I remember having read a few threads about the early Ideal molds throwing undersize boolits but had not run into this even though I have several early Ideal molds and tong tools. Until now. Recently I bought an Ideal mold branded 311316, hollow point design. It came without the sprue cutter plate and hollow point pin. In reasonable time I fashioned a HP pin, then bought a few sprue cutters from KAL. Now its time to see what we can get from this mold. The mold is only the blocks that are not permanently joined to a set of handles and the faces where the cavity is cut are grooved for ventilation (as opposed to smooth) so this is not a really old mold in spite of wearing the Ideal brand. I tried different alloy blends from pure lead to straight wheel weight alloy, also blends of both of these together, and all of these at various different temperatures. The largest diameter boolit this mold will deliver is .308", not the .311" as the cavity design claims on the side of the blocks. I was hoping for a .311" diameter with a softer alloy so the HP design could expand on impact, rather than a harder blend that would not. Oh well, guess it may be time to reach for the Beagle tape to see what can be done for diameter and perhaps create a larger diameter HP pin if required. FWIW, I have a 31133 mold (HP variant of the 311008 design for the 32-20) that always delivers .311" boolits. Thoughts and suggestions appreciated.
Thin Man
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