My new hollow point tool

[Archey]

I want to HP my 30 cal cast boolits for hunting. I tried using a drill press without much success, just could not keep the HP centered perfectly. I had an idea of using a Lee Factory crimp die to center a loaded round, making a drill guide and drilling with a hand drill. I had a friend of mine who is a tool maker machine this to fit inside of the FCD. Works great! I adjust the FCD just enough so that there is no play. This can be checked by keeping a finger on the tip of the boolit and screwing the die in until there is no noticeable play, the boolit is held secure and centered in the die. The drill guide is then installed in the FCD. I use a # 40 drill bit with a stop to control depth. I need to do testing to find the best depth yet. Anyway, the pictures should explain better than I can type so here you go...

308 Win loaded with a Lyman 311041 next to my drill guide.


Round loaded into the Lee FCD


Drill guide installed in FCD


Drill bit with drill stop installed


Same round after HP drilled

[Larry Gibson]

Looks great to me as I appreciate the enhanced termi al effect of HP'd cast bullets.

Larry Gibson

[williamwaco]

Great job.

[Recluse]

Looks great to me as I appreciate the enhanced termi al effect of HP'd cast bullets.

Larry Gibson

Agree and I also appreciate the ingenuity and do-it-yourself attitude of problem solving. Nice job!

[petroid]

Looks great! The fears are turning now on how to use the same concept for my pistol boolits

[williamwaco]

Looks great! The fears are turning now on how to use the same concept for my pistol boolits

I have used this on pistol bullets for almost 50 years.
Works great.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/371...ow-pointer-1-8


NOTE: You must have the case trimmer to use it.

[petroid]

NOTE: You must have the case trimmer to use it.

That just the issue, Williamwaco. I don't have it nor do I have the $ to get it. I'm thinking about drilling out the plug on my seating die as has been done before, but I don't like not having a place for the drilled lead to fall out easily. If I had a way of holding the case securely, I could use my drill press...

[Love Life]

Awesome!!

[11B-101ABN]

I almost bought one of those Forster things about 6 months ago the last time somebody asked about hollow pointing, but I wanted to do some .45's THAT night. I read through the thread , and some guy suggested mounting your drill bit in a drill press vise pointing UP, then put a loaded round in the chuck UPSIDE Down. It works well, and I use the stop on my Harbor Freight drill press to control depth. Spinning the loaded round instead of the drill bit centers the hole too. The original reason was to lighten up some boolits that were dropping out of a (supposedly) 230 grain Lee Truncated Cone tumble lube 6 banger at close to 250 grains. I spent about 20 minutes setting it up solid, and measuring before and after till I was getting a consistant 28 grains of excess weight out. I was down in the shop about 4 hours and produced almost 300 rounds for the next day. I could do almost 5 per minute after I developed the rhythem. Just be careful , and pay attention not to put the loaded round in the chuck with the primer down. If you use a smooth even pressure, the lead will com off in two curli-ques that are easy to break off and throw in a collection can.

[dudel]

NOTE: You must have the case trimmer to use it.

That just the issue, Williamwaco. I don't have it nor do I have the $ to get it. I'm thinking about drilling out the plug on my seating die as has been done before, but I don't like not having a place for the drilled lead to fall out easily. If I had a way of holding the case securely, I could use my drill press...

For me, the tool that did the trick was a piece of 1x board. I drilled 5 holes that were finger tight to the boolits, then cut a slit through the holes, but not the entire board. I load up 5 boolits, then put a clamp on the slit end to clamp the boolits in. Then off to the drill press where I slide the boolit board along the guide. I found that a 60 degree countersink works better than a drill for getting a nice open HP. The fixture works fine if you want to use drills. When using drills, I found it works best if you have most of the drill in the chuck, to minimize flex of the bit. I suppose you could make the board with more holes, if you wanted to process more boolits per pass.

Oh, I tend to do this before lubing and sizing, I didn't want to mess up the alox coating.

[dragonrider]

Archey, excellent idea.

[NVScouter]

If that body slips over a LEE FCD then it would do any caliber in a FCD! So as long as you have a FCD in .30 cal it would do any of them. Fanstatic and thank you for sharing!

[ghh3rd]

I like that - wish I had paid more attention in metal working class... of course, with a nice hard wood to work with, and a metal insert in the middle... hmmm?

[rking22]

Gonna make me onenathems!!! Great IDEA and good job.

[hickfu]

Wish I had the ability to do something like that!!!
I would love to be able to make any boolit into a hollowpoint


Doc

[Leatherhead Bullets]

Nicely done! I too will be looking into putting something like this together. Information like this keeps me in the dog house for sure. My wife just doesn't understand?

[94Doug]

Couldn't this be universal for all, since it fits on a fcd which is holding the boolit secure, the tool should fit around the fcd die and be secure. Am I right? I see something that could be made and sold here. Not by me of course. But someone that has some ability.

[KrakenFan69]

I like these a lot. I was thinking along the lines of using a Hornady case trimmer with some custom mods. Add a drill index on the crank to allow changing drill bits for different sized bullets and creating a new mechanism on the other to hold the bullet. Didn't want to use the shell holder on a live round! Still trying to dream up a way to align and hold the finished round for drilling...

Kraken Fan #69

[Ironduke]

I think the thing to do is make the drill guide with, say, a .375 hole. Then make bushings with .3745 O.D. to mate with the drill guide. Then the bushings could come in different size I.D. to fit different sized drill bits. One drill guide, and bushings to allow drilling different diameter HPs in different sized boolits. Small holes like this one are good for 30 cal, but too large for 6mm or smaller, and too small for 45 cal( wide meplat type). Take a 300 gr WFN .452 for the 454 casull and drill a nice deep, wide HP for light skinned game--thereby taking your bullet weight down to increase velocity.

I just like the HECK out of this whole concept!! Great job.

[kenjuudo]

A 60* center drill does indeed improve performance, been doing it for years in any Lee crimp die.