Crude homemade 45 hollowpoint mold

[git_dr1]

Thought I would attempt to make a mold out of materials laying around.
My intentions were to powder coat so I wasn't concerned with grease grooves.



They weighed in at 222gr. I loaded them over a minimum load of red dot.
I know they look a little crude but I am quite impressed with the few I shot.

[Outer Rondacker]

Looks good to me. I love homemade. Keep up the good work.

[Any Cal.]

No problem with homemade, especially if it works! How did you cut the cavities?

[lukeyduke]

Super cool job done on that.

[SSGOldfart]

Did the mold you made start life as a Lee 50cal-250? spruce plate is the same as mine. was there any barrel leading issues?
keep use posted thanks

[Denny303]

nice job, also interested on how you cut the cavity, makes me happy to see folks tinkering and being self sufficient!

[git_dr1]

Thanks for the compliments.

No part of the mold started out as a part of another mold.
I, like most on this site, am a big tinkerer. I built the entire mold, including the handles from scrap laying around. I built it based on the lee molds.

After truing two pieces of aluminum, I drilled, tapped and bolted the two pieces together. I laid out the location and drilled a pilot hole on the seam where I wanted the cavities. Then it was just a matter of step drilling with two different bits. I reshaped the end of a 7/16 drill bit for the bullet shape and drilled to the desired depth. I then used a 29/64 bit and went to desired depth. All boring was done on a drill press. The nose of the bullet dropped at .430 and the base of the bullet dropped at .454 and after sizing they mic at .4525

The build was on a whim just to see if I could come up with something that would shoot and I think I just got lucky. I hope to get some more loaded and shoot this weekend.

[Any Cal.]

Just shows that ambition(yours) is at times worth more than tools(mine), as I have considered building one, and started a rough draft, but never completed it. And you've gone and built one, used it, and shot the boolits! First rate!

[roverboy]

I think you did a great job. As long as they work good, that's what counts.

[leftiye]

Nice mold, I'm too lazy to make sprue plates, and handles.

You can grind down a drill to a shape you desire, and use it to finish drill a hole in your blocks (if you want a smooth paper patch or P.C. mold). Pointy cavities will center/guide a drill to drill a hollow point pin channel in a cavity. Grease groove boolit molds can be turned on a lathe. Though Mountain molds won't make anything but flat points, you can pre drill your nose shape and then turn the grooves and angle in to the ogive. Or you can use a form cutter. If you copy Lyman blocks, you can use Lyman handles, etc..

[Blacksmith]

What did you use as a lubricant on the Boolits powdercoat?

[git_dr1]

What did you use as a lubricant on the Boolits powdercoat?

Yes, they were coated with a mix of powder that was over spray collected from powder coating previous boolits.
Red, yellow and black makes..........brown

[Just Duke]

Run your lead a little hotter.

[git_dr1]

Run your lead a little hotter.

Actually, It was the first time trying to use a hollowpoint mold. I think it was more of an issue of getting the routine down to keep the mold at the right temp.

The second round turned out much better boolits but I didnt snap any pictures of them.

Thanks for your input.

[git_dr1]

Since it has warmed up I took the opportunity to shoot some that I had loaded up.
Alloy was 50/50 wheel weight and pure lead over 4.3 gr of red dot.

All shots fired was at 10 yards and all hit the box.


I retrieved a few from my bullet catcher. The recovered weight of the four retrieved ranged 200-222 gr.
The starting weight averaged 225 gr. after powder coating.


And this one was fired at a gallon jug of water, through a pethy block of wood and into the bullet catcher. Its recovered weight is 222 gr.


Overall, I am pretty pleased with their performance. There was some amount of leading but not to bad and nothing that didn't completely wipe out with a little bit of Ed's Red and 3 passes with a brush. I have experienced alot worse with commercial cast before I started casting. I will experiment a little more with some Harbor Freight red next.