soapstone bullet mold

infideleggwelder

infideleggwelder

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I was sitting on the fence about buying a Lee .31 roundball mold for my sons squirrel gun. After all, the front 1/2 inch of a cast Lee Enfield 200 gr bullet(cut off in front of the lube groves) with a pocket cloth patch shoots great. but thats a lot of lead for that little gun, so maybe a round ball would be good.
have a want ad for a mold, & keep looking at them on line. then i remembered that the vikings would carve designs in soap stone and cast in bronze. i have soapstone scraps, and these cost about $0.15 each, and the roll pins about $0.02 each
heres what i came up with. its not perfect, but it works, and well. and cost nothing except an hour of my time, including test shots. more on that later.
i drilled alignment holes and put roll pins as guides. then i drilled the sprue hole. i have an old ball cutter bit from my dremel tool, which, believe it or not, measures to .313(ish). milled out the ball portion while squeezing the two halves together gently, guided by the alignment pins. this is what i ended up with…

and opened, with a test pour.
the cutter and a couple of balls with sprue and flashing

i poured and adjusted the cavities until the ball portion is almost true round as anyone with hand tools will get.
i then took the casts, cut the sprue and rolled them between the cast iron top of my table saw and a scrap of MDF. this seems to true them up even more, and allows me to pick out the ones that don't roll out round.



these fit in the barrel nice and tight with a pocket cloth patch and bore butter.
 
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Im surprised it casts that well. Normaly the mold needs to be hot or you get cast lines from the lead cooling to fast.
 
I have read a number of years ago about molds being made from soft rocks although I do not believe that it was very common though. IIRC I believe that their bag mold was lost and no molds were available in the local and resulted in soft rock being used to make a mold. unfortunately there was no mention of how the balls cast or shot.
 
rgbai said:
it was fairly common back in the 1700s to make bullet molds from soapstone I've seen a few antique ones on ebay go for a lot of money.
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I've got to watch the "ebay" more! Found some neat stuff on there for sure but only just realized there are gun parts to be had. I don't think pricing is really a "deal" but the ability to find some obscure stuff is the attraction, price be darned at that point.

Sorry that's off topic - but the soapstone molds are sure neat. Reading up on it a bit.
 
thanks for the compliments, but after posting, i googled it and may have before. not an original idea, but effective just the same. i probably won`t be looking for a Lee ball mould now, this one will serve the purpose. i probably had more fun making the mould and casting than if i had bought it. its now part of the range box, and or possibles bag.
i should put this in the Bullet Making section.
 
I love reading about down and dirty DIY stuff like this!
Far more fun than just buying pre-made balls.
 
I too applaud your resourcefulness!

It looks like it's going to be a little slow to manage given that you don't have the usual molding handles that allows for easy and safe handling while pouring. But if you can safely keep up with your son's consumption of the product then this is a really slick option.

And yes, sometimes the inspiration and production of a unique solution can be a good reason for strutting around like a peacock for a day or two. And rightfully so I say.... :d
 
Well done on the mould- after casting my own in regular Lee mould I roll them for a minute between a heavy aluminum base plate and a smaller brass flat bar to smooth out the sprue cut-off. gets them so you really cant even see the sprue mark at all. Might be the way to do a final true-up on your product. Cheers
 
BCRider said:
I too applaud your resourcefulness!

It looks like it's going to be a little slow to manage given that you don't have the usual molding handles that allows for easy and safe handling while pouring. But if you can safely keep up with your son's consumption of the product then this is a really slick option.

And yes, sometimes the inspiration and production of a unique solution can be a good reason for strutting around like a peacock for a day or two. And rightfully so I say.... :d
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Actually, i just wore and insulated leather glove on my left hand. the mould never really got hot enough to burn my fingers. uncomfortable, yes. i made about 40 balls in a run, and in-between keeping the sprues trimmed, the ladle full and melting, the mould cools somewhat. and the first pour has no wrinkles in the ball or any other strange stuff.
the 40 balls took about an hour from start to finish, and will be more than a 8 year old has patience for. (i hope not)
 
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