358156 Hp

I just finished casting some 358156HPs. Not quite as bad as I thought. I took my original alloy 50% pure Lead and 50% linotype and cut it with 50% lead thinking this would soften up the allow so that the HP would expand. I haven't shot any yet so we will see if the theory holds out. I did discover a helpful hint when using a pin. After filling the mold, I cut the sprue, remove the pin, set the pin on the rim of my furnace and drop the bullet. This seems to keep the pin hot enough to prevent problems from the pin becomming cool. yesterday I cast some 41027 (.41 hollow base wadcutter) using a pin Buckshot made for me. It works perfectly. This is one neet looking bullet. Can't wait to try it out. What would you fellows suggest as a test medium for the HP bullets? wet newspapers, Phone books, or a hunk of modeling clay? Any suggestions would be appreciated. After the test, I will try and post some photos. I will have to borrow my daughters digital camera. What a bummer. Both of my children have one and I dont. Of course, they dont have all the neet shooting toys either.

Good Shooting.:castmine:

Seems to me ol' Skeeter cast them pretty soft to get good expansion. After all, there is a GC on there for any leading issues....

FWIW,

Dennis

I'd go with ACWW with that boolit, not lino. I have noticed poor obturation and poorer accuracy with the harder lino alloys than WW at handgun velocities. I might even go to 1/2 WW 1/2 pure. I have the similar profile Lee HP mould and like it except for SLOW production rate. I use water filled plastic milk jugs to test expansion. I'm assuming here that you are loading them in either .357mag or max cases, as I have never found satisfactory expansion at .38spec velocities (though I have not tried pure lead as it would drop too small). For small game, my nonHP Lyman 358156 performs well as is - the meplat does it's job and it has killed cleanly on the few occasions when I have actually been able to hit the intended game. [smilie=1: I am slowly coming to the conclusion that when shooting at anything big enough to warrant the performance of a HP, I'd be better served with a heavier boolit. Anyway, I save my lino for rifle boolits where higher velocities require stronger and harder alloys.

Judge, I just finished digging some .357 boolits out of my boolit trap. (A half gallon waterfilled jug backed by 4 feet of packed oil soaked sawdust) I fired a variety of boolits into it the last time I was at the range. One of them was the 150 SWC HP Lee boolit cast hard. (50/50 WW and Lino) They were averaging 141 grs lubed. I fired them at 1250 fps 6' away from the trap. All I could find in the sawdust were pieces of it which tells me it came apart. I've tested them before with straight WW and the back half stayed intact but the entire nose was missing.....

I think the softer the better when it comes to HPs....

FWIW,

Dennis :Fire:

I think the softer the better when it comes to HPs.... Dennis

Yes, targets hit within wet mud show credence to the above statement. You can bury a large target versus blowing it into parts. ... felix

Judge--I used to hunt woodchucks with my .44 mag using a 429421 hp and I cast 30/1 lead tin and ran it around 1300fps. Real tough on chucks. I tried some straight acww firing thru a half gallon jug of water (simulated woodchuck!) with a piece of cardboard about 4' behind it to see what the exited bullet looked like. ACWW always left mutiple jagged holes with one fairly round hole indicating to me the nose was fragmenting. The 30/1 mix usually left a nice 3/4" hole indicating expansion and mushrooming. Either would kill the chuck but the 30/1 left some pretty impressive exit holes.

Judge
That #358156 is a sure nuff winner...I cast my HP version outa 20 to 1 lead to tin and they expand well in 2.5gal oil jugs filled with water ...
at 850fps muzzle velocity outa my .38 Diamondback 6" they expand some...about 1/2" er so in size... and at 1800fps outa my mircochester .357 24" they really mushroom well....about 3/4" er so in size...and the nose is sometimes gone just the base left intact...these were shot at 50yds...
The #358439HP shoots well also but won't feed in the rifle...real nice in a RBH tho...:redneck:

FWIW- My 358156HP's are cast of straight WW. 14. gr of 2400 is certain death on feral catz and porky's. But, there's always a but, it's too loud for me without muffs. So I tended to load down a bit and used Red Dot IIRC for around 900-1000 fps. Never did any expansion testing but they seemed to kill as well out of a 4" M-19.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fecmech

Judge--I used to hunt woodchucks with my .44 mag using a 429421 hp and I cast 30/1 lead tin and ran it around 1300fps. Real tough on chucks. I tried some straight acww firing thru a half gallon jug of water (simulated woodchuck!) with a piece of cardboard about 4' behind it to see what the exited bullet looked like. ACWW always left mutiple jagged holes with one fairly round hole indicating to me the nose was fragmenting. The 30/1 mix usually left a nice 3/4" hole indicating expansion and mushrooming. Either would kill the chuck but the 30/1 left some pretty impressive exit holes.

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Agree with fecmech, an alloy of lead tin is best for high end HPs out of magnum revolvers. With 358156s I use straight lead for .38 Special +P loads up to 1,000 fps in a 6" barrel. For .357 Mag loads in 4-6" barrels the 1/30 alloy is good and for REALLY top end loads in 6-8 3/8 revolvers or 10" TCs a 1/16 alloy works well up through 1600 fps. Bullets expand nicely without shattering in critters (rockchucks, coyotes and deer). It is my experience that the tin/lead alloys expand better in the 1000-1600 fps range. It is in the 1600-2200 fps range that a different (harder as in mild tin/animony/lead) alloy is needed. I might note that in the 1600-2000 fps range I have been having really good performance with antimony/lead alloy (magnum shot) bullets water quenched from the mold but that's another thread topic.

Larry Gibson