back to homepage Lead Pellet Molds & Casting (My First Approach)

I have made a few molds now and starting to get better accuracy. I started with using
a lead shaft that I made by drilling a hole in a two part block. I poured the lead into the hole
and had a somewhat round bar that I could lathe turn the pellet diameters. I didn't have the
best accuracy by lathe turning the lead. So after some review of how the molds looked I decided
to make my own.

I drilled out the backside to lighten the pellets.

So how do they group?

As you can see the pellets that where lathed turned did not fair well. Due to not having a groove in the pellet (a smaller
contact area for the rifling) the pellet makes to much contact and therefore does not group well.

Second Approach - 1st Mold

Lathe turning was very time consuming so I made a mold to make the pellets. The grooves in the pellets were not deep enough
and the pellets didn't group well. I learned a few things about pouring lead, like heating the mold so that the lead doesn't freeze
before the lead pours into the mold.

Firing the pellets from the first mold.

With swagging the pellets to size, the pellets did group a little better. Target is dated
March 14, 2007. I believe the distance to the target was 30 feet.

Revised - 2nd Mold

On this mold I made the grooves deeper. I then swagged the pellets to get them closer
to size. I made a cutter that I used mill out the mold. Single flute cutter worked well.

I made a plate with different diameter holes. 0.216", 0.217", 0.218", 0.219", 0.220", .224" diameters. This
was I could swage the pellets to a larger diameter and size the pellets at a diameter that best fits the barrel.

Target showing how pellets grouped at 50 feet

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