Author Topic: OK, we're in the design stage for a 1" projo mould (Read 2373 times)

Cat Whisperer · « **on:** March 17, 2009, 03:48:49 PM »

We've been talking and I figured y'all need to be in on the conversation - even though two heads are thicker than one.

We're lookin' at a 1" bullet for a muzzle loading cannon. Smooth bore. Looking for better accuracy than round ball. Looking for a mould design that I can build easily from the scraps of iron and aluminum.

SO that's two designs: one; the design of the bullet and two; the design of the mould.

I have a mill and a couple of lathes and some tooling.

Frank46 · « **Reply #1 on:** March 17, 2009, 04:06:07 PM »

How about something like the foster shotgun slug, but with pointed nose and no hollow base. Should be pretty easy to make up a mold based on the above. Having said that, with the exception of doing cast bullets my mold making experience
is basically zip. I'm sure others with more experience will chime in and offer more suggestions. Frank

GGaskill · « **Reply #2 on:** March 17, 2009, 04:44:32 PM »

Anything made with a hollow base is going to grip the bore walls upon firing to some degree. If the skirt is thick enough, it won't grip very hard but it will weigh more than a thin skirt.

DoktorD · « **Reply #3 on:** March 17, 2009, 07:45:52 PM »

Whelp, this might come in handy...

Miniball Weights / Dimensions

It was kinda annoying trying to figure out weights/dimensions and whatnot so I made a little tool to do it for me.

Didnt know what materials to put on it so I just used the same materials that GGaskill put on the round shot calculator.

May or may not use it, but what the heck

It'll be interesting to see by how much you can improve your accuracy.. Good luck!

dan610324 · « **Reply #4 on:** March 17, 2009, 09:14:40 PM »

wouldnt a round ball with an extremely small windage ( as close to zero as possible ) be the best option for accuracy in a smooth bore ?? of course with reduced loads , and the barrel must be carefully cleaned between every shot . ball bearing balls for example .

another idea is a similar dart as used as armour piercing ammo in modern thanks , they are smooth bores .
a dart could be much smaller then the bore and a surrounding sabbot in 4 pieces . an exact scaled down copy of the existing tank ammo .

ideas ??

armorer77 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 17, 2009, 11:19:46 PM »

Or you could go the traditional route using a tail or streamer on a round ball . Armorer77

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #6 on:** March 18, 2009, 01:03:40 AM »

Ahhh, the ideas are flowing!

Me thinks that doing ONE bullet design isn't going to be enough! We'll have to do some comparisons.

I have a LOT of odd pieces of round stock - stainless and alloy, and some large diameters (short) of aluminum. For ease of machining, at this point in design, I'm inclined to consider aluminum.

The steel is 1-1/4, 1-1/2 or thereabouts. Aluminum is that and lots of 4" or so.

Mould design?

Again, we're collecting ideas on both bullet design and mould design, soon to make chips fly.

Victor3 · « **Reply #7 on:** March 18, 2009, 03:35:15 AM »

If I were to try something like this, I'd take a tip from the Brenneke shotgun slug (minus the useless "rifling" grooves).

It's a solid slug with a thick felt wad glued to the base, which provides a bore seal and also imparts drag stabilization without the need for a hollow base.

Dead simple mould to make if you've got a slightly undersize (for windage) 1" ball end mill. If need be, you can grind a little off of the OD of a new end mill since you're basically going to be using it as a drill. You could use a 63/64" drill bit if you wanted a pointy slug, but the BC of a round-nose would be better.

I don't think I'd make it more than 1.25" long, but one nice thing about a mould like this is you can vary the length of the slug depending on how much lead you pour in.

Ex 49'er · « **Reply #8 on:** March 18, 2009, 05:59:33 AM »

Thank you for that calculator, DoctorD!!!!!!!!

seacoastartillery · « **Reply #9 on:** March 18, 2009, 07:48:36 AM »

I believe you fellows are putting the cart ahead of the horse by even talking about making the mold before doing any experiments on various bullet designs. Lead is a metal so it can be turned. Mike and I have turned plenty of lead bullets to test out different configurations BEFORE even considering what the mold will look like. We are not talking about hundreds, just 3 to 5 of each design to see if they are stable in flight. Three at 25 and three at 100 yards will tell the story 95% of the time.

A couple days ago we found some bolts in our range's "impact area" after scouring it for hours and hours between 1,800 and 2,400 yards. One of them was a smoothbore projectile that actually was found right at 2,200 yards by RocklockI. If I can get my broken camera working again I will show you guys a possible shape to consider.

Interesting thread, Tim, thanks,

Tracy and Mike

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #10 on:** March 18, 2009, 02:49:40 PM »

First mould - aluminum - about 1" ID`1-5/8" OD.
(Had to do a mould first - to put the molten lead alloy in - )
First turning of aluminum that I've done in years - and before I didn't do much.
About 1-3/8 deep. No taper. That will tell me if I can get away with no taper with a one-piece mould - just from the bullet shrinking. Might need a knock-out pin. ( I do have a brass mould [very old] with considerable taper that is essentially a one-piece mould. )

Next step is to heat to about 400dF and cast a slug. Let cool. Measure diameter. This will give me the data to determine the diameter of the bullet from the ID of a cold mould.

seacoastartillery · « **Reply #11 on:** March 18, 2009, 03:32:00 PM »

There is nothing earthshaking about the design of the projectile shown in the photo below. It is simply a light-weight version of our standard lathe turned 7 oz. "chill-nose" bolt for our Parrott rifle. This one is only 6.05 oz. as it has a .750" drilled cavity about .30" deep plus the drill point.

The interesting thing about this bolt which we found yesterday was that it had no rifling engagement marks on it at all, being an early, 1.067" dia. experimental bolt from late 2004. At that time we were still trying various skirt thicknesses, (from .020" to .025") and powder charges, (in the amount of 250 to 300 grains). We just measured this bolt after removing some dirt and surface rust and it's skirt thickness is a full .025" which is .005" too much, and prevents the skirt from flaring out to engage the rifling. ANYWAY, this bolt DID NOT rotate, yet it flew through the target at 100 yards, hit at 170 to 175 yards, ricocheted out to 500 or 600 yards, hit again, ricocheted at 800 to 1,000 yards and then took off at a higher angle out to 2,200 yards where Rocklock! found it! So it was essentially a smoothbore projectile, merely keeping a ballistic profile via the shuttle-cock principle, even after that many ricochets.

Maybe it's worth a look?

Tracy and Mike

It's 2.300" long has the "bottle-nose" or "chill-nose" ogive just because we are such slaves to authenticity.

This is the extra deep cavity base which makes this bolt a full oz. lighter than the 7 oz. standard bolt. 4.5 years in the sun and snow in Colorado gives 12L14 steel quite a nice "Brown Bess", brown patina.

Victor3 · « **Reply #12 on:** March 19, 2009, 01:21:12 AM »

Quote from: seacoastartillery on March 18, 2009, 03:32:00 PM

ANYWAY, this bolt DID NOT rotate, yet it flew through the target at 100 yards, hit at 170 to 175 yards, ricocheted out to 500 or 600 yards, hit again, ricocheted at 800 to 1,000 yards and then took off at a higher angle out to 2,200 yards where Rocklock! found it! So it was essentially a smoothbore projectile, merely keeping a ballistic profile via the shuttle-cock principle, even after that many ricochets.

Tracy and Mike

I'm curious M&T,

How do you know that the bolt didn't rotate? Seems to me that it might be possible that it grabbed the rifling in the bore enough to impart spin without leaving evidence (any that could be seen through five years of rust) of it on the skirt

And how did you determine that it remained stable in flight after its three contacts with the ground?

Were yoos guys on the Warren Commission by chance? Were you firing from a grassy knoll?

seacoastartillery · « **Reply #13 on:** March 19, 2009, 07:59:58 AM »

Victor3, First of all, Mike and I never have been able to understand how you can possibly come up with this stuff so early in the morning. Neither Mike nor I can possibly match your ability to have coherent thoughts and lucidity at 6 AM! You are going to force us to post yet another photo aren't you. This one will show what skirt engagement through rust looks like. When we find it, you will see it.

Before Sunday, we had recovered about a dozen projectiles, all of standard weight, 7 oz. The one which failed to engage the rifling from this group sounded like a buzz-saw as it went down range. It only went about 500 yards. None of the light weight bolts we fired at long range did this. All of the light weights with the .025" skirt that we recovered at 15 feet in a dirt bank were without rifling marks.

So, while we can't be absolutely sure that the light weight bolts did not have a little rotation, we are convinced that the RPM they might have displayed was far, far below that required for stabilization due to gyroscopic effect. The robust evidence of shuttle cock stabilization even through several ricochets is simply the extreme range, 2,200 yards, at which it was found by Gary. This guy has excellent vision. He found three of the four that we found that day. Mike found the fourth and I was skunked!

And finally, yes, we were on the Commission; are you by any chance one of the "Black Helicopter Crowd" who dispute our findings?

Regards,

Mike and Tracy

Double D · « **Reply #14 on:** March 19, 2009, 08:17:42 AM »

Quote from: seacoastartillery on March 19, 2009, 07:59:58 AM

The robust evidence of shuttle cock stabilization even through several ricochets is simply the extreme range, 2,200 yards, at which it was found by Gary. This guy has excellent vision. He found three of the four that we found that day.

Of course he did!!!

Semper Fi.

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #15 on:** March 19, 2009, 01:39:48 PM »

Tried using a 1" end mill. Went about 1-1/2" deep in aluminum. Spherical end was MUCH smoother than the sides. Fast. But didn't have any control on the diameter other than the tool diameter.

Not happy with the boring surface finish. Will build a few more tool holders for the boring bars I have which are more robust than the thin one with the carbide bit brazed on.

Mulling over 2 - 3 - 4 piece mould designs.

Aluminum is promising now just from an ease of machining.

lance · « **Reply #16 on:** March 19, 2009, 02:48:38 PM »

I want to say Thanks to Everyone for all the help and ideals, keep them coming. The cannon to be used in this test is a 1/7 scale Dahlgren with Marsilly carriage. The cannon is new,never been fired, so i don't know what to expect. Is 100yd target shooting a good distance for this cannon? I'll be happy with whatever mould design Tim wants to make.

Double D · « **Reply #17 on:** March 19, 2009, 03:01:56 PM »

Lance,

It's part of what this board is about, the sharing of ideas, you certainly have inspired us in the past with yours.

seacoastartillery · « **Reply #18 on:** March 19, 2009, 03:46:46 PM »

Lance, We second what Double D wrote and we look forward to hearing from you on the results of shooting that scale Dahlgren Gun. We believe that 50 yards would be an excellent range for a 1" smoothbore cannon and you could always push the target out to 100 yards later on.

Below is a scale, "milled base", Brooke bolt that we recovered from the prairie range a few days ago. Contrasted to the other light weight, "hollow base" bolt that went 2,200 without rifling engagement, this one engaged the rifling perfectly and yet was picked up at a mere 700 yards, 100 yards closer than Gary's solid steel balls of golf ball size fired from his scale Confederate Parrott which Mike found at 800 yards.

Regards,

Tracy and Mike

You can even see, through the rust, where the driving edge of the rifling groove dug in to the .020" skirt.

An 800 yard steel whistler, golf ball size, 1.700".

Finally the Billiard Ball from Gary's SBR soda can mortar that he found at 400 yards.

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #19 on:** March 19, 2009, 04:19:44 PM »

T&M - I find the end view of the bolt MOST interesting - how the iron distorted from engagement and rotation in the rifling!

Should get more shop time this weekend.

Double D · « **Reply #20 on:** March 19, 2009, 04:30:41 PM »

I can just see the headlines in a hunnert years when during excuvation for a new Colorado strip mall projectiles from an old unrecorded battle field are unearthed...

Frank46 · « **Reply #21 on:** March 19, 2009, 05:13:34 PM »

Better yet, put them on ebay as rare and unknown artillery projectiles. Oughta sell like hotcakes. Frank

Double D · « **Reply #22 on:** March 19, 2009, 06:37:21 PM »

Yes authentic projectiles from the rare experimental Prairie Model 1 inch Parrot rifle, here before never known to ever exist. Finally proof the gun was actually fielded, now available for the buy now price of 10,000 Zimbabwean dollars.

1Southpaw · « **Reply #23 on:** March 19, 2009, 07:22:06 PM »

The postage of inquiry would be more money than the projectile

Victor3 · « **Reply #24 on:** March 20, 2009, 02:28:21 AM »

Quote from: seacoastartillery on March 19, 2009, 07:59:58 AM

Victor3, First of all, Mike and I never have been able to understand how you can possibly come up with this stuff so early in the morning.

And finally, yes, we were on the Commission; are you by any chance one of the "Black Helicopter Crowd" who dispute our findings?

Regards,

Mike and Tracy

I usually get off work about now, so it's the perfect time to take a pot shot at my favorite cannon gooroos.

Ahhh... so them were you two in the back of the conference room, measuring the water cooler bottle for some strange reason ("Hey Mike, ya think they'll ever make these out of plastic?"). I knew we had met, and your "magic bullet" theory is makin' more sense to me now.

All joking aside, thanks for your reasoned 'splaination of how you determined what happened with your bolts.

Still though..... 90% of the mass up front, drag stabilized via nothing more than that little band/pocket at the rear? $:-\$

Blaster · « **Reply #25 on:** March 20, 2009, 07:21:59 AM »

Quote from: lance on March 19, 2009, 02:48:38 PM

The cannon to be used in this test is a 1/7 scale Dahlgren with Marsilly carriage. The cannon is new,never been fired, so i don't know what to expect.

Lance, if you purchased your 1/7 Dahlgren from SBR, it must be just like the one in the picture below. SBR also included about a 5 inch piece of the excess seamless bore liner that was used in that particular cannon so I'd have a little projectile gauge. I ALWAYS roll the .960 lead balls through this little gauge just to make certain they won't become a bore obstruction of some type. I also added (actually HAD added) a brass slap hammer to decrease the "wait time" in firing the cannon. Good luck with yours and you WILL have fun with it!!

The angle of the camera kinda distorts the actual bore size in comparison with the 1" lead projectiles.

lance · « **Reply #26 on:** March 20, 2009, 07:58:20 AM »

Blaster, that's the cannon, thanks for sharing the pics. Yes, mine came from SBR too. Paul Barnett is a great guy, and i recommend his company to anyone wanting a very well made product.

Tim, we got to have some rare projectiles too, can you make a mould that casts a Quinlivan?

Everyone, Thanks.

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #27 on:** March 20, 2009, 11:20:59 AM »

Quote from: lance on March 20, 2009, 07:58:20 AM

...
Tim, we got to have some rare projectiles too, can you make a mould that casts a Quinlivan?
...

No, but how about unobtainium?

SHOOTALL · « **Reply #28 on:** March 20, 2009, 11:53:45 AM »

why not try a simple wad cutter ?

RocklockI · « **Reply #29 on:** March 20, 2009, 12:52:39 PM »

Quote from: Double D on March 19, 2009, 04:30:41 PM

I can just see the headlines in a hunnert years when during excuvation for a new Colorado strip mall projectiles from an old unrecorded battle field are unearthed...

We were wondering the same thing . The unknown battle in eastern Colo. Also Tracy is convinced that some traveling cowboy must have already found them all , because he did not !

.

I am up for another trek but I'm thinking we need a "Way Far Foward Observer" to actually see the far out hits. For me this thing has become a quest ! There's a big fat debris field out there somewhere . And WE are going to find them ! Right M&T ?

BTW "gimmie back my boolits"