new caster learning

[scion19801]

No but I did switch from the medium to longest that I had been using. Got same issues with both sets.

[Mark Davis]

I wonder of one of your pin holders is holding the pin too high, keeping the mold from shutting.

[scion19801]

nope. wish it was though. i noticed this when i had the mold tore down, off the handles and pins out.

[scion19801]

here are my areas of concern. misspoke on where the meplat issue was. it is in the side that doesnt hold the sprue plate. it has the stop screw on the side with damage.

[Mark Davis]

If you know somebody with a mill you could take a few thousandths off the top of the blocks.
It's going to leave a larger meplat, and lighter pellet. Will also shift the center of gravity.

The sprue holes not centered on the cavity is not fatal.

I have a mill, my skill level is hobbyist,  but there are others on the site who provide such services professionally.

[scion19801]

i emailed NOE. he asked to send the mold back to him. that way he can see what is going on with it, and see what can be done to fix it. may have to try another mold to get back closer to spec sizing. if that happens i hope the performance increases as well. they aren't bad the way it currently is, but a touch longer i think would be even better.

[Mark Davis]

Good plan.

Much better than mine.

Looking forward to hearing the results.

[scion19801]

so got the mold all rounded up and added a dozen pellets to show the defect of the cavity. got it mailed out yesterday to NOE. so hope to hear what's up by the end of the week. now i just hope i got enough pellets to last. lol. 
i did manage to get a pic of the issue as seen below

[scion19801]

well AL called me today. he got my mould and looked it over. he is as confused as i am as to how the damage(rounded corners) happened and thinks it may be an issue with the mould vent in the meplat area. He told me that all the current moulds are short and underweight. he sent out a new mould, but thinks i may have the same issue again. gonna try it out and see if it happens again. hate to have to go back to buying pellets again, and waiting forever for them to arrive.
 I also asked about when the resupply of slug mould was going to happen, he says they are in the que and roughly 8-9 weeks out till we all see them in stock again. he did offer to refund my money for the mould, or try another. Can't say enough about what a stand up guy he is and great company to deal with. i took the try another mould route, as i know he does awesome things for us as airgunners. and is there to help us when issues arise. i wouldn't feel right to ask for my money back. i can live with the pellets dropping at 25.4 gr versus the spec 26 gr. wonder how much different they would group in my gauntlet and full spec weight and length.

[Wayne52]

Good old lead pipe can be found where old house's are being demolished. I'd talk to the excavator guy and ask him what they do with it When I was still doing a lot of metal detecting I'd find some decent hunks of pipe but when I go out and try to find it I never can.  Now I resort to Rotometal split pig ingots because these days I'm doing more casting than I ever have.

[scion19801]

Got the replacement mould tonight. Did a small run to see what was up, as I noticed some differences. Had to toss about 20 back to the pot. This mould runs a lot different from my original. Did come across a small burr that I didn't see on the initial cleaning. Took care of it after the run after checking the pellets over. So next run should be issue free. The sprue hole seems smaller on this one and centered up over the meplat way better.
Can't say enough on Al Swede and NOE moulds and their service to us. Can't wait for them to get more moulds back in stock as I'll be getting a slug next.

[Wayne52]

The RG molds for the slugs are really nice, I have the brass two cavity 217-30-FN I use often because the slugs shoot so good from my Airmax Dominator with no sizing, they also shoot really good from my modified Xisico Sentry in .22 (the gun in my signature at the moment).  If NOE starts making the same basic mold in .25 I'll be buying one of those.  The last couple times I've been hunting the state land I've been using my Liberty with the good ole 217-20-RF Hunters, those pellets are awesome for accuracy from that gun.

[Madd Hatter]

Wayne, have you tried the 217-30-FN in your liberty? I'm trying to get the sizing right to shoot them out of my Liberty. My Liberty is shooting 26.1 grain AVS slugs at 920FPS right now but the 30-fn are only going around 840 FPS sized to .217. Ordered up some .216 and .215 sizing bushings this evening and hope one of those sizes will be the right one.

[Wayne52]

Robert with my mold by the time I sized them down small enough the drive band would be gone.  AVS slugs shoot excellent from my Liberty as well.  When NOE makes some more of the .218 slugs I'll probably order one of those molds.  They're more like what the AVS slugs are except they're not cup based.
https://noebulletmolds.com/site/shop/224/218-25-rf-d6/218-25-rf-d6-rg2-2-cavity-brass

[Madd Hatter]

That would be nice. I measured the area between the drive bands and it came out to .211 the avs slugs come in at .2165 so I'm going to try the.216 bushing I've got coming.

[Wayne52]

Got the replacement mould tonight. Did a small run to see what was up, as I noticed some differences. Had to toss about 20 back to the pot. This mould runs a lot different from my original. Did come across a small burr that I didn't see on the initial cleaning. Took care of it after the run after checking the pellets over. So next run should be issue free. The sprue hole seems smaller on this one and centered up over the meplat way better.
Can't say enough on Al Swede and NOE moulds and their service to us. Can't wait for them to get more moulds back in stock as I'll be getting a slug next.

Dan the sprue plate holes for the 217-17-WC wadd cutter mold are super small, that sprue plate has to be good and warm when casting with that mold or the head of the pellets sometimes are hard to get really good, out of all the molds I cast with that's about the hardest to get right but when they're right they shoot like a million dollars from my .22 Crosman 150's

[scion19801]

wayne, this is the 250-27-rf cc3 mould not the 217-17-wc mould. or maybe you were just referring to the sprue plate holes. just measured and weighed a few of what i cast last night. still no change there. .2825"-.283" in length, and 25.2-25.4 grains. so that's good. had to add 3 clicks left to get them on target, compared to the last mould, but that could just be crosswind messing around. i'll try to get pics up of the recent casts and the mould later on.

[Wayne52]

Dan most all of the lightest ones that I cast from the 250-27-RF mold are right a 26 grains.

[scion19801]

wayne,
apparently according to my conversation with Swede, the latest batch of the 250-27 mould he got were all short in length and under weight per specifications on the mould design.
Personally i wonder how much different the pellets would be accuracy wise with them a full spec length versus the length i currently drop at... Granted were only tanking about .017-.02" in length difference give or take. But i have found i can't put much over 830 fps behind what i cast without getting massive precession(spiraling) out of a 1:20 twist gauntlet barrel. kind of an odd issue to get nailed down. I can push Air Arms 25.4 gr to 900 fps with no precession at all. But have gotten some in my attempts at NSA 26.8 gr .249 slugs. makes me wonder if it is a length issue that is causing some of the massive spiraling in a 1:20 twist.

[scion19801]

guys, i'm really enjoying this new replacement mold. runs so smoothly. last 2 days i managed to cast 457 pellets. this thing runs like butter compared to my original. mind you there was maybe 3 hours of total cast time to get that amount. still have about 50 pellets left from the original mold, then time to see how the new mould shoots. I have 2 full tins and the 457 ready to go. I know i'll have to resight in for them as they do hit a touch off compared to original. based on a single clip test when i first got the mould back. Did a small 50 pellet weight check last night. 25.4 gr is my average. had a few that were 25.2 gr. can't beat that for a average weight variance in a tin of pellets. I've seen a heard of JSB and Air Arms tins having a way larger weight spread. I'm getting .3 grain difference at the most on my 2 cavity mold. I hope this new setup tightens my groups even better.