MP-Mold Group Buy - Hensley & Gibbs #38 30 Cal Ness Safety Bullet

[Gelandangan]

Got the mold on Friday, clean them up with napthalene (shellite) on Saturday
And just finished casting attempts toady.

I must say that this is not an easy mold to cast.
The fact that the hollow point pin goes some 4/5 of the boolit length, this made the boolits often (almost every one) stuck on the pin.

I have even wipe the pin with bullplate as an attempt to ensure that the boolit do not get stuck, to no avail.
The only way to un-stick the boolit is to make the pins HOT, hotter than the mold.
And this is difficult.

There got to be a way to make it work.

[MiHec]

Mold must be hoooooot. Try to cast with 415 deg C for alloy. If you bottom pour, be sure that you don't pure it directly in center, but rather slightly off center. That way alloy won't hit the hp pin.
Also try to "color" the pins with graphite pencil.

[Gelandangan]

Thanks Miha,
I will definitely try again next weekend.
I got me some very nice soft pencils to "color" them pins in.

[L1A1Rocker]

Thanks Miha,
I will definitely try again next weekend.
I got me some very nice soft pencils to "color" them pins in.

How'd this work out for you? I haven't tried this mold yet but plan to this week - after I work out the 556 Nato mold.

What alloy are you useing for this? I was planning on straight WW with maybe 1% tin added.

[L1A1Rocker]

Well, did a bunch of casting with the 556 NATO and then got started cleaning up the safety bullet mold. Decided to go ahead and polish up the pins prior to casting. I think I'm going to try COWW with 1% tin and see how that goes.

[Gelandangan]

Sorry, haven't got time to heat up the pot.
For the past 2 weekends the sky is blue, and I cannot justify hunkering in the shed when there is a perfectly fine and sunny day in the firing range to shoot in.

It is forecasted to be wet again in next few weeks, I'll try again then.

[JoeG52]

Any new information here? I just got this mold and tried casting with it. The boolets look good but they stick to the pins and have to be pulled off. I found this thread after that. I pre-heated the mold and was casting HOT but didn't try anything on the pins yet. I guess I'll try the graphite next. If that doesn't work I'll cast some solids to play with.

[longbow]

I didn't get in on tis one but was interested.

One of my concerns was the long pins so I made up a cylindrical pushout mould with same size/length pin and found it worked well which surprised me.

Are the pins rough at all? I polished the one I made (single cavity).

Mould lube on the pins (just a wipe) may help, graphite may help but if they are rough at all they may need to be gently polished. There is not much taper there.

Heat is your friend here too and cast fast to keep pins hot. That may help too.

Longbow

[longbow]

Anyone dispatched a water jug or critter yet?

Accuracy?

I am curious about how these shoot for you.

Longbow

[barrabruce]

I'm curious how the mold/bullets came out too.
I'd like one for close range pest disposal.
My bores 0.3016 and I figure I'd have to beagle it to make it work.

Any-one got any cast and loaded up yet.

Barra

[Gelandangan]

I got a few casted but haven't got any shed time since last winter.
I only have ONE day off each week and it is filled with honeydo's and other interests.
Still have not yet perfected the cast.

[longbow]

I have only read of a couple of people punching paper so far and I have to admit that is all I have done with my home made "clone".

Accuracy is decent and I will be dropping the charge a bit more per the Ness article. I think the article mentioned 17 grs. IMR4227 in .39-40 Krag gave best accuracy. I also have several milk jugs waiting to be blown up but I just can't seem to get everything done and get shooting.

I expect that the Mihec mould will make beautiful boolits and they should shoot as well as the original H&G's and probably better than mine.

As mentioned, heat is your friend when casting these deep HP's.

Longbow

[Gelandangan]

Finally get time to re try the mold.
This time I uses 6B pencil to color in the pins.
Works somewhat better than previous try, the boolits seems to drop better, but still not as easy to use as other shallower HP.
I "only" have to use my pencil torch to heat up the pins so the boolit would unstuck about five times in casting about 50 or so boolits.

My finding is that I got to use really high temperature (almost off the scale at about 1000F on my thermometer) to cast with this mold.
The thermal shock is so high that a lot of boolit broke in two as they drop from the mold to the cloth covered bucket I use to capture the boolits.
It is also necessary to remove the boolit from the mold as soon as possible after the lead solidify to ensure good release from the HP pins.

It is not an easy mold to understand, but I am getting there.

I have not yet shoot or load with it, so I do not know the accuracy or the effect on hunting yet..