Why bullet molds are nose down?

[gloob]

Since the nose of the bullet can be malformed a bit without losing much accuracy, why have I never seen a bullet mold where the sprue is on the nose?

Why don't mold makers put the nose pointing up with the truncated/flat-point designs? That way, the base of every bullet would be perfect?

[kenyerian]

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/114665/hoch-custom-1-cavity-nose-pour-bpcr-bullet-mold-45-caliber-459-diameter-510-grain-government-round-nose-1275-bullet-length?cm_vc=ProductFinding Hoch makes them .

[sthwestvictoria]

There are plenty of nose pour mounds, particulary in the BPCR game.

[gloob]

Well, I appreciate the responses.

Midway doesn't carry a Hoch mold in any of my rifle calibers, and I'm not sure I would want to pay that much anyways.

Seems like this should be a much more common way of making a flat-nose bullet mold??

[hpdrifter]

if you gotta 45-70, Lee makes a hollow base 405-459 nose pour. Lots of people like it. Gotta be gentle with it tho, real easy to damage and its not one of their better products.

[Scharfschuetze]

The Hoch mould is made by Dave Farmer at Colorado Shooter's Supply in New Mexico. He's an old shooting buddy of mine and makes a superlative product well worth the cost. He bought the business from Richard Hoch of Montrose, Colorado in the late 70s.

Here's a link to his web site.

http://hochmoulds.com/hm/

[Mk42gunner]

I think the reason most mold makers produce base pour molds is because a cherry with a small diameter would be very easy to break. Plus if you have a nose cut off it pretty much has to be exact, whereas a base pour can be fudged a bit if the cherry is set too deep or too shallow.

My non-machinist thinking, anyway.

Robert

[Digital Dan]

Nose pour moulds make good bullet bases. They do not make round nose or pointed bullets worth a toot.

Base pour goes the other way.

Give a fella a little bit of paper and a hammer die...he can live happily ever after.

[captaint]

Mk42gunner has it. Too easy to break the cherrie at the small diameter. I would think they could lathe bore some of the LWN and LFN designs with success. But then, I'm no machinist either.....

[popper]

Gloob - wondered the same myself as most custom are doing CNC anyway. Not a machinist by any means but I suppose it may have to do with maintaining tolerances when changing tools & lubing/cuttings. As Hoch shows, cost is much greater due to time spent, it's not cost effective for most of us. One of our members is playing with a cast core swaging setup that cuts excess off the nose. So far his results are promising.

[Scharfschuetze]

I think the reason most mold makers produce base pour molds is because a cherry with a small diameter would be very easy to break.

Hoch moulds are cut with a lath and thus don't suffer from a broken cherry.

Here is a photo of my 30 cal nose pour mould. It produces what is arguably my most accurate projectile for a two groove Springfield barrel. It was cut to do just that and has always lived up to its potential for almost 40 years now. You can see on the left the nose where the molten lead is poured.

[Virginia John]

I never cease to be amazed at the amount of knowledge that there is on this forum. I learn so much every time I log on. Keep it coming and thanks for the education. I started late so I have a lot of catching up to do.

[runfiverun]

It's so the air will run out when the lead is poured in.

[country gent]

I have both nose pour and base pour moulds both work well and make good bullets. I converted a lyman postell 45 cal mould to nose pour several years ago, and it does seem to shoot a little better than before as a base pour. It can be done and there are nose pour moulds out there. Several reasons for base pour is ease of manufacturing, both tooling and moulds, on pointed or round nose bullets a truer shape or nose form, and a bigger sprue hole can be used. A cherry for base pour moulds in bullet dia to shank it gets bigger as it gets closer. A cherry for nose pour is bigger at bottom and gets smaller to top ussually 1/8'-3/16 stem dia, this allows easier breaking and more chatter. On lathe bore tooling the base pour allows for a heavier boring bar at bach getting smaller to nose a nose por can be done fwith double plates from the base and this applies to them as well. Basically its simply ease of manufacturer of moulds and tooling.

[beagle]

It's really not that hard for a good machinist to convert a Lyman to nose pour if you have to have it that way. We did one for some project and it turned out all right. Not worth the effort IMO./beagle

[.22-10-45]

I have seen a British dbl. rifle cased set with a hollow-base hollow point mould..sprue came in off side near nose..pinchers on mould removed sprue & a 3 piece hammer swage die as Digital Dan mentioned was included. sample bullets had smooth ogives from swaging ready for patching. Neat stuff!

[birddog]

A lot of the CBA shooters had nose pour molds. Was always their theory that the base was cut square to the boolit that way.
Charlie