This page goes back to March of 2007. My experience in the airgun, rifle world was very limited
as seen in the very basic approach I took. Trial and Error can be a great teacher.
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.
