Mihec's 44 HP cramer mould

[MiHec]

hey new to this, is my first time just ordered an mp-mould the 45-270. i am curious about this 44 is the hollowpoint the same as the devastator and I didnt see one on mihas web site. would one of these be available or am i just too late .

I still have some.....

I will post a list here this evening

[hicard]

Bronte454, Better hurry and order one. They are great molds.

[lead_her_fly]

Anyone have one of these moulds for sale? I would really like to have one. The larger pins are what I am looking for.

Let me know through a PM. Will give you just what was paid for it. If Miha would answer my PM, maybe I could find out if he had plans to run this mould again. I understand he has been under the weather. Hope all is well there now.

At any rate, the offer stands.

[mebe007]

what mold is this and how does it compare to the H&G503? i want a good all around mold for my .44 mag 629. mainly for deer hunting

[fatnhappy]

what mold is this and how does it compare to the H&G503? i want a good all around mold for my .44 mag 629. mainly for deer hunting

This mould is a fair representative of the lyman 429640 HP. It's a very good all around boolit for the .44 mag. (and possibly the .444 marlin with which I have zero experience). The real advantage to this boolit over keith boolits is that it feeds very well in the lever guns and obviously has a gas check which is appropriate for that application.

As far as using it in a revolver on deer is concerned, it'll get er done. IMHO there aren't really any significant advantages over a keith. I don't see an expensive gas check as being needed in my redhawk. I have no leading issues and it's dimensionally correct. This boolit shoots particularly well in my pistol so it has earned a place on that basis alone. I guess deciding if this boolit is for you depend on your particular needs and desires. If you see the gaping HP as an advantage by all means this boolit is for you. If you cast it as a solid medium heavy boolit and see it as an advantage, then this boolit is for you. If you just want some flexibility in choices then this boolit is for you. If you just like having a well made dimensionally correct boolit that casts like a dream, this mould is for you. In other words YMMV.

[Maximumbob54]

Shawn,
In the pm, I mentioned the particulars about the boolits you sent me. I shot the round HP version and had them going right at 1800fps. My rifle is a tad different than yours in the I have one that has Ballard rifling. The bore still runs big though!

At any rate, they shot as sell as some 200gr LRNFP boolits I cast from a Lee 6 cavity mould, 2" @ 50 yards. Best I could get!

I am going to sell this one rifle, I have two Marlin 1894s in 44Mag. One with a round barrel, the wife bought me as a gift and this one that the son bought then sold when he needed money. It has the octagon 20" barrel. All of my Marlin rifles have scopes on them.

Any one have any experience with the Ruger M77 in 44Mag? That is what I think I am going to get next. They are having a sale on them here in Indiana. It is one of a few rifles that are allowed for deer hunting.

Well, so much for the report.

I'm sorry Skip, I was going from memory . . . I have a micro groove 20" round barrel . . . I'm probably gonna sell mine too . . .

The bolt actioned Ruger M77 does have a 1:20" twist, instead of the silly 1:38" of the Marlins, might help accuracy for us leadshooters . . . Only four shot rotary mag . . . but how many do you really need?

How do I learn what a good rifle for cast bullets is? I had no idea the twist would be bad for lead. I thought that was all about bullet mass. And here I bought a 336 to start shooting from a Ranchdog mold. Am I hosed on that as well?

[Blammer]

maximumbob54, you may want to start another thread on this topic. You'll get some really good info and some advice I'm sure.

[lead_her_fly]

Bob, another thread is a good idea but let me give you a little info here first. This mostly applies to higher powered rifles but.....

Too fast of a twist rate, too light of a bullet, going too fast, supposedly can cause a bullet to "spin" so fast that it flies apart. Never seen that my self but, done some reading on it.

Too slow of a twist rate can cause a bullet to become unstable and "wobble" rather than spin. In order to be accurate, they have to spin to their "gyroscope" like speed. So they resist the "urge" to tumble.

There is a formula for twist rate. It is all according to bullet weight, caliber and speed, if I remember correctly. 'Course, we all know how reliable that is!

[lead_her_fly]

For several years I have been playing around with the 44Mag in carbine rifles. My goal was to make a decent enough hunting round to take large animals out to 100 yards consistently. I had an accuracy goal in mind, 2" @ 100 yards or better. Well, today, I found just that combination.

Oh, I had another goal, I wanted to use my own cast bullets to do it. Since I have no gas checked moulds, I was beginning to worry that it might not be possible with the ones I do have.

The bullet I used is from a Miha 434640 mould and I had the round pins in. The alloy was straight wheel weights and the lube was White Label Lube's Carnuba Red 2700. The bullets were sized and lubed on a Magma/Star luber sizer @ .431". They weighed in at just a tad over 245gr. Very good.

These were also some of the best cast bullets I have ever made as well. Everything went extremely well during that session.

I also introduced another factor into these reloads. Previously, I had used the Square Deal B and the proprietary dies it uses to make my loads. These were made with Lee dies, no FCD, bullet; seated and crimped in one step, and put together on my new to me Dillon RL450B. One thing I did too though, I took one of the powder measures and a die from an XL650 and rigged it up to work for these loads. Worked super!

The SDB dies have a similar affect on the bullet as the LFCD does. The system I used on these did not. I think that played a big factor in the accuracy. Also, these bullets were kind of soft and at high pressure, they must have fit the lands and grooves well. A plus, I am sure.

The powder used was AA#9. Now, in the past I have used H110, W296 and Lil' Gun. Even 2400 didn't give me the results that AA#9 did today. I am pumped!

I also used Wolf Magnum Large Pistol primers for this endeavor. AA#9 does not need them BUT, they were what I had to hand. My load was the maximum for a 240gr lead bullet from the Lee manual. It is over the maximum that Accurate lists so, I am not going to post it. If you want to know, I will reply to a pm.

Chronograph results were impressive as well:
Low 1787fps
High 1802fps
Avg. 1792fps
ES 15.43fps
SD 8.68fps! (That is cool!)

Here is my 100 yard group. It measures "one thumb" length! Minute of thumb @ 100 yards! Just to let you know, I measured my thumb at home, it measures 1 1/2" from the end to the first joint.



As I was leaving the range then, a groundhog meandered into the line of fire. He was either deaf or one that wasn't meant to reproduce! I put the sneak on him anyway, waited until his head was down and let fly. 50 yards with these bullets @ almost 1800fps ruined his day!. He was laying flat on the ground as they do while they are eating and I hit him on the right side just in front of his shoulder.



Here is a closeup of the wound: If you are squeamish, don't go down any further! You have been warned!












It opened him up pretty good. I did an autopsy and couldn't find the bullet. Skinned him all the way out on the belly too. Rubber gloves and the whole 9 yards, investigated all through his intestines and all. They were exploded pretty well but the bullet did not travel through the stomach cavity. Shock, I'm guessing!

So, all in all a good day shooting! Now to tumble some brass, fill them back up and top them off with some of these missiles! Oh yeah!

[phaessler]

Beautiful job lead_her_fly. Great write up too, I have been using the hollow point version in my inline muzzloader with a sabot , with similar sucess, pass thru's though, but lots of shock damage, and visually, well lets just say its "topsy tervy", or acrobatic in nature.

Pete

[bcr]

Well, this is digging up an old thread, but I just got mine recently and have been extremely pleased the the results I saw today. This is the 434640. It's my first time ever casting HPs. I filled my pot with 50/50 WW/pure lead. Put two penta and two large round HP pins in the mold. Got the mold very hot on my hotplate. It was so hot I think it took the sprue at least a solid minute to harden. I've never seen anything like it, so I figured it was too hot. I think the first boolits dropped out with little trouble. I cooled the mold a little and got the two round HPs to drop but the two pentas were stuck. Since I was showing my father how to cast for the first time, I switched over to my trusty MP H&G #68 clone and cast up about a hundred or so with that. By then the 434640 was cooled down. I switched to all large round HP pins and smoked the cavities with a match. I heated the mold again and set to work. After that all the boolits dropped perfectly and beautifully. I cast about 125, and discarded probably 15 that had slightly rounded bases. They would have shot fine I think, but they were so easy to cast, I figured, why not shoot only perfect boolits!

I tumble lubed these in 45/45/10, sized to 0.430" (cylinder throats in the 696) and then loaded 50 over 7.0 grs of Bullseye and 50 with Skeeter's standard load of 7.5 gr. Unique. These were to feed my new S&W 696 that I haven't had a chance to shoot yet, and if I remember they're pretty squarely in the "Category 2" section of Brian Pearce's loads for the .44 Spl. I don't want to push this nice gun very hard and the 7.5 gr. of Unique is probably as hot as I'll go, it seemed plenty hot anyway, but the cases ejected nicely and the primers looked fine. I guess these are moving around 900 fps or so, maybe 950, but I don't have a chronograph so can't say for sure. Barrel is mag-na-ported and recoil was very manageable, but noticeable with the Unique loads.

I sighted in the 696 about 2" high at 10 yards or so. The shooting conditions were not great, it was very windy, but I didn't have any trouble holding these into a one-hole group at that short range. After it was sighted in, I popped one into a row of milk jugs full of water. It penetrated three of them and then bounced off the fourth one and we lost it. The second boolit stayed in the third milk jug. A few minutes later we found the first boolit on the ground in the mud. Both of them mushroomed beautifully, as you can see in the picture below. The second one is dirty because it fell in the mud. The third boolit is a .45 ACP Winchester Ranger from my Fusion Commander. (If someone can arrange a group buy for these in a Miha brass 4-cavity, I'll take one ]). Both the .44s mushroomed to about 0.8", and the Ranger is just over 1" at the tips of the petals the way it is now. I wouldn't like to have any of these things moving through me.

I couldn't be happier with these results. First time casting HPs, no problem. First time loading for .44 Special in a new gun, no problem. Alloy and velocity combo worked on the first try to give me good expansion in the water jugs. Hooray! I'm rarely successful with anything on the first try.

[Michael J. Spangler]

i love this thread