Recutting a bag-type ball mould

[Ohio Rusty]

I was wanting to know if one were to acquire one of the iron vintage bag moulds you see for sale around the internet, is there someone out there that can re-cut the cavity for you to open it to the ball size you need.
I passed on one a few months back that was cheap, and had lots of metal in both halves of the mould head. The mould could have easily been re-cut to throw a bigger ball. That got me to wondering if there was a machinist on our list that can do something like this .......
Inquiring minds want to know .......
Ohio Rusty >

 

[paulvallandigham]

Talk to the mold makers- NEI, Tanner, Rapine, and even Lyman-- to see if they would do that for you.

I had a fine conversation with Ray Pine, personally, at Friendship, the first year he began to advertise. I had been trying to find a hollow point mold that Lyman no longer made. I explained what I wanted, and he told me he could make it for me, easily. I took his brochure, talked it over with my brother, to make sure he would also have use for it, and put in an order. Since then, Lyman began to re-offer the mold again, but Now I recently heard that they stopped selling it again. The Rapine mold throws beautiful bullets.

What you are looking for is someone who already has the " cherries " to cut the round ball diameter you want. If they don't want to risk their cherries cutting some unknown material, offer to buy a cherry for the job, and let them keep it when your mold is done. I did that to get a gunsmith to buy a chambering reamer to rechamber a breechloader for me, and he was tickled to have the new reamer. I saw him a couple of years later, and he not only remembered, me, but told me that since he got that reamer, he has rechambered or chambered several barrels for that cartridge. I got what I wanted, and he got a reamer for free that has since made him money. We both won. He did a lot of different projects for me, and was always interested to see what idea I had everytime I showed up.

 

[mazo kid]

Rusty, I have a small collection of some of the original bag type moulds. My experience is that they do NOT cast very round balls and could use some help in that regard. I have cast a few balls in one that was more round than some, screwed in a headless screw and rotated that slowly with a drill and some abrasive paste. You have to go slowly and change the balls often as the mould slowly becomes more round. I think the steel used in the old moulds is pretty mild stuff and if you can find a cherry it wouldn't be a big job to clean up a cavity.

 

[Ohio Rusty]

Finding someone to make a cherry might be difficult these days. A new bag mould is $75.00. A person can buy the vintage ones for around $20.00. Depending on the cost of the cherry, you would save significant money over a new made bag mould, AND, you would be carrying and using original mould in your bag instead of a repro!! How cool is that?. I'm sure when the frontiersmen and hunters had their barrels refreshed, their ball moulds were most likely refreshed at the same time so the barrel would shoot the correct sized ball again.
I just passed on another ball mould last night on an internet auction that would have been perfect. I'll wait on getting the ptimitive bag mould until the cherry dilemma is solved I guess.
Ohio Rusty >