Hollow Nose Pour Boolit

[303Guy]

Found this boolit I cast a good while ago. It was intended as an all round boolit for rabbits, turkeys and pig. It killed turkey just fine but never saw a pig (not one I was allowed to shoot). Anyway, here it is;

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The spike in the centre of the hollow is where the sprue got plucked off. I was casting them at 230gr and 208gr.

I did do some soft sand tests with different powders and loads.

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This one was in wet paper or wet rag;
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[JeffinNZ]

Pete, can we see the mould please?

[303Guy]

Found the photo's. It's my standard nose pour bottom eject mold. The trick is in the sprue or casting 'funnel'.

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The casting 'funnel' gets placed on the upright mold with the spout in the mold and the air escapes around it. As the alloy freezes the 'funnel' gets plucked off. The last two photo's are a different mold but they show clearer how it works. You can see the 'sprue' plug in one of them. The deep hollow funnel was a makeshift one and is now lost. I liked the deep funnels because they alloyed faster casting using a ladle and applied a decent pressure in the mold. I made them heavy so as to retain heat to keep the sprue molten to feed metal into the mold as the boolit freezes and shrinks. My early funnels were made with a nozzle to form a stream down the centre of the mold for even filling and they worked. Now I use a bigger funnel without the nozzle and the casting stream does not fill the funnel, allowing air to escape through the funnel. The sprue is then cut in the normal way. I will be going back to this hollow nose design because I'm now using a harder alloy which doesn't expand as readily.

[oldpara]

That's an incredible mold ! I'm sitting here still trying to get my head around which part goes where and which end is up :)
That's cool.

[303Guy]

In the first photo the mold is standing upright with the nose up. The last photo shows the mould base plug, the upright mold and the pouring funnel. The second last photo shows the assembly but with a different base plug and pouring funnel.