Wish me luck (being too cheap again)

S

skizzums

New member
chapter 1: okay, so most of you know I have been going nuts messing with this old mosin nagant. now that I have shot it and gotten a decent baseline for what it's capable of(1.5-1.75), I am trying to fine tune my reloading process for it. well, I have 3 types of bullets on the shelf, all heavy/long/pointy and I have tried to do the seating method of finding where my lands start. you know, barely seat at MAX oal, color with sharpie and try to get the bullet to engrave or push in farther. no luck, I have no clue where they start, or if they are just eroded to nothing. the headspace is all good and it shoots decent.

chapter 2: it's a gloomy day in douglasville GA. I had been interested in my wife's "dental stone" ever since she brought some home and made us all impressions and nightguards. it seems to give extremely detailed molds with little to no shrinkage. since I am not overly concerned with exact chamber dimensions, since I am going to neck size anyways, I assumed this could possibly be an alternative for a cheap and quick chamber cast, to at least see where my rifling is.so I requested her bring some home STAT!!


fast forward to today, actually RIGHT NOW. I couldn't find any info on the webs for using my particular product, except one anecdotal story about a guy doing his shotgun without specifics to the product used, didn't go too well. so I figured I needed to test it somehow. 300blk seating die, cleaned, oiled, plugged with foam earplug at the threads.


well....it was surprisingly successful. dried quickly, although I let set for an hour to be sure. I found a punch the same size as seater stem, as to not bang up the inside of my die. left a slight residue, I believe from where I had excess oil so it didn't cure at those spots, but were easily brushed out and stone turned to instant dust. then when cleaning the cup and spoon I used, I noticed that this stuff is so soluble that even after curing, I few seconds in water turns it right back to liquid.


so after that successful run, feel confident that I won't be screwing up my rifle, more concerned that it's just too brittle to give a casting that will give me usable information. also, the seating die, even with the large punch, took some forceful whacks to break loose, and I am unsure if a cleaning rod will be up to the task. I am not sure what I will use for an alternative if rods don't hold up.

before you stop me.....
 

already done. I chambered a round, ran a rod up the muzzle and marked where the bullet hit, back out about half an inch, and ran another foam plug to the same spot.

the only different method than the die I used, was after oiling, I cleaned and dried again, then used Lyman case lube to hopefully put a film as a release. pretty sure this is going to be tough to get out in one piece, but I have hope.

(DISCLAIMER) this rifle was 100$, I had officially designated this as an "experimentation" rifle long ago, and do not care if I kill a barrel. please do not do this to your rifle, it is recommended by NO ONE!. cerro-safe is not costly or hard to acquire.

i'll reposrt back in about 2 hours.......whatcha think?
 
I think it's very ingenious and innovative. Sounds pretty 'safe' to me and your trial run shows you're thinking this all out.

Good luck.
 
I am thinking I am going to wait til late this evening or even tomorrow. hoping to allow for some shrinkage, so I can hopefully remove it without damaging the brittle material. if no easy removal than I may heat up the chamber with a torch.
 
well.....I am pretty disappointed in myself. did my chamber cast work out? NO!!! is dental stone a viable alternative to cerrosafe? absolutely!!

i'll explain the process and how it went tits up

let it sit about 24 hours to allow for shrinkage, although that didn't seem to happen, ws hoping it would shrink just slightly enough to allow for easier removal. found a 1/8 punch with the punch end fitting perfectly into the threaded end of a cleaning rod. wrapped one layer of duct tape around punch to get the size to .310 at it's largest spot. this to avoid any damage to bore.

insert the punch, then used a rubber screw bit holder as a guide for the rod, and screwed a nut to top of cleaning rod for a flat surface to pound in with hammer.

after a couple stern whacks with no movement, and wanting to be gentle enough not to break the cast, I decided to clean out the chamber where some had over flowed just by scraping and heated chamber with a torch(hopong to slightly expand metal and maybe draw oil and moisture to surface of stone cast). then some gentle 10-15 pound strikes were getting significant movement, turned out to be way easier than I though it would be. the receiver of the mosin has a smoothed, rounded surface for the bolt to ride that has a lip that protrudes to be slightly smaller than the chamber on one side, so I knew that piece would have to break off, no biggie, could still get what I wanted. attempted to get a pic of what I am talking about, but hard to understand.



anyways, about 10-15 soft taps and my cast was free, it did get a crack in the middle, but a clean crack that didn't affect the dimensions.


so....what went wrong?? well I was so concerned about going too deep into the rifling and getting stuck, so I kept going deeper with the plug until I assumed I was just at the very beginning of the lands. not so much. the plug came out right on top of the chamber cast, and I didn't come close to deep enough. gosh darn bleepity bleep......oh well, I have a week before new bullets arrive, I have time to do it again. sure don't feel like it, but I have the time, so no excuses.


so there you go, a nice smooth cast of the chamber right up to where the shoulder begins. let me say this, this stuff is a little difficult for an intricate receiver and chamber like this, but do-able, but I believe it is perfect for a removed barrel and maybe even ideal for those wanting to cast pistol chambers(removable barrel of course).

lets talk about us guys favorite things, this does not apply WendyJ if you are reading, "shrinkage". okay, so this material sat for around 30 hours. I have 100 fire-formed unsized 54r's that were just shot from this rile last weekend. I measured 5 different headstamps, 3 were .462 and 2 were .463 at below the shoulders. win, pmc, ppu, nyy and another surp. chamber cast is .463 down more on the body and .462 up below shoulders like others were measured. I honestly think it's perfect stuff, albeit a bit more fragile than desired, but shows little to none "shrinkage" and costs about nothing

so I have the pleasure of doing this again tomorrow, but I am also going to do a couple pistol barrels just to see how it goes.

doesn't seem like anyone was on the edge f their seat over this experiment, well except for me, but I will update again on sunday, the process should go a bit smoother this time anyways.

if anyone has any tips to add, I am all ears. if you see something that would improve my process, don't be shy
 
if anyone has any tips to add, I am all ears. if you see something that would improve my process, don't be shy
Click to expand...

I was doing chamber case before I got onto the Internet, that is when I realized no one knew how ( to case a chamber). The question came up on another reloading forum, it would appear members did not know how and did not want anyone else to know. Any how, I did not make any friends, I did contact the shooter/reloader through regular email and then by phone. He is well now on his way with a whole new appreciation for methods and techniques.

F. Guffey
 
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