Heavy Boolit in 44 Mag

[don45]

I am working on a hunting load for my Ruger SBH using NOE 432-290-FNHP. I am using my alloy mix with BHN of 13 as measured with CabinTree. They weigh 278 and measure .434 as cast. A tight push-thru on the SBHS cylinder is .431, which is my sizing diameter using SAECO sizer with NOE's top-punch. From my pictures you can see they take quite a size-down. They require a deep size to include the nose else they won't chamber. My test loads are 20.5 of W296.

I have not yet shot any of these, but am concerned with the heavy sized and thus reduced lube groove, and even more about the uneven amount of 'push' out onto the bullet nose, thus creating what looks like 'out of round'. I see no way around this since I can't go much softer on the alloy to increase shrinkage. Maybe the visual on the nose won't have much / any effect?

Does anyone load this Boolit in 44 Mag? If so, how (alloy, size, load, results)?

[nagantguy]

I do see what might be a slight "out of round" I wish I had a cure for you. Sadly sometimes the boot we want to shoot and the boolit that will chamber or be liked by our weapon are diffrent. I bought a custom ranch dog mold specifically for my 30-30 and it just wouldn't chamber not ever with sizing in one of buckshots nose sizer dies. Unless they were sized so"hard" it actually deformed the nose. A heavy weight boolit I have had great luck with in .44 SBHs SRHs and winchester carbines is the Lee 300 wide flat nose. I will follow this thread with intrest and see what folks come up with. You did state that you didn't shoot any yet, the final proof os always in the pudding.

[Cowboy_Dan]

Give them a try, I don't think you will notice much lost accuracy from the nose thing, as long as it doesn't unbalance the boolit it is much less important than the shape of the base.

[DougGuy]

I see no way around this since I can't go much softer on the alloy to increase shrinkage.

Have the cylinder throats reamed. That cylinder would serve you much better with .4325" throats. These are my .44 loads, Lee 310RF sized .432" they seat well into the throats when chambered.

[Mal Paso]

.431" is ideal as a throat size with a ~.429" groove. Unless the throats vary in size, I would buy the .432" version of the mold before reaming them. You should be able to sell the other mold here.

Shoot a few and check for a lube star at on the muzzle.

Work on sizer alignment, switch to a flat top punch or try a Lee sizer. Very cheap, fits on a single stage press, sizes nose first.

[44man]

Needing to size so much is the most harmful at the crimp groove, you lose too much and might have a problem with recoil pull.
That can lead you to crimp harder and bulge brass below the crimp.
Sizing off center is common with that much. Molds expand funny when hot and boolits get smaller 90° to the parting line, boolits get smaller there and larger at the seams.
You need to slug to see what groove size the bore is, most Rugers will run .430". .431" throats are fine but you need .430" boolits or .4305".
I would buy another mold and reserve the .434" for fitting to a Marlin, etc.

[jmsj]

don45,
Regarding the out of round comment, have you checked the alignment of you lubesizer?

[don45]

don45,
Regarding the out of round comment, have you checked the alignment of you lubesizer?

After sizing boolits for 50 years I just did my first sizer alignment. In first photo, left one was sized nose first, right one before alignment and middle one after. I 'winged' the alignment as follows. Using the nose sized bullet, I inserted it by hand and then pressed it in as shown by placing a flat plate between punch and bullet, letting it gently stay centered. I then loosened the two rod nuts at top and carefully brought down the sizer punch allowing it to align with the now straight bullet. I tightened the nuts while holding the punch firmly in place. Visually the size ring around the top of the bullets looks perfect. Certainly a lot better than before. I like the nose-first sized (without lube) and then lubed normally. I think one problem solved. Now to shoot some and see if I have lube left as noted by Mal Paso. I do think I will need to go to a 432 version. As for reaming cylinder, this gun shoots great ( 4 to 5 inches at 100yd) with Keith style sized .431 and a stiff load of W296, so I don't want to go there yet.
Thanks for all the very helpful info and comments!

[W.R.Buchanan]

switch to a flat top punch [/B]or try a Lee sizer. Very cheap, fits on a single stage press, sizes nose first.

The reason your boolits are coming out cockeyed is because your sizer is not pushing each boolit into the die exactly the same everytime. Using a flat top punch will allow the bullet to index itself squarely into the sizer die. In other words the center line of the boolit will be at right angles to the flat nose of the boolit.

The ones you show went into the die cockeyed due to misalignment of the boolit in the top punch. The punch is probably pretty close to being in line with the die but there is no guarantee that the bullet is not slightly off kilter when it gets pushed in. This is especially true of short fat Round Nosed boolits as they don't have the length to align themselves like a longer boolit does.

The rounded nose portion of the boolit is what is hurting you here as it is acting like a Ball and Seat type of interface between the Punch and Boolit Nose. Thus alignment can vary a small amount.

If you had an SWC type boolit the top punch would have a squarely cut recess which wouldn't allow the boolit nose to shift out of line with the centerline of the die.

The only other variances generated by sizing will be because of out of round boolits which is hard to correct. Usually these are smaller imperfections and as such we live with them.

Randy

[don45]

.431" is ideal as a throat size with a ~.429" groove. Unless the throats vary in size, I would buy the .432" version of the mold before reaming them. You should be able to sell the other mold here...

I do have the .432 version (432-290). I also have a NOE 434-421. Both of these drop bullets at .4345 or so, clearly above .434. This is with my alloy with BHN of 13. My experience with this alloy is that it shrinks quite a bit so that many of my old Lyman molds drop at around .429, which is why I went searching and found NOE and Accurate. Is my 432-290 mismarked? I am beginning to wonder.

[Mal Paso]

I do have the .432 version (432-290). I also have a NOE 434-421. Both of these drop bullets at .4345 or so, clearly above .434. This is with my alloy with BHN of 13. My experience with this alloy is that it shrinks quite a bit so that many of my old Lyman molds drop at around .429, which is why I went searching and found NOE and Accurate. Is my 432-290 mismarked? I am beginning to wonder.

I'll bet it's the .434" version although there are 432-290 and 434-290 listed on the website. Just cant imagine Al being .0025 over. .0005 over sounds right. You might ask. It might be they are all stamped 432 as a category.



Cool Sizer! Alignment is more difficult on my Lyman 4500.

[don45]

I sent a note to NOE and got a response from Al within one hour. He said send it back to check things out and that he will have a solution for me. Can't get better customer service than this. I came here first since I just figured I was doing something wrong. I got the sizer alignment fixed and will have Al send me a flat punch for my SAECO.
Thanks for all the help.

[don45]

Before returning this to NOE I decided to cast some samples with a known commercial alloy, 95-2.5-2.5, which on aged bullets I measure BHN of approximately 15 with Cabin Tree.
My cast samples measure .4333 as cast and .4313 after sizing with SARCO .431.
My 'problem' bullets were cast with an alloy I mixed and regularly use of what I thought was 95.2-3-4.5, and they measure 12.5 BHN. The diameter of these as cast is .4344 and take a very heavy sizing down to .4316 in same sizer die.


Sometimes I get confused, but it is my understanding that the more the tin content the less the shrinkage. Since the tin content is very close on these two alloys (2.5 vs 3.0) I would expect the diameters to be almost the same. My alloy is a mix of 15 lbs COWW, 5 lbs Linotype and 3 oz of 95-5 tin solder. This should produce 92.5-3-4.5 (lead-tin-antimony) at 12.5 to 13 BHN.


I don't know what alloy NOE calibrates to but it seems to me these are throwing quite a bit larger than .432. I still may be confusing something so before returning it I'm doing more study and would like your feedback. My conclusion thus far is that my alloy must contain a lot more tin than I expected.

Attached are two pictures, each with sized and unsized bullets. The left picture is my desire alloy which shows heavy sizing and the right one is the commercial 95-2.5-2.5 which looks much better.

[Mal Paso]

I just pinned a NOE 432-265 and the base band of the mold is .434" actual and cast .4325" with WW+tin.

Shrinkage should vary less than .001" between extremely different alloys (on a 44 mold). A chip of lead between the mold halves or around the pins will produce a larger bullet but usually there are signs at the mold line.

Have you measured the unsized bullets across the mold line and again at 90 degrees and is it the same? It may be a bit of lead "beagled" the mold and made it larger.

A NOE 434421 was my first "custom" mold long before Al had his own shop (a .432" version was not offered). It was his first run of the 429421. I'd been struggling with the Lyman version but I could barely get the base band to .4295" and the front band .427". With NOE I finally had a bullet that fit. Bullet speed went up almost 100 fps and leading went away. I eventually broke the handle on the 4500 sizing water dropped bullets and sometime later got a .432" mold. I am grateful to Al and the other outstanding mold makers we have here.

[h8dirt]

In my experience, some NOE molds will tend to cast large. I sent one back and got it back because it was within their tolerance range using their alloy -- a 358 mold that dropped at 360 (with my alloy). I tried Accuate Molds -- they ask what alloy you use and how you want the tolerance allocated. I have many NOE molds that work great. But, I find the Accurate Molds a tad better IMHO.

[44man]

The hardest thing for me when I make a cherry is to guess how much over size to make it. Smaller calibers need less.
I looked in my book and I cut the cherry for my .500 JRH .001" over and they drop a perfect .501".
No matter how careful I cut the blocks, every boolit will be out of round with the test casting.
To solve it when I drop the cherry back in a very hot mold and turn it with a wrench. I get a lot of chips 90° to the parting line and the roundest boolits I ever cast. At the most the parting line will measure .0005" larger. It did not take long to figure how a mold expands.
My .44 boolit drops at .430" and if shot soon, they still shoot perfect but a few weeks to expand, they will be .431" and round.
The truth is that it was pure luck.
It has been hard to explain expansion of a mold, most can't grasp it at all. As they heat, the hole gets SMALLER 90° to the parting line. The cavity is NOT a hole in a block of metal.
The sizer must be aligned of course but most off side sizing will be at the parting line.
If you Beagle a mold very lightly, you can actually make the boolit rounder. If the boolit is .002" larger at the line, Beagle .001".

[W.R.Buchanan]

when considering different mould materials I try to avoid most aluminum moulds simply because of the expansion of the material under heat.

44man told about the boolits being smaller at 90 degrees to the parting line. This is because the mould cavity actually shrunk (due to uneven expansion,) of the mould in that direction. There is less mass in the mould along the parting line and more at 90 degrees, so as the mould heats up the area with more mass tends to influence the cavity more in that direction.

This is going to be more noticeable in moulds for larger Boolits as small caliber boolit moulds have relatively more material in the mould at 90 degrees to the parting line than larger caliber moulds do.

Relatively speaking Brass and Steel moulds will not have as much of this going on as an aluminum mould will simply because of the properties of the metal. Brass is the most stable under heating conditions and that's why most all the parts in optical instruments are made from brass. The steel usually used in bullet moulds is 12L14 which is also very stable.

I have had absolutely no problems getting Brass or steel moulds to run. I have nothing but problems getting most of my aluminum moulds to run. The exception being Lee moulds which generally produce perfect boolits quickly right out of the box.

Obviously Lee Precision has a Swami at their factory that passes his hand over their moulds and blesses them, thus causing them to produce perfect boolits quickly and easily so less talented people can experience good results.

Randy

[S.B.]

I am working on a hunting load for my Ruger SBH using NOE 432-290-FNHP. I am using my alloy mix with BHN of 13 as measured with CabinTree. They weigh 278 and measure .434 as cast. A tight push-thru on the SBHS cylinder is .431, which is my sizing diameter using SAECO sizer with NOE's top-punch. From my pictures you can see they take quite a size-down. They require a deep size to include the nose else they won't chamber. My test loads are 20.5 of W296.

I have not yet shot any of these, but am concerned with the heavy sized and thus reduced lube groove, and even more about the uneven amount of 'push' out onto the bullet nose, thus creating what looks like 'out of round'. I see no way around this since I can't go much softer on the alloy to increase shrinkage. Maybe the visual on the nose won't have much / any effect?

Does anyone load this Boolit in 44 Mag? If so, how (alloy, size, load, results)?

I've read this threat twice now and for the life of me, why would you choose a Flat nosed hollow point bullet for hunting??? What am I missing here?
Steve

[cainttype]

My understanding is that NOE uses WW for their specs, Lyman uses #2, and RCBS uses linotype.
Your as-cast diameters using Lyman vs NOE blocks seems to indicate an alloy with shrinkage similar to #2.
I regularly have as-cast diameters in the +.002" range with NOE moulds above 35 caliber. I can always use WW to fix/modify that.

I have suggested offering 2 diameters (minimum) on all the group buys before, offering something better suited for those that use something closer to #2 alloy. I have no idea how much that might complicate things, but was hoping the CNC machinery would make it easy.
WW will eventually dry up, so having moulds available designed for alloys with less shrinkage than WW, as an option, is not such a bad idea.

[S.B.]

My understanding is that NOE uses WW for their specs, Lyman uses #2, and RCBS uses linotype.
Your as-cast diameters using Lyman vs NOE blocks seems to indicate an alloy with shrinkage similar to #2.
I regularly have as-cast diameters in the +.002" range with NOE moulds above 35 caliber. I can always use WW to fix/modify that.

I have suggested offering 2 diameters (minimum) on all the group buys before, offering something better suited for those that use something closer to #2 alloy. I have no idea how much that might complicate things, but was hoping the CNC machinery would make it easy.
WW will eventually dry up, so having moulds available designed for alloys with less shrinkage than WW, as an option, is not such a bad idea.

It's been some time since I cast with Lyman #2 alloy(my first alloy I used) but, as you say the WWs will dry up, what do you imagine will happen to the three metals Lyman #2 uses? Please refresh my memory, what exactly was the mix for Lyman #2?
Steve