifiable.

I know that the balls I cast are very close to the appropriate weigh for pure lead. They also pass the thumbnail test but that is as close as I can get to identifying the alloy with the measures at hand.

It is entirely possible that this lead is much purer than I am thinking but I doubt that it is less pure.

When I got hold of the ballast, I got it from a ship stability team in the shipyard. All the guy would say is that it is "relatively pure."
 
I've made balls out of clip on weights. They're bigger as well as harder, they don
t shrink as much as pure lead when they cool. Minies made out of them are difficult to load and the bore has to be cleaned after a few rounds. Minies made out of stick on weights load easily in a dirty bore.
 
Doc - I keep coming back and looking at your photos of the drawer case you made. A nice way to keep everything organized. I carry my stuff to the place I shoot in an old Union Army tarred haversack that I used in reenacting 25 years ago - age appropriate I guess. Anyway you could sketch me up something to put inside that to keep organized? Naw . . would probably be too bulky and besides, my wife has been trying to get me organized for almost 40 years. I am thinking though that something like you made would be a good "winter project" and would be helpful now that I have a couple of big 44s instead of just the 36s. :D
 
"B cubed"

How is your better half with a sewing machine?

You could get her to make a pouch affair that rolls up. Remember how they once did cleaning kits? It would take a little planning and figuring. But that kind of a thing might work.
 
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