Streamlining Softnose Production

[BruceB]

Those who followed my cast-softnose thread of last year may recall that I used a dipper made from a .40 S&W case to meter the molten pure lead into the mould.

A fortunate friend has drawn an Arizona bull-elk tag in a very good area, and is taking his Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun as the backup/bad weather rifle, understudying for his M700 in .338. He's asked me to make the bullets for this rifle.

It seems that my SAECO 021, a pointy 420-grain design, may be the best of my available designs for this purpose WITH A FLATNOSE ADDED. Its accuracy is great, and the weight is just right for a modern .45-70 load. His "design intention" is to load it to about the 1800-fps mark, which is reasonable.

Instead of messing with dipper and lead-pot-in-the-furnace, I decided to use some .490" round balls as donors for the pure lead, and it worked perfectly. With the furnace full to the top and heated to its max of 870 degrees, I placed the 2-cavity mould on the melt with the sprue plate open. A .490 ball was positioned on each cavity, and I just watched until the balls melted and ran into the mould. A couple minutes later, I closed the sprue plate and filled the cavities from the furnace.

PERFECT! This is a primo way to obtain a precise amount of lead in an easy to handle package. The balls weigh 172 grains, which amounts to about 40% of the total bullet weight of 420 grains ....just about right.

The pointed pure-lead nose is easily formed into a flatpoint for the tubular magazine, simply by using a flat top punch in the lubesizer and a judicious amount of pressure on the handle. The amount of pressure, of course, controls the amount of flattening which takes place. There is no measureable expansion of the bullet at the front bore-engaging surfaces.

I am tickled to see this working so well.

[BruceB]

These oh-dark-thirty hours sometimes stimulate some thought.

Since I already had the pot up to temp, I decided to cast some pure-lead smaller-diameter boolits for lead donors, instead of the oversize .490s which just sat on top of the cavities until they decided to melt.

I stuck the little pot of pure lead into the RCBS furnace, and it melted very quickly. Using a single-cavity Lee .30-180, I cast a dozen or so ugly, wrinkly bullets out of the pure lead.

Pure-lead boolits which drop right into the cavities work MUCH better for making softpoints, and it's quicker as well. The finished .458 softnoses clearly show a golden hue right back to the crimp groove, which would seem to prove that there's very little mixing of metals going on.

Incidentally, I'm forming a flat nose on these which is just barely larger than a Large Rifle primer. Should be safe enough, I think.

[garandsrus]

Bruce,

Great idea on getting a consistent nose and bullet weight!

John

[AZ-Stew]

Nice post. Great tip!

Is there enough "soldering" between the two alloys to prevent nose separation?

Regards,

Stew

[9.3X62AL]

Bruce--this bit will get a try-out real soon in the 9.3mm mold.

[ben1025]

BruceB: I described that method 4 or 5 years ago on Shooters. The only difference was I melted the ball in the mould on a hot plate. I brought a bunch of
358 and 458 to one of your shoots and gave them out. Don't remember to who.
They were suppose to shoot them and let me know how they worked. Never heard from them. I had numerous combination of hardness. I think the title was 2 alloy bullets. I think I also did 3 alloys. Although I did a bunch of them I never shot one.

[chunkum]

BruceB,
Good creative thinking! Thanks for sharing your update on this process. Gotta try it imminently!
c.

[MT Gianni]

Bruce, I tried it with 32 cal rb in 357's and found the need to keep the mould perfectly level or the pure lead wouuld set up at an angle. Gianni.

[BruceB]

Gents;

In carrying-out this process, I MUST stress that heat (HIGH heat) is our friend. Why? Because it buys a crucial element, and that element is time, lots of time. Abandon your normal casting temps for this particular job, and your results will be more-certain.

When the mould is floated on the melt in the furnace, it reaches temps fairly-close to that of the molten alloy. Place the mould in there and wait at least a couple of minutes, and then drop in the pure-lead donor bullet. This bullet will melt in VERY short order, even if it's stone-cold when inserted into the cavity. Allow the newly-melted pure lead to heat up in the mould for a minute or two, as well.

When the high-temp alloy from the furnace is added to the cavity, the high temperature allows us at least a minute or more to mess around before the new softpoint bullet even STARTS to solidify. This is the answer to Gianni's concern about off-level conditions of the softpoint, and also Stew's question about "soldering".

THERE IS NO "JOINT" between the metals!!!!

Perfect fusion is achieved, and the only visual indication of the two hardnesses is a color variation on some bullets. It does no harm to strive for a perfectly-level mould while cooling on the pad, but it's also not at all critical. CRANK UP THE HEAT!

Having poured the harder shank material and created a nice generous sprue, the whole mess stays LIQUID for several minutes if not artificially-cooled on my wet cloth pad. Even then, it takes over a half-minute with the mould on the wet pad to START the freezing of the sprue. Once the sprue appears solid, wait a bit longer, perhaps ten seconds or more, before inverting the mould to cool the sprue on the wet pad. I say this because I've had an apparently-solid sprue rip off the bullet base just from its own weight and fall free, as soon as the mould was turned upside down. Cool the sprue itself for at least ten seconds on the pad before cutting it.

It's a very good idea to tape the handles in the closed position, or to place a strong elastic around the handles while doing this casting of softpoints. I used a strip of plastic electrical tape, securely attached on one handle and with about six inches hanging free to whip across the other handle before it all goes to sit on the molten alloy.

I've used a lot of aluminum moulds over the years at this high temperature of 870 degrees, and never had a problem with any of them.

Those .490 balls were cast many years ago, and they were so heavily oxidized that they looked like black marbles, and I mean BLACK. Naturally, the oxide flowed into the cavities with the rest of the balls and the bullets produced were U-G-L-Y, with big bits of black crud all over the noses.

If I wanted to take care of forseeable needs for future cast softpoints, I'd cast a number of pure-lead boolits of various diameters and weights for storage. My thinking is that, rather than worrying too much about a certain weight percentage of pure lead in the finished softpoint, I'm more interested in how much of the LENGTH of the bullet is made of pure lead, because I'm coming to believe that about 1/2 to 2/3 of the length should be made of the harder metal, to guarantee a strong shank which will hold together and penetrate even if the softnose is destroyed after impact.

This requires some study of the bullet proposed for use as a hunting softpoint, in order to decide how heavy the donor pure-lead bullet should be. A 90-grain .25 or 6.5 bullet should work well for a 311284 (210 grains), for example, or a 120-grain .30 donor for a .338-250 or 300 bullet. It's when we get into large bores that the choices become almost infinite, and much easier..... my donors for the .45-70 came from a Lee .30-180. Again, the donor bullets don't need to look at all like our normal-production boolits in which we take so much pride. They can look like California raisins, and still work just fine.

The oxidation is a worry if we're going to store pure-lead bullets for long periods, such as several years. I'm inclined to say that some spray wax on the boolits, along with storage in airtight baggies, would be a very good idea. Storing some donor bullets for future use means that just one short casting run with pure lead should last a hunter for years. Do an assortment which will span most of the calibers one intends to use.

Cast softpoints, in my book, take us back to the grand old hunting rounds of a century ago. A .30-40/220 cast softpoint can easily duplicate the original Krag factory speeds. So can a .30-30 170, or .32 Special 170, or .303 British with over-200 grains. Using the heaviest-possible cast bullet also brings the .30-06 very close to its root ballistics at speeds easily reachable with CAST bullets. We might not achieve present-day factory-ammo trajectories, but by George, we can surely approach their effectiveness on game! I know from personal experience that a .303 British is an utterly-deadly moose killer with 215s at 2100, and it will reach 200 yards, as well. Use the heaviest bullet you possibly can!

The secret to cast-softpoint successs is ...HEAT, more heat, LOTS of heat!

[9.3X62AL]

Bruce--

That answered all but one of my questions. "Heat is our friend".......OK, so it sounds like the nose portion is still liquid when you pour in the shank portion--izzat right? If so, the two metals don't blend readily due to differential specific gravities/densities? They just bond?

Maybe I should just TRY THIS OUT and see for myself.

[44man]

No, it will freeze before the hard lead is added. You do not want the metal to mix. The hard alloy will only melt the surface of the soft lead and solder together at the joint.

[BruceB]

NO, no, NO!

The metals are both liquid when the second alloy is added, and they STAY liquid for a long time if not cooled on the wet pad. This is the reason for the high heat, and also the reason that there is NO JOINT between the softer stuff and the harder shank alloy. The fusion is complete and again I holler, "THERE IS NO JOINT!!!"

There is only a bit of mixing at the contact point, and this is demonstrated by the color difference between soft and hard. Many of my softpoints clearly show the gold and blue colors on the nose all the way back to the crimp groove, the same colors we often see on the melt when melting PURE lead at high temps. The two alloys do not mix in the mould, in my experience. In smaller calibers than the .416 and .458s I've made to date, there is even less likelihood of mixing, due to the deeper and narrower "column" of molten lead in a smaller-diameter mould cavity. I'll try casting some .338-300s one of these days. I dunno if this stone-age computer will support posting of photos, but I'm gonna try. Those loooong boolits should clearly show the two alloys.

When adding a 180-grain softpoint to my 365-grain RCBS .416s, there is almost NO MEASUREABLE DIFFERENCE in overall weight, contrasted to a pure-wheelweight bullet. By this, I mean the softpoint bullet is within a measly grain or two of the weight of a straight-wheelweight bullet. To me, this means that a slight off-level condition of the contact AREA (not "joint"...there isn't one, remember?) is of no importance. Yes, it's probably desireable to keep the mould as level as possible during freezing, but it's not a problem if it's slightly 'off".

[45 2.1]

Take a pair of sidecutters and nip from the tip of the nose into the body at small intervals. that should prove whether they mixed or not.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I had a friend some years ago and he wanted to try thi, but didn't have any casting gear. We fashioned a dipper from an old case, your way seems much better. Throuble with mine was, I could not talk him out of using linotype for the shank. He used these on pigs and when he came back and saw me, he fessed up and said that the shank acted like a punch and rolled straight on through the nose cutting it like a cookie cutter. We did another batch and used ww for the shank and pure lead for the nose. I didn't do anymore for him as he didn't want to tak part, just wanted the boolits and wasn;t prepared to pay for it. I don't mind helping a guy, but when he just wants freebies with no other input, I'm not interested. I must try this again using your method. I have a small Lee furnace which I intended to use for pure lead anyway. Mick.

[jhalcott]

Okay bruce.I can understand MOST of that.What I don't get is why flatten the nose?? When I tried this I used linotype for the base metal and pure for the nose. What few I used on game performed great. I believe my problem with damaging the nose was the lino bases would cast almost .360 and I was sizing them to .3575 . I used a 40S&W case cut down to drop about 85 grains of pure. Then topped it off with the lino.I tried Lyman # 2 alloy bases but they were still larger then I wanted and required sizing. In the 4570 using a pointed NEI mold throwing 405's I did recover a "donut" from one bullet??? All the others were pass thrus. The nose of the 45-70 was about 125 grains and evidently opened up with in a couple inches of impact. I weighed the donut and got around 110 grains. It must have over expanded ,then sheared off.That shot was only about 20 yards. I bought the Lee sizer and had problems seating the gas checks with it. It sizes the 358's to .359 so there isn't much resistance there.

[BruceB]

[QUOTE=jhalcott] "What I don't get is why flatten the nose??"

jh, if you go back to the opening post in this thread, you'll see that I'm making these boolits for a pal to load for his elk hunt. They'll be carried in his back-up rifle, a Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun with tubular magazine. That tubular mag is the only reason for putting a flat point on these SAECO #021 boolits, which have quite sharp spitzer-style noses. See the illustration in the Midway catalog, if you have one.

Just this morning I fired a few of these (non-softpointed, though) in my Shiloh .45-70 over a variety of RE-7 charges. I was sorta looking for some recommendable loads for my pal. The speeds were up in the 1800-2000 fps range, and I was rather pleased to remember (after a forceful reminder!) that my preferred recipes for that rifle run more in the 1300-1450 area. I personally would not enjoy firing these loads in a 7-pound Marlin!!!!

[9.3X62AL]

Bruce--OK, you don't think much if any blending of the two liquid alloys occurs, the two just fuse. I hope my luck runs that well! I know what you refer to by the blue/gold coloring in unalloyed lead.

[1Shirt]

This is one of the best threads that I have seen posted in a long time. Words of wisdom that I will have to try.
1Shirt:coffee:

[klausg]

Bruce, et. al.-
Very interesting, I will have to try this with my new, well new to me, 375 mould. I sure would like to smack a moose this season with something I cast. I have one slightly off-topic question; for our purposes, can stick-on wheelweights be considered pure lead? I think they will be soft enough for this application; but am I going to run into any unforeseen difficulties? I diligently culled all of the stick-ons from my smelts and currently have around 15-20 lbs of ingots that are looking for a good use. What about using the stuff to slug a barrel? Thanks for any help/advice you can give me.

-Klaus

[Shuz]

Klaus--A few years ago I did a test on hardness of stick-on type weights vs clip on weights. What I found out was that stick-on weights came out at Saeco 4 which is Bhn 7. Clip-on weights at that time gave me Saeco 6-7 or Bhn 9 to 11. In summary, I've found stick-ons to be softer than clip-ons, but not by much. Both "alloys" heat treated to Saeco 10, which is Bhn 22. When smelting ww's these days, I treat them all the same, but I just hold my nose a little more when stick-ons are evident. I am still vigilant tho for the dreaded zinc wheel weights, and if the weight has drilled holes and doesn't seem to wanna melt, it is discarded as a potential contaminate. For those of you without hardness testers, try the "ring test": drop an ingot on a cement floor and listen for the ring. You'll really notice a differance as the lead percentage goes up...more of a thud than a ring. Lino has a definate ring to it. The ring test is very crude, but, much better than just a visual guess, etc.

[BruceB]

I'm "tooling up" right now to cast some Lee 405 hollowbase softpoints. "Tooling up" requires some wire and an assortment of pistol cases to make dippers ...not very high tech, in other words.

A .40 S&W case holds about 180 grains of alloy, and a .45 ACP case holds about 280 grains. Being as the Lee hollowbase is a nose pour (of course!) the shank metal has to be poured first, and the .45 ACP case will be the dipper for the WW metal. This will leave a nominal 120 grains of volume to be filled with the pure lead, and I'll then use a different dipper for the pure lead. I may adjust things a bit to give slightly more room for the softer metal, but these will do for a first run, anyway.

Most of my "pure lead" is derived from soft 1/8"-thick lead sheeting. However, I do smelt the stick-ons separately from the normal WW, and save them for muzzle-loaders etc where they seem to work fine.

On the question about hardness of the shank compared to the soft nose, I refer y'all again to the thread last year on "Successful Casting of Softnose Bullets....". Just do a search for "softnose" and you'll find it.

Toward the end of that thread, I described a water-jug impact test. Note that the aircooled boolit expanded RIGHT DOWN TO THE BASEBAND, which seems to imply that the shank is definitely bearing its share of responsibility. Expansion was up into the .80" area from .416". The water-dropped boolit tested retained the gascheck and its original base diameter, but still carried 300-plus grains of metal (out of 365 to start with) all the way to the sixth jug. I elected to hunt with the aircooled model, but didn't get an opportunity to use it.

[BruceB]

I'm "tooling up" right now to cast some Lee 405 hollowbase softpoints. "Tooling up" requires some wire and an assortment of pistol cases to make dippers ...not very high tech, in other words.

A .40 S&W case holds about 180 grains of alloy, and a .45 ACP case holds about 280 grains. Being as the Lee hollowbase is a nose pour (of course!) the shank metal has to be poured first, and the .45 ACP case will be the dipper for the WW metal. This will leave a nominal 120 grains of volume to be filled with the pure lead, and I'll then use a different dipper for the pure lead. I may adjust things a bit to give slightly more room for the softer metal, but these will do for a first run, anyway.

Most of my "pure lead" is derived from soft 1/8"-thick lead sheeting. However, I do smelt the stick-ons separately from the normal WW, and save them for muzzle-loaders etc where they seem to work fine.

On the question about hardness of the shank compared to the soft nose, I refer y'all again to the thread last year on "Successful Casting of Softnose Bullets....". Just do a search for "softnose" and you'll find it.

Toward the end of that thread, I described a water-jug impact test. Note that the aircooled boolit expanded RIGHT DOWN TO THE BASEBAND, which seems to imply that the shank is definitely bearing its share of responsibility. Expansion was up into the .80" area from .416". The aircooled boolit tested lost the gascheck but still carried 300-plus grains of metal (out of 365 to start with) all the way to the sixth jug. I elected to hunt with the aircooled model, but didn't get an opportunity to use it.

[Old Ironsights]

I am so jazzed by this. I'm really looking forward to dropping .350 (65gr) round balls into my .358 molds - especially in the hollow points (though keeping the mold hot enough will be more problematic there).

Solids are nice, but I would really like my little .357s to grow just a bit on impact...

[BruceB]

This episode duplicates what DK17hmr described in his "Softpoints, Success!" thread of a short time ago. I'm glad he was also able to make the system work. The only thing I changed from DK's work is that I poured the pure-lead nose section from an ancient and much-deformed kitchen teaspoon, rather than using a pre-cast donor bullet. The reason for this is that it's essential that the cavity be full, and also that there be enough metal to overflow and form the sprue puddle.

These were both the first aluminum-mold softpoints I've made, and also the first nose-pour softpoints likewise. In DK's word, "success!"

I poured the wheelweight shank using a wire-handled .45 ACP case as a dipper. A trial weighing of JUST the shank came in at 270 grains, which allowed the fill-out of pure lead to be around 130 grains to complete the 400-grain boolit. As it turns out, the softpoints average approximately seven grains heavier than the same boolits in straight WW metal.

I found that the aluminum mould can be cycled a good bit faster than my iron moulds when making softpoints. Where the iron jobs really needed a good four or five minutes on the melt to recover back to maximum temperature, about 2.5 minutes seemed OK with the Lee HB mould. Rushing it any more than that gave me incomplete fill-out of the nose (pure-lead) area. Best to err on the side of allowing too much time, rather than not enough.

[BruceB]

- especially in the hollow points (though keeping the mold hot enough will be more problematic there).

Solids are nice, but I would really like my little .357s to grow just a bit on impact...

Yep, I'm trying to visualize just how we might keep things hot enough, long enough, to get the lead into the nose area without creating any voids due to too-fast freezing. It's already a big-enough problem, making hollowpoints when using just one alloy!

In this case, I believe that a flat-nosed softpoint without a hollowpoint might work just fine as-is. A hollowpoint in the pure lead might even make the nose area too fragile, although for handgun varminting etc, such fragility might be very useful.

Now you've got ME jazzed, because I wasn't actually considering doing anything with my handgun bullets re: softpointing. Your 65-grain donor ball sounds just right to me, in a 158 boolit. Incidentally, when I dropped room-temperature .30-180s into the HOT mould, it only took about five to ten seconds before they melted. I'd still recommend letting the freshly-molten lead heat up in the mould for at least a minute or two.

Dammit, I reckon it's time to start stacking up old newspapers again (for boolit testing)....it drives my wife nuts, having them piled all over the place.

[Topper]

Bruce,
What a great post.
I've played with submuging all but the upper portion of cast boolits in water and using a torch to soften the tip, but your technique definitely sounds like the best approach, since it removes the guess work.
Thanks

[BruceB]

Gracias for the kind words, Topper.

If anyone here should actually use one of their cast softpoints to bump-off some pore li'l innocent creature(s), PLEASE let us all know how it worked!

I put the word "streamlining" in the thread title, and looking back over the thread, and AFTER completing the juggling routine for today, something else occurred to me.

I was using the .45ACP case/dipper for the WW alloy, and also the aforementioned teaspoon clamped in a small vice-grip as a dipper for pure lead. What occurred to me, and what would have simplified the whole performance a great deal, is that I could have used the SAME .45 dipper for both alloys!

-the shank comprises about 2/3 of the weight, and

-an overflow of pure lead is needed to form the sprue, and

-using the .45 dipper after knocking any crud off of it on top of the pot would work perfectly, and satisfy all the requirements above!

Of course, for normal base-pour softpoints cast from a bottom pour pot, this is unnecessary, because the donor-boolit method works so well. However, we have a LOT of ladle casters here, and perhaps they should take note, especially if they plan on using nose-pour designs. (I still think the donor-pure-lead-bullet system is more elegant and accurate than using a dipper for both metals, however).

HEAT, Brethren, crank up the HEAT for softpoint success.....

[Old Ironsights]

Now you've got ME jazzed, because I wasn't actually considering doing anything with my handgun bullets re: softpointing. Your 65-grain donor ball sounds just right to me, in a 158 boolit.

RE: Pure Lead Ball Weight Per Caliber

.310 = 45 grains
.315 = 47 grains
.321 = 50 grains
.350 = 65 grains
.360 = 71 grains
.375 = 80 grains
.395 = 92 grains
.400 = 96 grains
.433 = 122 grains
.437 = 127 grains
.440 = 128 grains
.445 = 133 grains
.451 = 138 grains
.454 = 141 grains
.457 = 144 grains
.490 = 177 grains
.498 = 180 grains
.520 = 212 grains
.530 = 224 grains
.535 = 231 grains
.543 = 241 grains
.550 = 251 grains
.560 = 260 grains
.562 = 276 grains
.570 = 279 grains
.575 = 286 grains
.595 = 317 grains
.600 = 325 grains
.610 = 342 grains
.648 = 410 grains
.662 = 437 grains
.678 = 469 grains
.680 = 473 grains
.690 = 495 grains
.715 = 550 grains
.730 = 586 grains
.735 = 598 grains
.760 = 661 grains
.775 = 700 grains
.835 = 875 grains
.919 = 1167 grains
1.052 = 1750 grains

[eka]

Do you water drop or air cool the soft nose bullet?

Thanks,

Keith

[BruceB]

eka,

I tried it both ways with my first experimental boolits (.416 Rigby). In testing on water-filled plastic jugs, the water-dropped bullet clearly out-penetrated the aircooled bullet, but this was at muzzle velocity of 2100 fps.

Since longer-range impacts would be at lower velocity, I decided to take the aircooled bullets hunting. I was unable to persuade any critters to pose for the shot, so I still don't know about real-world performance. Both aircooled and waterdropped bullets expanded well and also retained plenty of weight.

I was quite confident in taking these cast softpoints after elk...I just wish I'd come up with one!

[Ricochet]

Everything old is new again! Back in the '70s, and maybe earlier, Lyman sold special order mould kits with a small mould to cast soft lead nose sections which were then inserted in the standard mould for filling up the base with harder alloy.

[44man]

Bruce, I guess I have to try it your way. I think a dipper would be easier then making other boolits to put in the mould. Speed is not important because not many boolits are needed for hunting. I will have to remove the bottom pour stuff so my mould will fit in the pot and figure how to keep it level until I pour the hard lead.

[BruceB]

Yep, the dipper works fine. The only real reason for not using a dipper (i.e.: with pre-cast "donor" boolits of pure lead) is just that there are fewer items to mess with while actually making the softnose bullets, and no need to keep a small pot of lead molten. Just preheat the mould in the melt, drop in the pure-lead donor bullet, keep the mould in the melt a couple more minutes, and fill it with the shank alloy. I had no particular trouble with the dipper, though. Everything stays liquid for so long, if the mould is preheated in the pot, that I don't think keeping it dead-level is too important. More-or-less level should work fine.

Ricochet, the big difference in making the bullets with my current system is that there is nothing to create a junction or weak spot in the finished bullet. When both the pure lead and the shank metal are at pouring temperature, a perfect union is achieved. The fault of the Lyman (and others') two-mould system is that the two parts would sometimes fail to stay together, because there IS a weaker area at the meeting-point between soft and hard.

Lyman was making similar moulds for casting softpoints 'way back in blackpowder days. The nose portions had a longish shank which was bigger at the rear than the front, which probably helped reduce incidents of separation. However, from looking at the designs, I suspect there were a lot of bullets cast with internal voids around that shank.

[versifier]

I had a very successful session of experimenting yesterday. The mould I was working with is the Lee C309-180. I have been experimenting the last few weeks with that mould and also the Lee 150FP, but I was using the 180 when everything came together and worked perfectly.

Background: Last week: First, I made a dipper of approximate volume using a .223 case. (I decapped, cut the case down, chamfered, deburred, then d&t'd it through the primer pocket for an 8-32 screw, & trimmed the screw to length. Then I mounted it on a piece of old hacksaw blade that I had ground the teeth off of, and fitted it with a wooden handle.)

I had a bunch of tape WW's that I melted down in the old Lee Precision Melter that I started out ladle casting with back when Moby Dick was a minnow. Then I filled my equally ancient Lyman Mould Master with WW's and got everything hot.
The .223 case was too thin to fill and pour conveniently. :( I cast up a few hundred 150gr boolits from the WW alloy and called it a night.

Back to the workbench: There is actually a use for AMERC brass! Dipper #2 was made the same way from a 45ACP case. I found it to still be difficult to pour with and clumsy. :( So I stopped experimenting and cast up a few hundred 180gr boolits out of the WW alloy and called it a night.

Back again to the workbench: I rummaged through my bag of odd brass and came up with a .30WSM case. I prepped it as before, except that I cut it off at an angle to make a pouring lip. I fired up both pots again and set the dipper and the aluminum 180gr mould in the pure lead (the temp on the pot was cranked up all the way). The first two attempts I was not patient enough and I was not heating the mould enough - you could see an obvious join line between the two different metals. BTW, they don't intermingle because they are of differing densities, the pure lead in the nose being more dense than the alloy of the base. It ended up taking about two minutes for the mould to come up to temperture, and three or four minutes before it had cooled enough to properly solidify the sprue. I let it air cool and cranked out some .358 wadcutters while I waited. By the time I had a few hundred wadcutters, I also had a few dozen soft nose boolits. :drinks: I haven't tested them yet, but will probably have time to do it next week in water filled milk jugs and will report back with results then.

The two boolits on the left were cast with too cool a mould, the others had the mould at the proper temperture. The other shot is my WSM lead scoop. If I had been unsuccessful, next session I was going to try using some .36cal rb's, but this worked well so I don't think I'll bother.

Thank you BruceB!

[Nrut]

Bruce...I casted up a bunch of pure lead Lee soup cans and Lee 158gr/.357 bullets this weekend and tried your method...worked slick....:)

44man....
You have plenty of time to pour the base metal in after the pure lead is melted.....I used 400gr/.459 mold and a 213gr/.358 yesterday....one was floating on the pot melt with pure lead in the cav. while the other was cooling...mean while I was casting RDog 350gr./.460bullets...got tricky some times but worked once I got things good'n hot......
One thing I learned is in the larger dia. molds you should adjust your stream down some and pour between the cav. so as to help keep the pure lead and base metals from mixing as much.......:)

[eka]

I was thinking of using my RCBS dipper after getting it good and hot, drop a donor ball into it and float it on top of the melt in my bottom pour pot. When the donor ball is melted and good and hot, pour it into the mould and then top it off with the WW from the bottom pour. That seems easier than making small dippers and melting a second pot of pure lead. And like 44man said, you don't need very many of them. I'm thinking of using them in my 1894 .44 Mag. and my Model 94 .38-55 lever with the .38-55 group buy mould for whitetails this fall. Only thing, I'm still kicking around whether to air cool or water drop. Probably follow Bruce's lead and try the air cooled. Thanks Bruce for this neat thread and all the good info. that has followed.

Keith

[Nrut]

Well eka...I can testify you can use Lee 6 bangers to make softnose bullets.....Using my Lee 20# pot and the 38-55 GB mold I just made up 34 softnose bullets using pure lead Lee soup can bullets for the softnose part....At first I just used the end two cav., but soon found that you can use all six cav.........It'll be interesting to see how they perform on game.......:)

[waksupi]

Everything old is new again! Back in the '70s, and maybe earlier, Lyman sold special order mould kits with a small mould to cast soft lead nose sections which were then inserted in the standard mould for filling up the base with harder alloy.

And, if you look in Ned Robert's, The Muzzloading Caplock Rifle, you will see they were being made pre-1900!

[eka]

Good to hear you can use all six cavities. I was thinking about just using the end cavity, but now that you found all six to work, one can make short order of this task. No real need to throw out a whole bunch of these speciality bullets anyway.

[44man]

A few problems. I made a dipper and used two pots, one with pure and one hard. I would dip for the nose and put the mould into the pot until the nose just melted. Then I would pour the base. No parting line but the sprue took forever to cool. First thing I noticed was lead ran out of the vent lines and appeared on the side of the mold. Then, even if I tipped up the ladle and held it on the mould, the base did not fill out right. I also had speckles of lead on the nose and in the nose section of the mould. The back was frosted too far up the nose and not smooth and even. A hardness test showed the nose was the same hardness as the base. It looks to me that the alloys are mixing too much. The whole boolit is softer then my usual alloy. If I ran a little cooler, the parting line would come back but the nose would be shiny. I messed around for three hours with the same results.

[7br]

Aw heck, I know that I am going to spend three or four hours this weekend fussing with soft nose bullets. You all should be ashamed. Convincing me to drive myself to distraction with this project.

I will be using a lee 5lb pot for the pure lead and an old saeco bottom pour for the WW. I will probably crank the saeco pretty high in hopes that the alloy will be able to at least partially melt the pure lead.

Has anyone tried this with a nose pour mould? Seem like the higher melt temp of the pure lead would do a better job of welding the seam together.

[BruceB]

Now, people....

PUH-LEEEZE go back and READ THE THREAD!!!

There is no "welding", there is no "joint", there is no "seam", there is only the pouring of two LIQUID component alloys into a heated-to-the-maximum mould...a mould heated as hot as possible right in the furnace, sitting in the melt, with the furnace itself heated as HOT AS IT WILL GO (electric furnaces, of course, not temperature-unregulated gas -fired pots).

THAT is the "secret" of making homogenous softnose cast bullets:
THE HIGHEST-POSSIBLE TEMPERATURE of EVERYTHING INVOLVED.

Once the mould is filled with the two alloys, cool it on the wet pad, as I wrote several times already. Otherwise, resign yourself to a wait of several minutes before the sprue freezes. The wet pad cools the bullet to solidification stage in about thirty seconds or so. A further ten seconds spent cooling the sprue on the wet pad ensures that the bullet is firmed-up enough to open the mould and drop the slug. No, it won't warp the mould.

Nrnut has given us a very good hint on minimizing mixture of the alloys, when he recommended slowing the flow from the furnace, and letting the stream fall partly on the sprue plate instead of directly into the cavity.

In posts #24, #25, and #27 on this thread, I have already described in detail how I successfully cast nose-poured softpoints in a LEE 45-405 hollow-base mould.

Now...if only someone can use one of his new cast softpoints on game (and recover the bullet) it would be very interesting indeed.

[7br]

Bruce, I have read the post several times. I have experiencemented with it for ONE (not a good test) morning. I still need to convince myself that the lead and the alloy do not mix. I will also probably cast up 10 or so of pure lead. My main use will be whitetail at under 75yards in a pistol. I do have several examples where there is no seam, a shiney nose and a frosty base. As I continued with the process, I got a more uniform frostiness.

Hardness testing seems to have born this out, however, what I thought was pure lead probably wasn't.

see post http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=5845

[versifier]

Bruce, what you say is reinforced 100% by my observations.
It is easily seen that the two different metals do not combine. The base has one hardness, the nose has another. There is a very thin layer where they meet that some alloying occurs, but this layer is not a discrete boundary - if it is then you're working at too low a temp. The two metals have different densities, the pure lead being more dense and staying on the bottom, (in the nose), the alloy being less dense and staying on the top, (in the base). On the .30cal 180gr boolits I cast, this "region of interface" is about .1" thick. Putting the boolit poured at too low a temp (with a clearly seen joint) in the vise, I was able to take a pair of pliers and cleanly break off the soft nose. The same thing tried with the boolit poured properly hot would not come apart, but bent until the metal distorted enough to break in an irregular line. Not like a solder joint, but rather a fusion of the two halves with an alloying in the interface where one meets and joins the other.
When using the bottom-pour pot, I try to pour off-center so that it "swirls" into the mould, and I don't open it all the way so that the stream comes slower and at less pressure. I do this anyway no matter what mould I am filling as I have fewer spills/overfills, but it makes even more sense when pouring the bases of the soft-nose boolits. I suspect that injecting a hard stream of alloy bullseye into the filler hole would cause them to intermix to too great a degree.
I don't know for sure, but I don't believe it will be as easy to get good results with a nose-pour mould as you are putting the less dense alloy in first and trying to top it off with the more dense pure lead. While maintaining a high enough temp to keep both liquid, the more dense pure metal should have a tendency to sink to the bottom, displacing the less dense alloy. But, I am the first to admit that not everything that can be logically reasoned works out in the real world. [smilie=1:
All my experiments have been and will be with .30cal moulds. To my way of thinking, it doesn't make too much difference if a .45cal boolit expands or not, the flat meplat is what insures its ability to disrupt tissue and kill cleanly. (Some expansion isn't a bad thing, just not as necessary). On the other hand, it is very important to get some expansion in .30cal - you don't have the weight of a heavy slug to rely on, and while a meplat definitely helps the performance a lot, some expansion would make it that much better. With jacketed bullets in the smaller calibers, we rely on velocity to give us the expansion needed. With cast we don't have that luxury, and if we are going to hunt larger game with smaller caliber boolits, we need to do all we can to insure clean kills every time.

[BruceB]

Cogitating about casting softpoints again, I got to thinking about the distinct possibility that the two alloys are indeed mixing to some degree due to the turbulence when pouring the harder base alloy into the cavity where the pure-lead component is also liquid. Others have raised this point, and I thank them for leading me to think this through a bit further.

"How to avoid this?", I says to meself. On with thinking cap. Hmmmm.

I believe I have it, or "EUREKA!!!"

What I plan to do is pour a measured amount of pure lead into the mould at normal casting temperature, and let it set up. Then, fill the cavity with the harder alloy, just as before, leaving a normal sprue, and let it set up, as well.

At this point, we are where a lot of previous experimenters have already arrived, and there's almost certainly going to be a seam where the two alloys meet. This seam is usually plainly visible on most such boolits of which I've seen photos, and it almost certainly represents a potential weak spot in heavy going through an animal. This concerns me. What to do?

This:

Simply change the routine which I've used to date, and instead of heating the living daylights out of everything BEFORE casting the two-alloy boolit, just wait until AFTER we have the two alloys in the mould, frozen in their correct positions, and THEN place the mould in the max-temperature melt for several minutes! The two alloys will then return to a molten state inside the mould. If we are careful not to jiggle/slosh/agitate the mould, the two alloys should almost certainly retain their proper positions WITHOUT MIXING, and the seam between them should disappear when they attain the liquid state.

Carefully (without jiggling) placing the mould's bottom on the wet pad until the sprue freezes will ensure the preservation of the alloy positioning. The nose almost HAS to be pure lead with this method, because nothing has caused mixing or circulation of the two allloys.

I'll try this on the weekend and report back.

[robertbank]

BruceB - The method you describe works well. I have just completed 20 170 gr .357 cast bullets. I poured in pure lead for a nose using a cut down 9MM case as a dipper. The mold I used was over the top hot. The tip sets up but probably not quitefully set up. I then pour my WW alloy asa shank.

When the bullets are air cooled you can see the difference in shading of the two alloys but there is no mixing. The 9MM case dipper pours exactly the nose of my bullet so the "seam" is barely visible. Not sure how they are going to work out of my K38 at 850 fps or a tad faster out of my Model 27 but will post results when I am satisfied I have the process and the bullets down pat.

Bushmaster (sp) has had some real sucesses with his rifle bullets nailing a Black Bear and Deer this year.

Take Care

Bob

[Shuz]

All--I was fortunate a few years ago to buy a Lyman 429625 A and B mould set at a gun show. This is the set Lyman offered for a short time that was supposed to enable a pure lead nose to be cast out of one mould, and a hard base to be cast out of the other and then the two were to be glued or epoxied together to create, in this case, of the .44 cal, a composite 429421. Well, I never was able to find a product that would hold the two together under re-coil. As I thought about it, I came up with the same idea that Bruce B mentioned concerning letting the nose cool. What I've done is to cast a whole passel of pure lead noses and then got a SC 429421 mould super hot...dropped a cool nose into it and then cast a harder base behind it. It works beautifully and the boolits hold together under magnum load recoil, because the nose piece has a little "tail" that gives the harder metal something to golomb onto. So far I've kilt a few phone books and the expansion has been great and the boolit holds together. Hopefully, I'll be able to kill a deer this year with this boolit. I'll keep ya'll posted.--Shuz

[BruceB]

"Eureka", indeed!

I selected a single-cavity Lyman 457125, a 500-grain roundnose, for the latest iteration of my cast softpoints.

First, the mould was warmed up a bit, and then I dropped in a dipperful (.40 S&W case) of pure lead, and waited for it to harden. The mould was then filled with 870-degree WW alloy which also hardened, and I left a decent-sized sprue puddle on the plate.

The mould was then immersed in the WW melt, right up to the handle slots. After a bit of a wait, a minute or two, the sprue finally liquified and the mould was carefully placed on the wet cloth roll. About 50 seconds later, the sprue froze and the mould was inverted on the pad for 20 seconds or so, to make SURE that everything in the cavity was solid.

Dropping the bullet showed a perfect, crisply-formed boolit with an OBVIOUS color change in the middle of the long nose. The pure lead was shiny, and the WW had the usual gray-galvanised appearance. There is NO visible structural weakness, wrinkles, lines or any other indication of the two parts, except for the difference in coloration and shine. Thumbnail testing demonstrates that the nose is butter-soft, and the base portion much harder.

So, after all these various softnose experiments, it turns out that the way many folks over many years have done it, was basically correct.....EXCEPT that I think they stopped one step too soon. Once there's a two-alloy bullet frozen in the mould, all that's needed to make it perfect is to REMELT the boolit inside the mould, which absolutely eliminates any "joint" or mechanical weakness caused by possible imperfect welding of the two components.

Next comes some fine-tuning as to just how much of a given boolit should be pure lead, and how much should be harder alloy. My present thinking still trends to 1/3 of the weight being PL, to retain some serious penetrating ability if the nose overexpands or parts of it are lost on impact.

My taste for hunting rifles with CBs still tends to the heavy side, beginning with the .338 for deer etc., and going up in caliber and bullet weight from there. My .416 Rigby load of last hunting season is a good example, with a 365-grain softnose at 2100 fps, grouping three rounds in 1.5" at 100 yards. This made it a very serious 200-yard rifle and I was confident...too bad it wasn't in the cards to shoot an elk with it!

There you have it. This is how my softpoints will be made from now on, and I dearly hope to get an opportunity for a live-fire test on game animals....and I REALLY hope to recover a boolit!

[waksupi]

Bruce, very interesting. It would seem to me, the pure lead in the nose, being a heavier specific gravity, would stay in the nose, as the lighter alloy would float, so to speak. I'm sure there would be a cut off line, to where they amalgamated (right word?). Worth more study!

[Nrut]

Yep you sure came up with the answer of how to get rid of that unsightly seam between the soft and hard lead....I read your 11/02 post above and got to thinking about those 4 ugly .377 softnoses I casted a few weeks ago....So Sat. morning I put 2 of them back in the mold (with a little chunk of ww in each sprue hole) set the mold level on a propane camping burner turned on my timer for 4 minutes and waited for them to re-melt.......Bingo just like you said...beautiful softnose bullets that should be as good or better than store bought ones for hunting........way to go and thank you for keeping at this BruceB! :drinks:

[BruceB]

Howdy, Ric.

I found that the weight difference in my 416-365s between softpoint and all-WW only amounted to four or five grains or thereabouts. I suspect that the POSSIBLE turbulence of the harder alloy filling the mould might just overpower that minor difference in density of the metals when the components were both liquid, so I was looking for a way to get the two metals into intimate contact and THEN fusing them seamlessly without any physical disturbance.

Today's trial had both parts absolutely motionless, of course, since they were frozen. The remelting was simply to ensure that there was no flaw in the bond. Incidentally, I also noticed that the "color line" is apparently very nice and level, not being canted one way or another.

When I saw that you'd posted to the thread, I thought I'd be getting mildly chastised or kidded about my choice of rifles for cast-boolit hunting. I wouldn't mind taking the '06 and a heavy .30 cast softnose after deer, etc, but I'm fortunate to have quite a few decent rifles of varying chamberings so I can pick and choose. Hence the .338 as a "preferred" starting point. Believe me, I KNOW it doesn't take a .338 to kill a deer, or moose either, as I've taken a few meese with .303 British loads which are very similar to some of my cast-bullet recipes in that caliber (215 JSP @2100 fps).

[BruceB]

....beautiful softnose bullets that should be as good or better than store bought ones for hunting........way to go and thank you for keeping at this BruceB! :drinks:


Nrut, pard;

I'm mighty pleased that it's working for you.

Maybe if a few of us can manage a successful hunt or two, and recover some of these boolits, it will write the final chapter about the process. Frankly, I'm confident enough that I'd predict very effective results on anything in North America. I truly believe I could carry these softpoints with no worry about game performance...but it would be nice to SEE some recovered boolits.

[robertbank]

I know Barry S out of Francois Lake has taken a bear and a deer this fall with his cast bullets formed the same way you guys have done it. When I talked to him on the phone he mentioned both bullets had gone through both animals but left a fairly large exit wound.

He got a ton of snow two weeks ago and my not yet have power but I'll give him a call tomorrow and get him to chime in here with his observations.

Just remelted a bunch of my rejects this afternoon. Wish I had read this earlier probably could have saved most of them. Won't be doing any more casting until my Pro Melter arrives end of this week or next. Going to build a piggy back system for my pots with my Dripomatic on top with the RCBS Melter on the bottom. Should work real slick.

Waiting to collect some more 4 litre milk jugs to test my .38spl/.357mag bullets for expansion. Then I'll try making some soft points for the '06 and .45LC.

Take Care

Bob

Take Care

Bob

[Nrut]

I know Barry S out of Francois Lake has taken a bear and a deer this fall with his cast bullets formed the same way you guys have done it. When I talked to him on the phone he mentioned both bullets had gone through both animals but left a fairly large exit wound.

He got a ton of snow two weeks ago and my not yet have power but I'll give him a call tomorrow and get him to chime in here with his observations.

Just remelted a bunch of my rejects this afternoon. Wish I had read this earlier probably could have saved most of them. Won't be doing any more casting until my Pro Melter arrives end of this week or next. Going to build a piggy back system for my pots with my Dripomatic on top with the RCBS Melter on the bottom. Should work real slick.

Waiting to collect some more 4 litre milk jugs to test my .38spl/.357mag bullets for expansion. Then I'll try making some soft points for the '06 and .45LC.

Take Care

Bob

Take Care

Bob

Bob you are sure right about the snow...I live about an hour east of the east end of Francios...usually snow does'nt start sticking untill the end of Nov.....with last nights snow we have more accumulation than all of last year....last few years snow has been light however.....feel sorry for the deer...:(

[robertbank]

PM me your email addy and we will get in touch. Next time I go out I intend to stop in and see Barry, maybe we can all get together for coffee and donuts and tell lies. Came up here to avoid the traffic and darn it is getting pretty crowded along Hwy 16. Francois Lake is about three hours from Terrace isn't it? How is the hwy out that way?

Take Care

Bob

[Nrut]

PM sent....I'll find out about the hwy tomorrow as I have to go to Prince George to pick up a stock being repaired and get some bedding compound...it should be bare & good if we don't get freezing rain tonight....looking forward to meeting you and Barry at some point...take care yourself..:)

[BrushBuster]

Well hunting season ended abruptly for me on Oct. 26. A three foot snowfall knocked out all power and telephone lines, and only emergency road plowing was being done. We are still getting six inch snowfalls most nights, and I was just too pooped to put on snowshoes and chase after game before the moose season ended Nov. 5th here in central B.C.

I had hoped to add a moose to my terminal ballistic info. with soft nose boolits, but It will have to be next year. I did succeed in taking a nice muley buck and a fat black bear with these specialized hunting boolits.

I was enthused about casting a soft-nose boolit from the get-go when BruceB first got his thread going, and I applied myself to their production early this fall. The calibre of choice for my initial effort was the .348, and the boolit was the N.E.I. #108 which is a two diameter round nosed brute that drops from my mould at 269 grains. Since the quarry was primarily moose, I wanted a stout load at the maximum velocity that I could shoot without flinching. This worked out to be 56 grains of ReLoder-19 topped with a few grains of PSB to provide full load density and a velocity of 2150 fps.. With the iron-sighted M-71 I'm usually content with a load that gives me 1" grouping at 50 yards, and I was getting that consistently.

My outdoor bush range provided me with penetration info. on the soft-nose as well, because I tack my targets up on the side of bone-dry beetle-killed Pine trees that range up to 24". I was able to extract several spent boolits that had penetrated over 15" of Pine, and was pleased to see that the bond between the pure lead and 20-1 alloy had held together. These appeared to have fully expanded, and though there was some weight loss their retained mushroom shape spelled success. The pure lead portion on my boolits begins just forward of the crimp groove.

I wanted to cast a very hard shanked boolit that would continue penetrating larger game after the soft-nose had completed its destructive path. Initially I had some difficulty getting the two alloys to keep separated and was not content with the inconsistency that I was getting after oven heat-treating. Like others, I eventually twigged onto the method of allowing the pure lead nose portion to cool down before bottom-pouring the 20-1. My technique is to lightly jiggle the hot mold as I base cool it on a level wet towel draped block. Watching the pure lead closely as it cooled off, I would quickly make the bottom pour when the jiggling stopped. I would then reheat the mold in the pot until the ample sprue had fully liquified, carefully avoiding excessive movement. The second heating of the mold pretty well assures that the bond between the two alloys is strong without excessive dilution. Cooling was always done from the base only on the wet towel, and as has been mentioned earlier allow ample time for the sprue to set and then some. If your going to have fill-out problems, it will be at the base, and I still have a reject rate because of this of about 25% even with extra tin.

How did they perform on game? Both the buck and the bear were shot through the rib-cage broadside; the bear at 50 ft. and the deer at 60 yards. They both ran approximately 50 ft., and were dead when they hit the ground. According to plan, the boolits had penetrated completely and were not recovered. When I skinned the animals I could put my finger tip into the entry hole, but here's where things got interesting. By the time the boolit had exited the entry side, it had created a 2" wound channel, and the exit wound on the opposite side was in excess of 3". All indications were that the boolit had expanded immediately, held together as it expanded fully and continued on without leaving a trace of lead fragments. The results were identical on both deer and bear, and they even died identically. I could not imagine better performance.

I must add one caveat. I have now killed a number of deer with cast boolits, and generally the wounds are fully penetrating with minimal flesh damage. You can eat right up to the hole as the saying goes, and this holds true for my experience with the soft-nose boolit. However there is one difference. The degree of bloodshot meat is much higher with this boolit than I have observed previously. The opposite side of a rib-cage shot animal is affected in a radius of about 12" around the wound channel. This is not to say that the meat is damaged, only that the blood vessels are ruptured. I do my own butchering, and it was not a difficult matter to open up the layers of meat and clean up the blood without loss. "Hydrostatic Shock" is a controversial subject and some say it doesn't exist in wildlife wounds, but my thinking is that this is what the rapidly expanding nose on the soft-nose boolit transmits across the wound channel. I was hoping to compare this effect on a larger animal like a moose, to see if it was present in the same manner as seen on both the deer and bear that I shot. Perhaps the larger body cavity would absorb this effect? Maybe next year I can answer this, but I would say that those using the soft-nose should expect to see this in smaller game.

For me, the soft-nose hunting boolit works well, and I'm still improving on it. The hard shanks provide accuracy and follow-through penetration. The soft nose expands dramatically and destroys major organs and arteries. Game dies fast, and for me that's success.

[robertbank]

Well that answers the question whether you folks had power yet. LOL. We got our snow two days ago and again last night. Now it is raining like there is no tomorrow so I imagine the snow will be gone by morning OR we will have two feet of snow.

Looks like there is three of us within yelling distance along Hwy 16. Do you know Mike?

May not get through before Christmas, will let you know.

Very good report on the soft nose bullets. Will let you know how I make out with my handgun rounds after the next test.

Take Care

Bob

[Marlin Junky]

I need to try this with SAEC0 352 and my supply of stick-on WW metal. Only problem is the lightest boolit I can cast right now is from my SAECO 322 4-banger. What mold should I buy for the "nose" portion: a Lyman 311252 or 313249 in 4-banger configuration or a 6-cavity Lee 311-093-1R or 311-100-2R? I want to be able to drop a pre-weighed "nose" in the SAEC0 352, pour the harder alloy on top, heat the 352 until the sprue becomes liquid again and top it off. I'd be using a Rowell#2 for the entire operation.

MJ

[Nrut]

This might work MJ....cast a pure Pb or your stick on WW metal bullet in your SAECO 352....take a look at that bullet and cut it with a pair of side cutters or hacksaw where you think the softnose should end....weight that and go from there....When I want to make different lenghts of softnoses I just cut a Lee soup can pure Pb bullet where I think it would make the lenght I want....I have 3 different lenght softnoses casted up for milk jug/H2O tests next spring.....:)

Should have mentioned I just put the piece of lead to be used as the softnose in a small ladle floating on the WW melt...I have one of those LBT softnose casters but my casting area is pretty far from my power source and don't want to run two pots off one ext. cord/breaker.....

[Marlin Junky]

Earlier, I was thinking of not removing the boolit from SAECO 352 until she's done but now I'm thinking it actually might be easier to cast with two pots and two dippers. I can't get my Lyman MagDipper very hot but I sure can do 870F with my MasterCaster, the latter of which will hold the hard alloy and "cook" the mold. The only problem might be keeping the nose formula hot enough in the tiny dipper so it will completely empty into SAECO 352.

MJ

Oh, oh... I don't think I have enough power to run two pots :-(

Well... back to the pre-cast nose idea.

[robertbank]

For the handgun bullets I have cast I used my Lee Production pot for my hard alloy and had a smaller cast iron pot on my Coleman stove. Got my mold hot by casting bullets then set it in the melt on the stove. Once the lead would run off the mold I used my 9MM case dipper to pour the lead nose. I then kept the mold level as I could and poured the shank from the Production Pot. The bullets came out seamless. I have done some where the nose would have partially hardened with similar results.

For hunting bullets I am going to try BrushBuster's method and pre cut my nose tips off of fishing lead rolls.

Take Care

Bob

[Nrut]

"Precut my nose tips off fishing lead rolls".......That's the best tip yet Bob.....:)

MJ...Hornady and I think Speer make lead balls for muzzle loaders and just plain ole shot of various sizes....If you don't have fishing lead on rolls where you live the balls would work...so would spit shot...when I was a kid I always would set the split shot on the line with my teeth....should have died of lead poisoning years ago...

[Marlin Junky]

The last time I was in Wal-Mart they had cheap electric hot plates that use a bare coil similar to the old electric range tops that were somewhat popular back in the 60's and 70's. Would something like this transfer enough heat to a SAECO 352 mold to the job? I'd like to be able to place a lead 311252 in the SAECO 352, set the mold on the hot plate, pour in the hard alloy, turn the hot plate up, wait for the spure to liquify and top the mold off with hard alloy. After I have a full mold sitting on the hot plate, turn the hot plate down so the boolit hardens and open the mold.

How's this sound? Is it worth buying a 311252 and another hot plate to try out this method? I've already got a Wally-World hot plate to warm molds but it's a more modern design that won't even approach 600F.

MJ

[robertbank]

It might but why not just dip your hot mold in the melt since you have the shank alloy melted already with the lead core in the mold. Wait a second or two and the core would be melted and you are good to go.

Take Care

Bob

[Marlin Junky]

The idea of the hot plate is to keep SAECO 352 level.

MJ

[robertbank]

I was concerned about that as well. I found that as long as I did my part in getting the mold level when I withdrew the mold from the melt and made sure when I poured the shank the mold was level I got a level seam. FWIW I also found I was having about a 30% rejection rate for various reasons.:(

Take Care

Bob

[Marlin Junky]

I think I'm going to go ahead and try this lil' experiment with SAECO 322 (nose section) and 352 and a new hot plate. I was afraid I'd create a nose heavy condition with 120+ grains of stick-on WW metal in the nose but what the heck... one never really knows 'til one gives it a go. I'm also going to use some real hard metal (stereotype or monotype I believe) in the shank area. First to the polls and then to Wally World!

MJ

P.S. I picked up one of those coil type hot plate/burners at Wally World this afternoon and plugged it in for testing just minutes ago. While it doesn't get orange hot like our electric range, it does surpass dark red. Should I turn it up all the way and set the mold directly on it or do I run the risk of damaging the mold at this temp?... which my guess would be over 1000F.

[blackthorn]

My concern with using a hot plate with a coil type burner would be the possibility of uneven heating of the mould. I dont know if this would be a problem but my idea would be to put a flat steel plate on top of the burner and place the mould on top of that, so that the heat was evenly distributed. Comments??

[robertbank]

Makes sense and the mold will get just as hot. What part of B.C. comes cclosest to mind?

Take Care

Bob

[Old Ironsights]

My concern with using a hot plate with a coil type burner would be the possibility of uneven heating of the mould. I dont know if this would be a problem but my idea would be to put a flat steel plate on top of the burner and place the mould on top of that, so that the heat was evenly distributed. Comments??

I do that. Just find an old, dull, high-carbon radial saw balde of appropriate diameter.

More stable surface too.

[blackthorn]

robertbank

Kamloops....used to be in South Surrey till I attempted to retire two years ago. Got invited to work 'part time' (yeah right) from home. Next March /07 will be it for sure!!

[robertbank]

Well the way I got it figured next trip south I got three stops for coffee. Kamloops is a very nice town. Could be my next and final stop, if I get tired of the fishing up here. PM sent.

Take Care

Bob