Casting Penta pin hollowpoints

[plainsman456]

I have been playing with a new mold that has round,penta and flatpoint pins.
With the flat and round or regular pins in the mold I could make boolits upside down with no rejects,but with the penta pins I can not get the boolit nose to fill out.
I tried different temps on the mold as well as with the lead from 650 to 750 and no joy.
Is there something little trick that helps these fill?
Any help or hints would be appreciated.
Thanks

[slide]

What type of alloy are you casting with? Adding a little tin helped me. Do you have a thermometer? Can't go by the dials on the pots.

[snuffy]

The pins HAVE to be kept hot. If they're not hot enough no kind of alloy will work. If you have to, heat them with a torch before closing the mold. Preheating the mold to a hotter temp is another way to do it.


I have been playing with a new mold that has round,penta and flatpoint pins.

Sounds like a MP cramer type mold, is it? They work better than a HP mold like Lyman that has a loose HP pin. Cast as fast as you can to keep the heat up in the whole mold. Remember it's mold temp that's important, not how hot the lead is.

My MP 4 cav 45 cramer HP mold runs well with 20-1 lead-tin alloy at 715 degrees.

http://photos.imageevent.com/jptowns/cannont2ifolder/websize/IMG_0349.JPG

http://photos.imageevent.com/jptowns/cannont2ifolder/websize/IMG_0347.JPG

[plainsman456]

Will do.Them sure do look pretty.
This my first cramer type mold and I really like it.The Marlin 41 mag rifle likes them also.
Will try and run the mold hotter and see if that will get better results.

[L1A1Rocker]

Will do.Them sure do look pretty.
This my first cramer type mold and I really like it.The Marlin 41 mag rifle likes them also.
Will try and run the mold hotter and see if that will get better results.

If you don't have one be sure to pick up a cheep single burner hot plate. I got one on sale at Harbor Freight for around 5 bucks. Put a circular saw blade on top of it to better distribute the heat. Use this to pre heat your mold and you should be golden. Oh, also make sure you are running 2% tin in you alloy.

[CGT80]

I have an MP mold and had problems dropping bullets off the pins. They are right about running the mold hot. I had to run it so hot that I got all frosty bullets from ww. The bullets do polish up easily, and the size is right at .452" when frosty. When shiny, i get .453" bullets. My revolver is the 460 smith, so it should only need .452, but I have yet to slug it.

I also noticed some rough machining marks on the penta pins. I may clean them up with some emery paper. I made a mold oven to go on a hot plate, and I was able to get the bullets to drop well with the round pins if I went very fast. Man-O-Man that mold gets hot to the touch, even with thick welding gloves. I'll have to find some time to try the penta pins again. I have also been fighting my lee drip-o-matic. I'll also have to try lapping the bottom pour rod and spout, but that is a whole other story. It can be fustrating, but I did crank out 500 bullets with free lead. An online business has the same exact bullets with the same exact lube for something like $189 per thousand. Even if I buy lead from people on here, I should be able to do a thousand for $40 with lube.

Good luck and don't give up yet. At least that's what I tell myself.

[fredj338]

I have a converted Lyman by Erik, runs great w/ 25-1 alloy or 50/50 ww/lead. I do nothing special but heat the mold on the pot as the alloy comes up to temp & cast. If it's a MIhec, the sharp corners at the base of the pin may be the issue. Youy can try snoking the pins as well, helps until they come up to temp.

[plainsman456]

It is a Miech mold.
Just finished casting and it seems those pins in the mold need to be about 750+.
When heated like that the melt was turned down to 675 and after 4 or 5 casts it started dropping some good ones.
One thing I can see in my future is a thicker glove or some type of handle that does not get hot like this one did.
My left hand feels like it has a mild sunburn.
Thanks all

[plainsman456]

It is a Miech mold.
Just finished casting and it seems those pins in the mold need to be about 750+.
When heated like that the melt was turned down to 675 and after 4 or 5 casts it started dropping some good ones.
One thing I can see in my future is a thicker glove or some type of handle that does not get hot like this one did.
My left hand feels like it has a mild sunburn.
Thanks all

[W.R.Buchanan]

Heat the HP pins with a little crack pipe torch. As long as you preheat the mould high enough it will drop perfect boolits.

The key is ,,,, it is hard to heat the pins hot enough by just heating the mould, you need to directly apply heat to them.

You can get a small butane torch at any big box store for <$10.

It only takes a couple of seconds of heating on each pin to do the trick.

I had this same problem when I got my first Mihec mould,, Everybody told me the pins weren't hot enough, but nobody told me how to heat the pins.

This is what fixed the problem.

Randy

[GLynn41]

I used 0000 sreel woool and got them very smooth- and then set the mold on the top of the melt- and count to about 20 --I have no thermo so on my lee 20# dippin pot- it is just under 9-8.5 or there about and they fall right off--sometimes a little smkin will help I have three sets of pins for my .41 Mihia mold 3 hp and of course sold - it is a great .41 cal mold ====they run from 198 -207 to 212 to 225 all gc'd

[alex128k]

Do you have a thermometer? Can't go by the dials on the pots.

One of the best things that I ever did was buy a thermometer from Rotometals. After that I learned how to adjust the temperature screw under the thermostat dial.
I follow some the techniques outlined on the DVD from Wolfe Publishing, "Casting Premium Bullets for Handguns" and number of my back in the pot bullets is way way down.

[winelover]

I spray the pins and only the pins with "Drop-Out".

Winelover

[captaint]

I find the 2 cav MP/HP molds more relaxing to cast with. May not make a lot of sense, but that's
been my experience. I made notes on the one HP mold - "cast at light speed". Mike That was for a 4 cav HP mold.

[Iron Mike Golf]

I have found not only tooling marks but that the "flat" surfaces of the pins are actually a bit concave. I dress mine with a needle file followed by 400 grit emery. Gets them smooth and flat. A shot of graphite spray lube follows.

Hotplate pre-heat seems enough for all my Mihec HP molds (95 gr to 265 gr), though the lighter ones are "light speed" casters.

[rintinglen]

The fly in the ointment often is that the need to cast fast is prevented by the boolit that won't drop. I lightly burnished the tips of my penta points to get them drop clean with 600 grit sand paper, nothing major, just a stroke or two on each flat. It seemed to help, but I still find the round hollow points much easier to cast.

[Oreo]

One nice thing about Miha's pin design is that the bottom of the pins are flat and flush with the mold block which makes a hot plate very effective at heating both block and pins. Casting with a pair of molds makes for a very comfortable pace. One mold under the lead while the other rests on the hot plate. Drop boolits and switch molds, repeat.

[CGT80]

I dressed up my penta pins a while back. Last time I cast I also put the mold directly on the hot plate rather than in my thick/heavy mold oven (sitting on hot plate). The bullets dropped much easier. Once I get my PID working I plan to give it another try.