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A quick one for those who may know...

One of my old Marlins is a typically over bored specimen and the mould I have for it drops the bullets as it's supposed to, so it leaves the performance down range, somewhat lack lustre. Speaking with a couple of the blokes about this, the subject of custom moulds comes up, then one of the old boys mentions that "opening up" a mould to the required diameter was regular practice "back in the day"...

Anyone know of anyone doing this in the UK?

You can do it yourself quite easily.
Have a look on castboolits for "beagling".
One easy way is to use self adhesive aluminium foil stuck to one face of the mould.
Sounds like lead would drip everywhere and out of round boolits appear but it does actually work.
The other way is to cast a boolit and put in a shank of some sort while the lead is still liquid,self tapping screw etc.
Chuck the resultant "tool" in a drill and using tooth paste as a cutting agent gently "whizz" the cavity.
You can "squidge" the boolit with a hammer to enlarge its diameter a few thou.
These methods vary according to mould material.
The foil method is good as you still have a standard mould.
HTH
Tony

I have been reading up on making custom moulds. I would not mind giving it a go. I am not set up for it at the moment but I am working on it.

Making a mould or opening one?

How much bigger does the boolit need to be?

2 thou

Aye beagling is the way to go for ease.

http://www.castpics.net/subsite2/HowTo/Beagling.pdf

I can send you some tape if you need it.

Adam,

That sounds just what I'm looking for! I know Tony mentioned it earlier, but what a "smoking pack hound" had to do with it, I wasn't sure....

I take it you have done this before? Silly question I know, but yes please, if you could send some tape, at least then I'll know I have the right stuff! Do you still have my address?

Sim G wrote:Adam,

That sounds just what I'm looking for! I know Tony mentioned it earlier, but what a "smoking pack hound" had to do with it, I wasn't sure....

I take it you have done this before? Silly question I know, but yes please, if you could send some tape, at least then I'll know I have the right stuff! Do you still have my address?

I believe Beagle is the manufacturer of the exhaust tape used to do the Beagling with. I may be wrong, but I think that's the case.

It is called Beagling after John Goins the chap who developed the method and wrote the article I posted from Cast Pics, Beagle is his forum name on Cast Boolits.