Mould for a 2.25" Confederate Bronze Mountain Rifle

[CrufflerSteve]

Here are some pictures of a mould that can be used to cast lead Minie Ball rounds or zinc rounds for a Read projectile. I'll be adding to it in the next weeks. By request and since photobucket messed up some links I'll put images in..

Here is the mould:



The Goex can provides a reference. The small mould casts 530 grain 45/70 bullets.

Here is an inside view of the mould. The mess on the interior is just from bad cleaning. When I put it away a couple of years ago I put all sorts of preservatives on it and it hasn't rusted but was a pain to clean.

Here is the inside:



It is 7 7/16" high and 4" wide. The inside is 2.250 inches. I guess the idea is that a round will cool after casting since they fit fine.
The cavity from base to nose id 6.025". The nose pour hole is .92" wide and .725" deep.

Here is a picture of the mould with an insert in. This is one for a light Minie ball of about 4 pounds. I have a variety of inserts which I'll be posting. They all are threaded at the bottom and a bolt goes through the steel plate, which is chamfered. The plate sits flat and mould is around it when pouring.



The insert is 2.25" wide for a tight fit. The unmachined part is 3.030" long. With the plate there is 2.240" in the cavity. The start of the Minie ball skirt is 2.012 for a max of .238" of lead in the skirt. The machined section is 2.442" long, tapering to .812" wide. This gives a potential projectile length of about 3.78". The start of the machining is not a right angle but is some sort of angle like 30 degrees.

Here is a picture of both halves of the mould:



This mould was developed by someone who was wanting to do long range live fire. This mould was used to cast rounds that he took to Grayling. This insert is a short range Minie ball, used for N-SSA type shoots of 200 to 300 yards with 2.5 to 3.5 ounces of 1F.

When I cast rounds for this, I had a very large pot for melting the lead. I used a Reil burner to melt the lead. I didn't want that close to the mould since it is hot! I used a harbor freight propane burner with a low pressure regulator to heat the mould. I had a ladle which could do one round in a pour. It worked well providing the mould was hot.

I'll be posting more as I get time to photograph and measure the other items.

Steve

[Cat Whisperer]

GOOD set of pix!

If lead, one could use a sprue cutter.  Zinc might be a bit tough.

[CrufflerSteve]

Here's a few more pictures showing projectiles produced by the mould starting from the left they are a light Minie ball, a heavy Minie ball, a zinc Read Projectile with a lead sabot. The rightmost on is a zinc Read projectile with a brass sabot:



The next picture of the base shows how thy are constructed.


The lead and brass sabots are machined.

The Minie balls are meant for different ranges. The light one is for 200 to 300 yards. The powder is 2 1/2 ro 3/12 ounces. The heavier Minie ball have heavy shirts and use a loads of 6 pounces of powder and either two ounces of grits over the powder or beeswax filling part of the Minie cavity. This is used at long range 800 to 1000 yards.

Steve

[KABAR2]

Steve,

These are some great photo's if you use the little picture frame tool in tools where you write the post you can

copy and past the photo URL into it and post the photo here, by the way the 1812 Overture photo is worthy of

being added to our 2010 calendar thread great action photo!

Allen <><

[Double D]

In photobucket, hover over a picture and a code window will open.  Look for the line of code called IMG code.  Click on the window next to IMG code to highlight the code.   Right click and select copy.

Come to the reply window here and left click in the reply window, then right click  and select paste. 

You should see a line of code that looks like this

Code: [Select]

[IMG]http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv281/CrufflerSteve/Cannon%20Mould/mould5.jpg[/IMG]
...and will look like this when you post your message.

[CrufflerSteve]

I'll use images for the rest of these and I've modified my original posts.

Steve