MiHa New and Past GB's....

[41mag]

Well it took me quite a while to save up in order to purchase the molds I really wanted, and along the line I got lucky and found a couple more that I simply couldn't live without.

This said I got three of them in Saturday before and after cleaning, and lubing, I had my pot full and ready to pour in no time. I set the first two on the hot plate to pre-heat them, and when they came up to what I thought was a good temp I started to dump lead.

My initial few cast left little to be desired as the mold simply wasn't up to the 700 degree temp the allow was. Once there however after holding a couple of full mores a few seconds longer than I had been they began to dump some of the best boolits I have ever cast.

I started out with the 45-270 SAA 4 cavity HP, the HG 503 432 HP, and the 411 HG #258 Solid. Since my initial cast with the 45-270 SAA, I have poured up somewhere in the neighborhood of 100# of alloy through these molds and have to say that they are some VERY fine looking boolits.

I have been reading through the older GB Results an finding bits and pieces of load data. As I sit here awaiting the next two GB molds the GB for 41 Mag. #258 (Keith), and the Miha 454640, I am also heading out to test out the initial boolits I have poured up.

These will be using primarily 2400 looking for some good hunting loads. Accuracy will be paramount over velocity and ranges will be checked out to 100yds if possible before we have to stop and go back to work on a few things around here. I have noted down most of the data I could find for these with the 44 and 45 calibers but found very little on the 41's. I am hopeful that by starting this thread we can get some good load data worked up by the long list of folks involved in the GB and get something up and running pretty quickly for everyone.

Thanks and looking forward to your post. I will post my results on what I get accomplished this morning and then agina tomorrow as well.

[Alan]

I got the 41 Mag #258 HP mould yesterday. I fired it up, an cast a pot full. I wanted a cigarette and a shower afterwards. YEEEHAAA!!!!!

I have half a dozen of Miha's moulds now, and every single one of them merits a "How did I get by without these?".

[Beau Cassidy]

I have a few now and several more on order. One of my first if not my first HiHec mold was the .44 one done a long time ago. I think it may have been the 503. I believe it was a 6 cavity. When it came in I noticed how thin and slender the blocks were. I knew it would probably warp the first time they were brought up to temp. so I just put it back in the box and put it in with the rest of my molds. I believe this is the one that had some asymmetry. I never kept up with the posts on it here because I was so dissatisfied with how the mold looked. Anyway, I chalked it up as a learning experience. His new molds are awsome, though. I guess it was a growing pain for both of us.

[Blammer]

beau, I'm sure someone would happily releive you of your 'slender' mould that don't work.

[Rico1950]

Beau,
I have 2 of those 6 cavity 44 molds you talk about. Both cast very accurate 44 boolits. My 29-2, OMBHK and Redhawk agree.

[longbow]

Beau:

+1 on Blammer's and Rico1950's posts.

I got one of those first 6 cavity moulds too and it had a few problems ~ mostly offset blocks and slightly oval undersize cavities. To Miha's credit, when the problems were discovered he offered to repair or replace the defective moulds. Some came out fine it seems and some did not.

Since mine had undersize cavities, I decided I would try to lap it to round and increase size and Miha agreed it was worth a try but if it didn't work he said he would replace the mould.

Lapping fixed it and it casts a terrific boolit now.

Miha is great to deal with and I agree, his new moulds are second to none but that first one does cast well even though it started out with some "growing pains". If you haven't tried it. you should.

Longbow

[41mag]

Well I haven't had much of a chance to work up loads, in any traditional manner. I did however get the chance to shoot some of the boolits I poured up from my new molds through my 7.5" Redhawks.

First up was the HG 503 432 HP. Using the boolit cast with the large pin, I started at 17.5grs of 2400. I used new cases primed with my standard Win-WLP primer. I had a catch bucket set up at 50yds and my chrony set p at 12'. I was looking for both groups and the velocities. The alloy was straight isotope core poured at 729 degrees according to my PID. I had initially tried to pour some starting at 675 but kept bumping the temp up as I went until things rocked along with no issues.

The initial loads never grouped, so I bumped the charge weight up .5grs and loaded six round. I cleaned after each set shot with a bronze brush and a couple of patches, followed by a swab of LLA when done to precondition the bore. All rounds were also fired from a rest.

I worked up to 20.5grs but found that 18 was the most accurate using this combination coming in just over 2". Even this left me scratching my head and wanting better.

After this I move on to my 45 Colt and the 45-270 SAA. THese were also poured from the isotope core alloy, at the same temp of 720. After looking over hours worth of data I decided to simply go with what worked in the past. I dumped the 2400 out of my Uniflow and filled it half way up with some AA-9 I have had for a while. I set the measure at 16grs, and loaded 6 rounds as was done previously. I also switched out the primer to the Wolf LP. After the first 6 rounds I walked out to the bucket ti see how they did, and decided to go ahead and load up a full box for hunting and future testing.

The top group is the best I got with the HG 503 432 HP and 18grs of 2400, and the group in the black is the 45-270 SAA with 16grs of AA-9.

Then I moved on to the 41mag and the 411 HG #258 Solid. Again after looking over hours worth of data I decided to also go with some AA-9 and started with 13.5grs. With these I again went with the Wolf LP.

Again it only took 6 rounds to decide this was a keeper. It would have been much better but I had to hold over after the third shot as I blew out the side of my bucket on the second and the third really blew a dust cloud out of the hole. Even so the group only measured 2" center to center of the far left and right holes.


So let's see some results from your loads with these boolits, and be sure to post up pics if ya got them. Inquiring minds want to know......

Edit - I noticed that I had listed W-540 initially as the load for the 45 Colt and the 45-270 SAA. while I DID shoot a load using that powder it was NOT at that weight, it was also not the the one on that particular target. It shot very well but not quite as well as the AA-9 load did. I will however, definitely do a bit more exploring with it as well.