Soft nosed hard cast.

[njc110381]

I just stumbled across an article by a chap who makes soft point hard cast boolits. Apparently he casts in soft lead then puts the resulting boolits in a gauge he's made and cuts the base off. He then refills his furnace with hard alloy, puts the tips back in the mould and pours hard alloy on the back of them. Would this method bond the two parts together ok? I was a little sceptical as I was always led to believe the pour should be done in one go?

[MSD MIke]

Interesting but a lot of work. Was he doing it with rifle or handgun bullets?

Mike

[Conditor22]

I've seen something similar. To answer your question - no this method would not bond the lead together well; what the other person did was ladle poured the nose with a custom ladle then poured the hard base. then he put the mold in molten lead heating the mold until both top and bottom halves were molten and combined.

When you get drips from you casting pot, the pieces fall apart. if both the soft and hard lead are not molten they will not bond properly

[Beerd]

Many use the BruceB method to make soft point bullets:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?1734-Successful-casting-of-Softnose-Boolits-in-Conventional-Moulds&highlight=bruceb+softpoint

..

[country gent]

There's an easier way to cast soft point bullets.
Find the bullet you want to cast and determine how much of the nose you want soft.
Make a small ladle to just hold that amount of lead. I make the ladle tall cut of the nose and melt it in the ladle and let it cool drill a 1/8- 3/16" hole in the back side at that point to bleed off excess lead. You want the bottom edge of the hole even with the lead level.
Use 2 pots one for hard base metal and one for pure nose metal. In my big pot I set a steel pan in the center with the soft lead in it and the hard around it. Melt metals and pre heat mouldand ladles.
Pour the measured amount of soft lead into the mould keeping it level and then pour the harder into mould and a heavy sprue. let cool and solidify cut sprue and drop bullet. THs worked good for me and was easier than the other ways. A copper pipe cap 1/2 size will make a nice little ladle. just below the edge drill and tap a 10-32 hole use a piece o 10 32 threaded rod for the handle shaft and a file handle for the handle. Thread rod into pipe cape and a nut to lock it in place. place a cut off nose in the cap and melt with torch. Let cool and measure to top of lead. subtract 1/2 of hole size your using. (A saw cut thru at this point works also) lay out and drill hole. This makes your ladle for the measured amount of lead for the nose. a spout can be formed if desired easily with a small hammer and dull chisel or punch. THe big thing here is everything needs to be kept level when pouring and when filling the calibrated ladle.

Some hints to help out.
1) preheat mould. If you normally preheat to 350 go to 375 or 400*. You want to keep that nose portion as close to molten as possible
2) when filling the calibrated ladle keep it as level as possible.
3) keep the ladles in the alloy to maintain their temperature.
4) hold mould as level as possible.
5) work quickly between measured and base pours again you want the nose as close to molten as possible for the best blend and bond
6) pour a large sprue or over pour the mould keeping bullet hot as long as possible again for the best bond and joint.

When I made a run of these I used the calibrated ladle then a full ladle letting the excess run back into the pot. A square level surface helps to rest the mould on when filling. I use brass moulds so blocks held the heat better. Steel cast iron should work good but aluminum may be hard as its cooling rate is faster.

[beagle]

Some years back there was a big trend in this business. They were making .30 soft noses. The method used was to drop a pure buckshot in the mould cavity nose and then drop really hot lead over it. As I recall, they achieved about a 75% success ratio with no flaws. The drawback is that the melt was not consistent but apparently it worked./beagle

[Walks]

About 40yrs ago, Lyman came out with a 2 mold concept. A sort of hollow point base, cast of LINOTYPE.
A Rear pointed nose section to be cast of pure LEAD.

Then you epoxied the two pieces together.

A Hard bearing surface with a Soft expanding nose.

Didn't work too well, getting the two pieces glued together, a Balanced Bullet was just about impossible.

So accuracy was none existence.

[44Blam]

Would it work to cast hollow points in like a devastator or NOE mold and then with a ladle or bottom pour melt pure lead and fill the HP?

[Forrest r]

Why not simply pc a soft lead bullet????

Back in 2013 when I decided to try pc'ing bullets there really wasn't a lot of data/testing being done at the time on this website. Figured a hp rifle was as good as anything to test alloy/pc with, so I played around with different bullets in a 308w. I lowered the alloy's bhn as the velocities went up.
https://i.imgur.com/9TAAbA8.jpg

That 2300fps bullet pictured above started out life as a lee 230gr tl blackout bullet with a cast boattail. Plain as cast & pc'd bullets laying down on the right. I made a bump die that fit the ball throat/leade/throat of the chamber of that 308w. I used soft enough alloy +/-9bhn to swage/bump that tl bullet into the bullets on the left that now have a gc installed using a rock chucker press. The bullet's base where the gc is is .310" & tapers down to the step (arrow) .309" with the stp starts @ .308" & tapers down to .301".
https://i.imgur.com/jlzX8Wp.jpg

I could take those soft range scrap (+/-9bhn) cast bullets and pc them and had no problem getting +/- 1 1/2" 10-shot groups @ 100yds with a 1 in 10twist 22" bbl in the typical 1800fps+ range. When I switched to a 30" 1 in 14 twist 308w bbl those same cast 30cal bullets range scrap & pc'd would do 1 1/2" 10-shot groups @ 100yds in the +/- 2000fps range.

[njc110381]

Some years back there was a big trend in this business. They were making .30 soft noses. The method used was to drop a pure buckshot in the mould cavity nose and then drop really hot lead over it. As I recall, they achieved about a 75% success ratio with no flaws. The drawback is that the melt was not consistent but apparently it worked./beagle

I might just try that. It wouldn't hurt to give it a go. It sounds like quite a smart idea!


Why not simply pc a soft lead bullet????

I didn't realise that would work. I just assumed the bullet would strip with or without the coating? Good to know though, thanks

[bmortell]

depending on your reason for wanting the base to be hard, if its to make sure you have a cylinder left over for penatration a soft nose is fine apart from whatever you need to do to make one. if your doing it so you can have the effect of soft lead that can also survive going down the barrel id say just cast a soft bullet and paper patch it with tracing paper and increase weight if you need more penetration. if your doing it for fun scientific testing purposes than all methods are valid.

[Lloyd Smale]

I fooled around with them in the 500 Linebaugh. I found that a 32 mag case made a perfect sized dipper. Don't recall ever shooting anything with one though. After the buddy and I had the 500 linebaugh hollow point buffalo fiasco I decided cast bullets over 44 cal didn't need to expand. Shot one small 600lb buffalo 5 times before it went down. We were getting about 6 inches of penetration from those big parachutes. Never lost an animal hit in the right spot with a hard cast lfn or wfn or swc.

[Wolfer]

I believe Pavo Kelly used a method where he water dropped his bullets and then stood them up in a pan of water with the nose sticking out. Played a propane torch on the nose until he saw it change color. End up with a hard body/ soft nose.

Ive tried all of the above methods except Lyman’s. Bruce B’s method was the best and the most time consuming. Now I prefer a bhn of about 10 with a small cup Hp and don’t push anything over about 1900 fps. Boolit has to fit of course.
Calibers of .338 and up I don’t HP with the exception of pistol rounds below 1000 fps. They seem to work just fine with a flat point.
It is fun to play with though.

[gwpercle]

I just stumbled across an article by a chap who makes soft point hard cast boolits. Apparently he casts in soft lead then puts the resulting boolits in a gauge he's made and cuts the base off. He then refills his furnace with hard alloy, puts the tips back in the mould and pours hard alloy on the back of them. Would this method bond the two parts together ok? I was a little sceptical as I was always led to believe the pour should be done in one go?

No it doesn't bond them . That's the fly in this ointment. Some have tried a soft measured nose cast quickly followed by the hard base cast hopefully getting the two to bond...iffy at best.
Lyman made two moulds, cast the nose soft, the base hard and glue them together with epoxy...
notice they are no longer sold .
Your best bet is a 50/50 lead and COWW , air cooled , good lubricant and a gas check .
In the hunting section you will see Deer taken with these boolits and the results are impressive.

Hardness is way over rated in a boolit...you can do a lot with a properly fitted boolit and good lubricant . Hard boolits are not the cure all .
Gary

[white eagle]

I'll just use a gas check

[longbow]

It can be done quite easily with large diameter boolits in my experience. I tried it back in the 70's using a Lyman 457125 mould by doing what country gent said. I made a small dipper to hold enough soft lead to fill the nose to the first driving band. I'd preheat the mould and get two pots of lead hot then use the small dipper to fill the nose followed quickly by pouring from my ladle to fill the mould normally.

If everything was hot the boolits looked like they were one piece of lead except the nose was shinier. I had few failures as long as both moulds and lead were HOT and I worked quickly.

When shot into end grain wood the soft nose would mushroom right back to almost the first driving band.

More recently I tried using my first Lyman 314299 mould and had very poor success even when everything was smoking hot! I'm sure doing a bit of playing would result in reasonable success but the small diameter boolit seemed to be an issue in getting the seam face to fill out all the way. The noses were bonded but I had a little ring around the nose at the interface I couldn't seem to to eliminate. In the end I figured i'd paper patch if I wanted soft boolits to expand as I have a PP mould for my .303's too.

Lyman used to make a two piece boolit mould so both parts were cast separately then epoxied together. It had a short life. Look here on page 17:

http://www.nzha.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NRA-Cast-Sup1.pdf

Ideal used to make two piece moulds too where the nose was cast in soft lead then those were placed in the "body" cavity and harder alloy cast over it. Take a look here on pages 80 and 86:

https://castbulletassoc.org/download/Ideal%20moulds%20-%201929.pdf

These were "keyed" together after casting but I have to think that unless that nose was pre-heated to almost melting it wouldn't go well.

You could also cast just soft noses or cast boolits in soft ally then cut noses off and put those in the mould then pour harder alloy on top but again, you have to pre-heat that nose to almost melting to get a bond.

Then as mentioned the is the Bruce B. method and Paco Kelly has a similar method for alloyed boolits with hard bodies and softer noses.

I think I'd go with paper patching or maybe PC'ing then cast the alloy hardness I wanted rather than 2 piece boolits, but is is fun to play around and the only thing your are doing is spending time trying stuff. There is really no cost to trying these things and you may get something you like in the end.

Go play! Have fun!

Longbow

[njc110381]

I will try the shotgun pellet in the nose method to see how it works but the whole process does sound quite hard work. I think I'd be much better off hollow pointing.

The reason for all the messing about is that UK law requires either a soft or hollow nosed bullet to shoot deer. The fact that a bullet from my .416 Rigby is bigger than a fully expanded .243 bullet doesn't matter. So far I haven't found a .417 hollow point mould...

[murf205]

I fooled around with them in the 500 Linebaugh. I found that a 32 mag case made a perfect sized dipper. Don't recall ever shooting anything with one though. After the buddy and I had the 500 linebaugh hollow point buffalo fiasco I decided cast bullets over 44 cal didn't need to expand. Shot one small 600lb buffalo 5 times before it went down. We were getting about 6 inches of penetration from those big parachutes. Never lost an animal hit in the right spot with a hard cast lfn or wfn or swc.

I'll bet that is an interesting story!

[waksupi]

I just stumbled across an article by a chap who makes soft point hard cast boolits. Apparently he casts in soft lead then puts the resulting boolits in a gauge he's made and cuts the base off. He then refills his furnace with hard alloy, puts the tips back in the mould and pours hard alloy on the back of them. Would this method bond the two parts together ok? I was a little sceptical as I was always led to believe the pour should be done in one go?

There were two piece molds made by the old time benchrest shooters way back in the 19th century. Parts were cast, then swaged together. There are other methods of making soft nosed bullets in various places on this forum. Easiest way, cast the bullets hard, set them in a pan of water, and carefully anneal the noses.

[5Shot]

Recently read about this on another forum, and the guy poured the soft, then the hard and submerged the mold in the pot to get everything to melt and bond. Some don't like that idea, but he said it worked great.

[Hossfly]

I’m going to try this method with 30-06, next time I’m casting, just for fun and see how it works. I do have 2 pots. An old Lyman 10# will melt stick on ww, and Lee 4-20 with ww. Might work we’ll see.

[Lead pot]

The Ideal moulds had some two alloy moulds https://castbulletassoc.org/download/Ideal%20moulds%20-%201929.pdf
The black powder cartridge rifle shooters should take note with some of these old ideal GG bullets that we're made for shooting in fouled barrels without fouling control. (shooting dirty) not just the lube grooves but also the shapes of the ogives.

[Hossfly]

I’m going to try this method with 30-06, next time I’m casting, just for fun and see how it works. I do have 2 pots. An old Lyman 10# will melt stick on ww, and Lee 4-20 with ww. Might work we’ll see.

[Lead pot]

Depending what type ogive you want, maybe a round nose to take advantage of a soft point you might try using some lead Buck Shot. Making two pours you will never get consistency + or -.Buckshot will lay in the center of the mould making contact on all sides.
#4 buck is .240" #3 is .250" but for a good soft round nosed .30 caliber I would use #1 buck it's .300" 0 buck is .320"

[Lloyd Smale]

ya pc made most of this unnessisary. You can cast a 5050 ww/pure bullet pc it and push it about as fast as you want. Plenty fast enough for any handgun load.
No it doesn't bond them . That's the fly in this ointment. Some have tried a soft measured nose cast quickly followed by the hard base cast hopefully getting the two to bond...iffy at best.
Lyman made two moulds, cast the nose soft, the base hard and glue them together with epoxy...
notice they are no longer sold .
Your best bet is a 50/50 lead and COWW , air cooled , good lubricant and a gas check .
In the hunting section you will see Deer taken with these boolits and the results are impressive.

Hardness is way over rated in a boolit...you can do a lot with a properly fitted boolit and good lubricant . Hard boolits are not the cure all .
Gary

[white eagle]

I'll just use a gas check

let me explain further
I was in a frenzy over this to but I could never get
satisfactory results there were parting line's and after
time the boolits tips would actually fall off
unless there is a mechanical way to bond the two alloys
together I will stick with using a softer alloy and a gc with pc

[country gent]

Smaller bullets don't have the mass to hold heat like the bigger bullets do Keeping the mould hot is the key doing the 2 pour I hace let the blocks rest in the alloy of the pit between the nose pour and base pour also to hold heat. maybe on 30 cal sized this would help also. running the pure lead with a little tin ( the tin will aid in the bonding) slightly hotter than normal and soaking in the harder alloy pot while the base pour is done and given a 10-20 sec "soak" before allowing to cool will help.
I have seen moulds that one cavity cast the nose with a stem on it the second cavity is the complete bullet. Nose is poured from pure lead then moved to second cavity and harder alloy added and the next nose is poured. process is repeated, Its more tedious and moving the noses around in the hot mould is tricky. On a 30 cal mould the stem would probably be around 3/16" dia. some had shallow grooves to make a mechanical lock to the nose base joint. These moulds cast good bullets but the keeper rate was lower do to issues getting nose set in next cavity and fill around stem.

Working with the calibrated ladle and pots casting hot and fast worked for me.

[Lloyd Smale]

Have to agree. I did it in 500 475 and 4570 molds that were all steel and they had to be kept HOT to get good results. I doubt your going to keep something like a 30 cal mold hot enough. don't even waste your time with aluminum molds. If I wanted a mold to specifically do soft nosed bullets id buy it in brass.

[Devon]

Just snagged these. Should be fun to play with. Ideal 321297 Nose and Ideal 321297 mold.

http://i.imgur.com/7plRKMR.jpg (https://imgur.com/7plRKMR)

http://i.imgur.com/RqRIzt2.jpg (https://imgur.com/RqRIzt2)

[GLynn41]

I have killed ground hogs and deer with DABS--dual alloy boolits My Lyman 410459 soft points the whole nose of the boolit does great-- maybe a good balance of mold blocks and heat??
My Brass Mountain mold does really well-- 257 gr lwngc soft points
An SSk 275 was also very good.
I use 2 pots with soft lead in one// harder lead in the other. I used .380 -9 mm for a dipper-- I cut them down until they held the lead I wanted--
Closed the mold and moved the sprue plate open and poured in the soft and then closed the sprue plate and cast as normal
I only do it for a few hunting slugs -- and then keep the best. and practice with the rest

[Shuz]

Just snagged these. Should be fun to play with. Ideal 321297 Nose and Ideal 321297 mold.

http://i.imgur.com/7plRKMR.jpg (https://imgur.com/7plRKMR)

http://i.imgur.com/RqRIzt2.jpg (https://imgur.com/RqRIzt2)

I have one of the Lyman 2 mould sets similar to yours and the designation is 429625. The little tail on the nose portions helps grip the harder alloy when poured on top. I've cast the noses outta pure lead and then dropped them cold into a 429650 mould that normally casts a 300g boolit. Weight ended up 317g and were fed with 17g of WC 820 for a chrono'd velocity of 1120fps outta 5" S&W 629 Classic DX. Accuracy was nothing special as I recall, but since I still have some loaded up, I'll resurrect this project again after all the snow melts....prolly July this year!

[njc110381]

So it seems this may be a fairly difficult process with light bullets. It's worth considering that what I'll be casting will weigh in the 350-450gr range, .416 diameter. I would have thought with a hot mould I'll have enough time to do a soft pour then follow up with harder alloy before the nose sets as long as I'm reasonably quick?

[lightman]

About 40yrs ago, Lyman came out with a 2 mold concept. A sort of hollow point base, cast of LINOTYPE.
A Rear pointed nose section to be cast of pure LEAD.

Then you epoxied the two pieces together.

A Hard bearing surface with a Soft expanding nose.

Didn't work too well, getting the two pieces glued together, a Balanced Bullet was just about impossible.

So accuracy was none existence.

You beat me to it but I was going to mention this. I tried it and you are correct about the accuracy. The mold was also hard to cast with. It required a lot of patience and skill to get good fillout. Todays glues and adhesives might make a difference, but the mold was still hard to cast with.

[fredj338]

Would it not be easier to cast your hard alloy bullets, then stand them up in water & temper the nose in an oven?

[GLynn41]

Yep it would seem--- have not tired that yet

[Beerd]

So it seems this may be a fairly difficult process with light bullets. It's worth considering that what I'll be casting will weigh in the 350-450gr range, .416 diameter. I would have thought with a hot mould I'll have enough time to do a soft pour then follow up with harder alloy before the nose sets as long as I'm reasonably quick?

with that bullet as described, and a wide flat nose, is there really a need for a soft point?
..

[Lead pot]

237447
The left two are my soft points. They work great. :)

[Mike W1]

Been a long time back and my memory might be leading me astray but I have it in my head that WAY back LBT did some mod on a furnace that let you pour the nose of the bullet and you followed it up with another furnace with the harder alloy. Hope I'm not losing it in older age.

[725]

Never did it myself, but I've heard of dropping an air rifle pellet into the mold and then casting over it. The soft pellet melts readily and is backed by whatever alloy you just poured over it. I might try it myself.

[Lloyd Smale]

i believe he made so two part molds too.
Been a long time back and my memory might be leading me astray but I have it in my head that WAY back LBT did some mod on a furnace that let you pour the nose of the bullet and you followed it up with another furnace with the harder alloy. Hope I'm not losing it in older age.

[trapper9260]

I am thinking on do the one of bullet cast hard and put it in water and use the torch on the nose. It looks to be the easy way to do it all.I did at the time I seen a post of doing it with 2 different pours one of soft and one with hard alloy. Think will try the torch first some time this year.