best 45ACP hollow point mold

[megasupermagnum]

I think all the best options have been stated in this thread. The good thing about the 3 designs listed here, are that they all cast well. I've never tried the hollow point version, but the solid H&G #68 casts easy. The 200 and 230 gr RNFP's cast easy as both solid and hollow points. Is a hollow point mold as easy as a solid? In my case, I can make that said NOE 452-232-HP as a hollow point, or a solid, and I can't tell any difference. My last time, I cast about 500 of them hollow point, and it was just as easy as anything. The caveat is that I know exactly where to run that mold, and I've used hollow point molds plenty. I don't know how much a learning curve would effect this.

I will say this, the solid version of a bullet is never more difficult to cast than the hollow point version. I don't think you will be out anything using two bullets. 45 acp is very forgiving, unless you change something dramatically, most loads hit pretty close to the same POA. This is a complete contrast to something like 357 magnum, where a 125 grain bullet could hit 2' lower than a 180 grain bullet. Lee makes a few good designs in their 6 cavity molds, and despite what some claim, their molds are great, they will serve you well.

[USSR]

I like the MP clone of the Lyman 452423. Depending upon the alloy and whether casting the regular hollow point or the penta point, they come out of the mold at about 225 grains. If you look at the bullet on the left, you will see why I call this one "the flying ashtray".

Don

[OS OK]

Big & wide mushrooms are pretty to look at & it's amazing what you can get a subsonic chunk-O-lead to do...but...they don't penetrate as far as a midsize HP. If they frag when expanding and loose weight penetration suffers again.
Just how far should a HP penetrate? That's the question that's caused lots of speculation, even arguments among members here.
I think it's past time that the HP is 're-thunk'...perhaps without so much frontal surface area, maybe try to keep the wide diameter in some other physical shape but keep in mind that penetration and the HP retaining it's full weight might trump big pretty HP mushrooms?

I've been thinking lately about the Penta...still a wide mushroom to disrupt tissue but has less frontal surface area per diameter to prevent it's penetration. After all the mushroom is like a parachute once it's opened. The design of the penta lends itself to opening along the weak points of the cavity...it opens in the corners of the cavity where the lead is thinnest and most susceptible to tearing as it folds out and back.

So with that in mind, I have been experimenting with the 'Tricorne' ( 3 sided cavity ) and the 'Quad' ( 4 sided cavity ) in both the Lyman 452374-RN & the 452460-SWC, keeping in mind that penetration and full weight retention is first and foremost at these subsonic speeds.



This one tested on 6 water filled milk jugs where it penetrated 3 jugs fully and cracked open but did not enter the fourth.



It's a work in progress and the focus of this summer's doinz here behind enemy lines.
There's more speed to be had in this one before crossing the 18,000PSI barrier I am trying to stay under...no +P or greater pressures.



This type HP opens and forms gussets behind the petals that keep them from folding back into the body of the cast and loosing lead as it peels off the front end...jacketed HP's do this weight loss thing, even have jacket separations.



The Quad is another promising HP design. This one in a SWC, a Lyman 452460 pictured with the 452374-RN...again...less frontal surface area yet large diameter.





Casting functional HP's is a bit tricky, trying to get them to function at the speed you desire for your platform, trying to keep them from fragging or just remaining a solid without any opening...I would venture a guess that there are more HP moulds on the shelf collecting rust & dust than any other mould.
If you are going to cast your own and have the desire to excel at it...it's a deep RabbitHole...it is a fun & enjoyable quest.

[gwpercle]

I and two friends went down the 45 acp cast HP Rabbit Hole in the late 1970's .
After much experimenting and a lot of failure and "it sorta almost worked" , we came to a conclusion : For 45 acp cast them in solid form and for a hollow point buy the Sierra 185 gr.JHP and drive it with 7.5 grs. of Unique ... I'm not sure of the exact velocity but they reliably opened up .

Getting all the details correct and proper expansion is tough ...

OS OK ... my hat is off to you ...those cast HP's mushroomed perfectly and you got them to perform just the way they should ... ATTABOY !!!
That quad HP design is quite interesting ... very good !
Gary

[onelight]

You have done some very interesting work , controlled expansion cast boolits NICE.

[RedlegEd]

Hi all,
Back up in my earlier post #3, I said I was going to order one. Well, it came in. Four cavity HG68 design with with HP and FP pins, no lube groove (I Powder Coat or HiTek pistol bullets.) So now, I have a choice of 185gr HP, or 200gr FP SWC that I can even cast at the same time!
Ed

[gwpercle]

Hi all,
Back up in my earlier post #3, I said I was going to order one. Well, it came in. Four cavity HG68 design with with HP and FP pins, no lube groove (I Powder Coat or HiTek pistol bullets.) So now, I have a choice of 185gr HP, or 200gr FP SWC that I can even cast at the same time!
Ed

Sweet ...now you all set for your trip down the "Rabbit Hole"... hang on and have fun !!!
Gary

[megasupermagnum]

You can get way down the rabbit hole if you want. There is not deep dark secret to making a hollow point work. Use a softer, malleable (low antimony) alloy, and all will be well. Bigger hollow point or softer alloy work at lower velocities.

The beauty of a hollow point, is that even total failure to expand is still every bit as good as a solid bullet. You can't go wrong.

[RedlegEd]

Oh, I've been down that hole and talked to Alice! I've also got a couple of .458 HP as well (Lyman 457122 300gr Gould, and an MP 458 400gr Keith style that I bought on the group buy.) Typically, I use a softer alloy for my pistol bullets (since I coat them,) and a 20:1 binary mix in my .45-70s. So even though I don't hot rod the bullets, I think they'd expand just fine. As an aside (thread drift,) when Petrol & Powder was talking about the Speer 200gr HP "Flying Ashtrays" in a previous post, it brought back some fond memories. I used to load and shoot that bullet a lot when I was [much] younger. One of the things we used to do was to put a live pistol primer anvil down into the cavity, and seal it in with fingernail polish. Growing up in southern AZ, there were always a lot of rocks to shoot, and we'd get our giggles shooting at rocks a few hundred yards away, then waiting for the report a few seconds after firing. I know this isn't something you should do, but it sure was fun, and I survived in spite of it.
Ed

[USSR]

Casting functional HP's is a bit tricky, trying to get them to function at the speed you desire for your platform, trying to keep them from fragging or just remaining a solid without any opening...

Not really, not rocket science at all. Rule One: a fairly heavy for caliber bullet. They don't shed their velocity when transiting what ever medium they are entering like the light weight bullets do. And Rule Two: Match your alloy to your velocity. Keep the antimony content low and the tin content high. If you look at my hollow point test bullets above you will see zero fragmenting and nearly 100% weight retention. The .45 bullet on the left (225gr) came out of my Colt Gold Cup at ~ 800fps. The middle .38 caliber penta bullet (162gr) was clocked at 845fps and the one on the right (158gr) was doing 940fps - both out of my 2.5" snubbie.

Don

[OS OK]

Not really, not rocket science at all. Rule One: a fairly heavy for caliber bullet. They don't shed their velocity when transiting what ever medium they are entering like the light weight bullets do. And Rule Two: Match your alloy to your velocity. Keep the antimony content low and the tin content high. If you look at my hollow point test bullets above you will see zero fragmenting and nearly 100% weight retention. The .45 bullet on the left (225gr) came out of my Colt Gold Cup at ~ 800fps. The middle .38 caliber penta bullet (162gr) was clocked at 845fps and the one on the right (158gr) was doing 940fps - both out of my 2.5" snubbie.

Don

I wasn't trying to imply that there's rocket science to this at all.
In referring to your beautiful mushrooms I was implying that they do not penetrate well when they open so wide.

Here is a single water filled milk jug that I shot a MP-452-200-Cup HP through. Just 6" of water and two walls of thin and not so strong plastic.
The results were astounding...those big mushrooms are parachutes in water, gel or flesh.



Here's the stats on what was fired...



Here's the actual impact with the chronograph recording the exit velocity from that one jug...it entered at 908fps and exited the jug at 450fps. It delivered 1/2 its energy into the jug and lost 1/2 it's velocity. I have not pushed my luck again to see what the velocity would be after leaving a second jug..."if in fact it were able."



And here's the modest mushroom that was recovered.



I doubt seriously this large mushroom would have penetrated and escaped the second jug to pierce the third. Many times I find these large HP's either Penta or Cup still in the second jug where the Penta in the picture below was found.



Not yet having any type of conversion factor or rule of thumb for jug penetration and it's equivalent in 10% ballistic gel I can't estimate what depth they'd penetrate with this weight, speed & HP cavity design but I'm working on that too, my first gel block will arrive next week.

For the skeptics regarding the above facts...here's the video of this experiment.

FIRST TIME EVER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maRWzS58gQ

[sutherpride59]

I’ve seen some other nay-sayers and I’ll have to agree, unless you are just trying to save alloy hp isn’t that important with 45 acp because of the slow speeds. But I do like the NOE hp molds more than any of the others, I like how the pins are held in. Mihec makes good stuff but I don’t like the c clamp that holds the pins in, I ordered a bag of 20 on eBay because I keep losing them. I used hp when I was shooting uspsa just to save on alloy and it didn’t mess with the rhythm or speed of my casting. At the time I had a good deal on powder with a store that closed out so that’s why I used em. Now I use solids 225 cuz my powder supply is dwindling.

[Burnt Fingers]

I’ve seen some other nay-sayers and I’ll have to agree, unless you are just trying to save alloy hp isn’t that important with 45 acp because of the slow speeds. But I do like the NOE hp molds more than any of the others, I like how the pins are held in. Mihec makes good stuff but I don’t like the c clamp that holds the pins in, I ordered a bag of 20 on eBay because I keep losing them. I used hp when I was shooting uspsa just to save on alloy and it didn’t mess with the rhythm or speed of my casting. At the time I had a good deal on powder with a store that closed out so that’s why I used em. Now I use solids 225 cuz my powder supply is dwindling.

I'm the opposite.

I prefer the MP system to the NOE system.

You don't even really need those C clamps.

I can cast faster with the MP system over the NOE system.

[megasupermagnum]

Yes, I've got two molds converted to inset bar style from Erik at hollow point molds, which is the same style MP uses. I too kept loosing the e clips, but found they work just fine without them. I prefer the inset bar to the NOE linkage, but both work.

As for hollow point penetration, the huge expanding bullets are intended to reduce penetration. It's not desirable for all things, but some people don't want a pass through with defensive ammo. Myself, I don't worry as much about that, but due to the track record of 45 acp hollow points, I don't worry about them not penetrating either.

[gwpercle]

For anyone wanting to do 45 acp HP's , look at post #23 , by OS OK , the second photo...
30:1 7.8 bhn 948 fps . That 30 parts lead to 1 part tin would be the place to start , our mistakes were making HP's too hard , the 950 fps velocity is a good one .
All we had were round cavities ...the Quad point or Penta point seems to work much better .

I've always thought that even if my .45 HP doesn't expand it's still making a .45" hole ...
Gary

[Newtire]

I think all the best options have been stated in this thread. The good thing about the 3 designs listed here, are that they all cast well. I've never tried the hollow point version, but the solid H&G #68 casts easy. The 200 and 230 gr RNFP's cast easy as both solid and hollow points. Is a hollow point mold as easy as a solid? In my case, I can make that said NOE 452-232-HP as a hollow point, or a solid, and I can't tell any difference. My last time, I cast about 500 of them hollow point, and it was just as easy as anything. The caveat is that I know exactly where to run that mold, and I've used hollow point molds plenty. I don't know how much a learning curve would effect this.

I will say this, the solid version of a bullet is never more difficult to cast than the hollow point version. I don't think you will be out anything using two bullets. 45 acp is very forgiving, unless you change something dramatically, most loads hit pretty close to the same POA. This is a complete contrast to something like 357 magnum, where a 125 grain bullet could hit 2' lower than a 180 grain bullet. Lee makes a few good designs in their 6 cavity molds, and despite what some claim, their molds are great, they will serve you well.

I have that 6-banger Lee mold and the Arsenal Flat base and there really isn't alot of difference out of 3-1911's that live at my house.

[mnewcomb59]

In referring to your beautiful mushrooms I was implying that they do not penetrate well when they open so wide.


Not yet having any type of conversion factor or rule of thumb for jug penetration and it's equivalent in 10% ballistic gel I can't estimate what depth they'd penetrate with this weight, speed & HP cavity design but I'm working on that too, my first gel block will arrive next week.

For the skeptics regarding the above facts...here's the video of this experiment.

FIRST TIME EVER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maRWzS58gQ

Each water jug equals about 4-5 inches of ballistic gel. If you aren't putting at least a dent in the back of jug 3, they are not penetrating deep enough for FBI or LE or concealed carry. 2 jugs is 8-9 inches, like a 22 lr HP or a 380 HP. I try to get 4 jugs for self defense HP, and 5 jugs for hunting bullets. 3 Jugs will not exit a deer, and 3 jugs won't even break a rib on the offside. 4 jugs will often be caught under the skin on the off side of deer, and 5 jugs will exit any mostly broadside shot. I have recovered a few 5 jug bulets from deer, but they were frontal or Texas heart shots.

[fredj338]

I have a Lyman Dev mold, it works just fine. I dont need to shoot them for practice, any 190-200 gr bullet will do for practice.

[jdgabbard]

I've been happy with my NOE 230gr HP mold. I think it's supposed to cast as a 250 solid for 45colt if you want that. But the 230gr pills have a HP cavity on them that looks pretty radical. Had it for about 10 years now. Been happy with it since I bought it.

[dankathytc]

Realizing this is an older post, I can’t help but post my first attempt ay casting the MP-452-200. I doped 297 bullets in approx. 90 minutes while using a comfortable and relaxing cadence. My PID was cycleing, and being limited on time I used the temp control lever on my Lee 4-20, with a good casting thermometer keeping it at a steady 790-800 degrees. Only one bullet showed a very slight wrinkle on the nose. I will give them 3 to 4 days to harden and test to determine the approx. BHN using my Lee tester. I have a half dozen M-P molds and they are a joy to use.