Casting Hollow Points

[Brownie]

Thats a great looking bullet. I really should look into powder coating. Im still running everything through RCBS lube sizer . Keep us posted on downrange results.

 

[straight-shooter]

Not to mention it reduces leading to zero, increases velocity, decreases smoke to next to nothing and makes cleaning the barrel a breeze with just a couple swipes of Hoppes.

I'm going to the range tomorrow morning and will report back.

 

[straight-shooter]

I nailed down a nice load first trip out to the range today. I could try and list all the chrony results but I feel like the results I found in this one particular load are worthy of posting alone. If you try it I think you'll like it. I shot strings of 10 each from 3.8 to 4.2 grains of CFE Pistol and the 4.1 load won out.

Here are the specs

Glock 19 Gen 4

NOE 358 155 TC HP - powder coated & sized to .357 - Final bullet weight 151 grain
4.1gr CFE Pistol Powder
1.125 OAL
.375 Crimp
Wolf Primer

Chrony result

Weather 74 sunny
High Vel - 926
Low Vel - 905
ES - 21
SD - 6
PF - 138

I knew this was the chosen load before I even checked the chrono data. The recoil felt right and the brass was ejecting 3 feet at 4 o'clock. The rounds settled exactly where I was aiming as long as I did my part.

Target is of 10 rounds fired

 

[jlm223]

Very nice!

 

[straight-shooter]

Now another experiment of load testing will begin. I ordered a brass Mihec 359-460 mold for my 38's and 357's. It comes with five styles of pins for FP, HP's and Penta's. I've never had one of these Kramer style molds and am looking forward to casting some up and doing some more load testing. It seems lately I've been enjoying load testing more than just going out shooting.

 

[AngryRooster]

Now another experiment of load testing will begin. I ordered a brass Mihec 359-460 mold for my 38's and 357's. It comes with five styles of pins for FP, HP's and Penta's. I've never had one of these Kramer style molds and am looking forward to casting some up and doing some more load testing. It seems lately I've been enjoying load testing more than just going out shooting.

Got one of those in the mail a week or so ago. Make sure everything is lubed well and the mold is very hot. I had problems getting all 4 cavities to fill out properly. It takes a bit of breaking in and mine is not there yet. I't got a couple of quirks I need to get worked out. With the penta pins it won't close all the way properly and has a light gap. The round pins fit fine. The lube groove is very deep with sharp angles. I've had several cases where the cavity on the end has torn the bullet a little when opening. Sometimes it's easy to spot and sometimes not. I found a few during inspection after I was finished. I only cast up about 150 and threw 35 back into the pot. The ones that I kept were very nice but using it was more difficult than the 200 grain 45 HP 2 cavity version of this mold.

I'm going to order some Kroil this week and try it again once it gets here. Hopefully it doesn't take long to get here, I've never seen it on the shelf anywhere.

 

[straight-shooter]

I've read you have to run a brass mold hotter (800 degrees) and run it faster because it can cool quicker than a aluminum or cast iron mold. Even my NOE aluminum runs better if I keep up a fast pace casting round hollow points. In fact I just finished 700 or so from the NOE HP 9mm mold today. If I keep up it drops em like butter. If I put the mold on the hot plate for 5 minutes to take a break the bullets will start to stick again which will cause the tearing your speaking of.

Usually I'll cast about 20 bullets and toss them with the sprues but once It gets hot enough and gets going i'm good to go. I always use bullplate lube on the pin points to aid in them dropping too.

 

[AngryRooster]

I've read you have to run a brass mold hotter (800 degrees) and run it faster because it can cool quicker than a aluminum or cast iron mold. Even my NOE aluminum runs better if I keep up a fast pace casting round hollow points. In fact I just finished 700 or so from the NOE HP 9mm mold today. If I keep up it drops em like butter. If I put the mold on the hot plate for 5 minutes to take a break the bullets will start to stick again which will cause the tearing your speaking of.

Usually I'll cast about 20 bullets and toss them with the sprues but once It gets hot enough and gets going i'm good to go. I always use bullplate lube on the pin points to aid in them dropping too.

They definitely need to be run fast and hot, especially the large ones (snicker). I can get away with running the 2 cavity 45 a bit cooler. I'm using a Lee 4-20 pot for now. With the 2 cavity I can turn it down to 5 once everything melts and still get good turnout. When I used that 9mm mold it was a different story. I started at 6 then 7, all the way up to 9 before I got decent results. The mold was on a hotplate turned to med-high when not in my hand. Alloy was 10 pounds stick on wheel weight ingots with 8oz of 95/5 solder I had laying around.

I just could not keep a pace the mold liked. I've got a minor wrist injury right now and that slowed me down enough to screw things up. The 2 cavity molds are much more forgiving and ended up being faster in my case just because of the high reject rate. I've got two 4 cavity molds, this one and the NOE 230 aluminum 45 HP. I'm thinking about putting them both up for sale and getting the 2 cavity to replace them. I should have went that way to begin with.

 

[boatswainsmate]

Now another experiment of load testing will begin. I ordered a brass Mihec 359-460 mold for my 38's and 357's. It comes with five styles of pins for FP, HP's and Penta's. I've never had one of these Kramer style molds and am looking forward to casting some up and doing some more load testing. It seems lately I've been enjoying load testing more than just going out shooting.

With your new mold I would advise adding more tin to your mix. I was having a issue getting good fill out on the ledge separating the two crimp groves. More tin ended up making a difference for my application. I have driven both the large HP's with 5.0 gr of titegroup and 10.5 gr of AA 7 with no leading issues. The 10.5 gr of AA 7 will flatten out the primers and knock over magnum steel plates. I used the first crimp grove for my Model 19 and 327 NG.

 

[straight-shooter]

Good info on using more tin boatswainsmate. It makes sense that groove would need a bit of help filling out. I plan on using the lower groove for .38 and the upper groove for .357 mags.

Something else I find that helps a lot with fillout and you may already be doing this but here it is.

What I do is melt 18 pounds of lead to begin with. Then stir in two tablespoons of sawdust and let it come to the top and then start casting. This insulates oxygen from getting to the melt. I use up half the pot and then stir the charred sawdust in the melt again. Once it comes back up top I remove it and finish casting until I have about 3/4" of melt left.

At this point I just melt a new pot of lead and start over. I don't put the sprues back in until I start the next new pot of lead.

When the charred sawdust is removed it takes any small amounts of aluminum, copper and zinc with it.

NOTE: insulating the top of the melt with sawdust prevents the oxidization of the precious tin and keeps it in the melt.

 

[boatswainsmate]

Thanks for the info. I have used the sawdust on top of the melt before but your method is a little different.

 

[straight-shooter]

Most people use sawdust as a flux and immediately take it back off the top to clean the lead. Properly done, the sawdust should be stirred in and then left on top to insulate from oxygen otherwise the tin oxidizes and leaves the melt. Taking it out half way through is ok at that point since you wouldn't want that getting into the pour spout of the pot anyway.

 

[straight-shooter]

Angryrooster, I casted with the Mihec today and found a couple of tips on the interwebs and applied them to this mold. I too had one ill fitting penta pin that wanted to stick and not let the mold close all the way. I read that the pins actually unscrew by twisting them near the C clip. I did this with only a half turn and that relieved any stress on the pin and let it function correctly thus solving the problem. I ran the mold hot and casted fast by cutting the sprues a little sooner than I normally would and kept the temp up. This worked fantastic.

Only major problem was I wasn't getting good fill out on the bullets and like you I had to toss back half of them. After remelting the bullets and going at it again I was paying closer attention and realized the sprues weren't sinking in so my first thought was that it wasn't properly venting. The sprue plate did seem at bit too tight so I loosened the sprue bolt a half turn which let the sprue plate swing easier and allowing air to get in there. Eureka! Every cast after doing this filled out fantastic and every bullet from there on was perfect.

At this point the mold was an absolute joy to use and was easy to use. So in short loosen the sprue plate a tad and also loosen the penta pin rods a 1/2 turn and tell me how it goes for you. I found also by applying bullplate lube to the pins helped them to move inward and outward much easier.

 

[AngryRooster]

Angryrooster, I casted with the Mihec today and found a couple of tips on the interwebs and applied them to this mold. I too had one ill fitting penta pin that wanted to stick and not let the mold close all the way. I read that the pins actually unscrew by twisting them near the C clip. I did this with only a half turn and that relieved any stress on the pin and let it function correctly thus solving the problem. I ran the mold hot and casted fast by cutting the sprues a little sooner than I normally would and kept the temp up. This worked fantastic.

Only major problem was I wasn't getting good fill out on the bullets and like you I had to toss back half of them. After remelting the bullets and going at it again I was paying closer attention and realized the sprues weren't sinking in so my first thought was that it wasn't properly venting. The sprue plate did seem at bit too tight so I loosened the sprue bolt a half turn which let the sprue plate swing easier and allowing air to get in there. Eureka! Every cast after doing this filled out fantastic and every bullet from there on was perfect.

At this point the mold was an absolute joy to use and was easy to use. So in short loosen the sprue plate a tad and also loosen the penta pin rods a 1/2 turn and tell me how it goes for you. I found also by applying bullplate lube to the pins helped them to move inward and outward much easier.

Those look very nice. I've got some bullplate but haven't tried it on the pins yet. I never thought about the sprue plate hampering venting. I'll give that a try this week. I've got the side pins a little loose and they slide in and out on their own with just a tip of the mold. It may take some tweaking to get them to work. I'll change them out one at a time and see if I can spot the culprit or if it's more than one.

I've got 110 pounds of lead from The Captain ready to go. 55 COWW & 55 SOWW ingots. Once I gather up some tin (hopefully this week) I'm going to give everything a nice workout.