Casting soft nose boolits...

[Bad Karma]

OK. I was trying to cast a soft nose boolit but I couln't get it to look like a seamless cast. I cast a .360" round ball out of pure lead. Then after switching alloys to a hard alloy I used my Lyman 429421 mould. I preheated the mould bu emersing it into the melt then cast about a dozen breaks.I placed the ball in the nose cavity then poured the hard alloy on top.
What I want to know is what is a good way to get the two pieces to fuse together to be sound enought to shoot out of my Super Blackhawk?

What I'm planning is to make a softnose rifle bullet eventually and try it out on wet phone books for testing. :confused:

[Bob Krack]

I placed the ball in the nose cavity then poured the hard alloy on top. What I want to know is what is a good way to get the two pieces to fuse together to be sound enought to shoot out of my Super Blackhawk?


Zactly what I do for the 44 mag and even though I have no test results, the boolits hold together and fuse very well.
Vic

[Wayne Smith]

Keep the mold with the round ball in it level and heat it until the lead melts. Then pour in your hard alloy. I've not tried this with Lee molds, might be a touch hot for them. The alloy will have a very minimal mix with the lead because it is lighter and would float on top anyway.

It's a slow process waiting for the sprue to set up, but how many of them do you need, anyway?

[BruceB]

"Search" is our friend.

Do a search for "softnose bullet", and you'll find a stickied thread that I started, with 48 posts and almost 4,000 hits.

The real secret to the process of making softnoses WITHOUT mixing the alloys is to get the two different components into the mould in solidified form, and then heating the mould until the metals re-melt and fuse seamlessly.

As mentioned already, it's a slow process but not many of these will be needed. Zeroing and load development can be done with non-softpoints.

[GLynn41]

For what ever this is worth I use -- a home made dipper-- a second small pot - as i start casting the line will disappear on at least a number of bullets -- these I keep -- the others can be for testing or practice or as Bruce stated use the non dabs (dual alloy bullets) for practice

[Bob Krack]

I failed to mention that I used .312 soft lead balls in the nose of .44 mag mould. I also tried placing .312 WW round balls in the .54 Maxiball mould thinking it might tend to cause more expansion by internally swaging the Maxiball to an even larger diameter.
Curiosity only, still no verified results.
Vic

[Shuz]

If you can locate one of the discontinued Lyman composite moulds, I believe the number is 429625, it makes the whole job easier. I simply cast the nose outta soft lead alloy with the "nose blocks" from this set, lettum cool and then fire up a SC 429421 or 429650 and get it up to temp and then use a pair of needle nose pliers to drop a cool nose into the hot mould and cast a harder alloy behind it. They stick together real goot because of the tail feature on the nose piece. I've been impressed with the phone books I've kilt with these composites, but I have yet to try them on deer. Hollow ponts such as 429421HP and the Lyman Devastator 429640HP are much easier to make, and their effect on deer has been great.--Shuz