Undersize bullets

[stubbicatt]

Beagle333, I don't suppose you are the originator of "Beagling" a mould, are you?

I have a 4 cavity Saeco mould which throws bullets at .450 - .451", and I would prefer .452" I am thinking of sending the mould back to Saeco to get one properly sized, but then I only did one casting session at mixed temperatures, due to a RCBS Pro Melt issue holding temperature. I reckon the problem may be something other than a mould issue.

The Pro Melt is back at RCBS being rebuilt under warranty, and after talking to them yesterday, I learned it will be a few weeks before I get it back.

I think I'll wait until it returns to see if I can cast at maybe 650* or so and maybe get less shrinkage, before returning the mould.

The thought did occur to me to try to "Beagle" the mould with some Clover compound, to see if I can open the cavities up a little bit.

My question is, how can you assure each cavity has been opened the same amount? It would be a shame to get 4 different sized bullets.

 

[Beagle333]

No, I didn't invent it, it was just plain ol' Beagle, without any numbers after the name. But I think "Beagling" involves putting small strips of metal duct tape between the blocks to separate them slightly and get a larger bullet. The process of spinning a bullet with some sort of compound in the cavity to actually increase the size is called "Leementing" and is usually done on soft Lee aluminum molds. I think it would be quite difficult on an iron mold. I have no idea how you would do it repeatably on 4 cavities.