HUGE bullet mold

[Avery Arms]

I scared up an old bullet mold, an H&G 10-shot 158g LRN .38

It's tight and all but the thing is HUGE! The iron block set is 1.5" tall, 5.5" long and about 2" wide

With handles and all it is a bit over 6 pounds

How on earth am I supposed to work this thing for hours on end?

I’m thinking I need to work out a sliding system so I don’t have to lift/hold the mold while casting. Maybe I should just evil-bay it and buy a lee 6-shot


PP

[TaylorTN]

I am thinking that a 10-holer shouldn't take you that long to roll through some alloy.

Lotta weight to heft but WOW what output.......

[fourarmed]

There is a good article on that in the E. H. Harrison book. Basically, they rested the mold on the edge of a wooden box set up against the furnace. Drug it back as it filled, rested it across the sides of the box until ready to dump, then dumped into the box.

[Echo]

Build up under your bottom-pour furnace so that the mold is the right distance from the spout. Slide the mold all the way in and start pouring in the nearest hole, pull it toward you as the cavities fill up, lift it up (UGH!), and continue as usual. This will turn out LOTS of boolits fast, maybe too fast for the furnace to keep up with. Hmmm - 10x158+sprue=about four mold loads per pound. Takes a lot of heat from the alloy, and if replacing a pound every four mold loads, even with warming them on the lip of the furnace, a 20-pounder might be able to keep up, but I doubt that a 10-pounder could.

[dubber123]

That H&G would buy you quite a few Lee 6 cavity moulds if you went that direction.....

[Texasflyboy]

How on earth am I supposed to work this thing for hours on end?

8 and 10 cavity Hensley & Gibbs gang moulds were made to cast large quantity of bullets and were employed mostly by commercial casters looking for the largest volume of bullets in the shortest amount of time. There were some hardy folks who used them (IPSC competitors, or folks really afflicted with the casting bug...like yours truly) to feed their own habit.

But, I hear your trepidation. But a good solution is a bottom pour pot. With a good bottom pour pot you can quickly cast over a 1,000 almost perfect bullets, 10 at a time. In 10 pours you make 100 bullets, in 100 pours you're at 1,000.

Take a look at this movie. Warning, the file size is about 16.5 MB, so unless you have a fast internet connection, it's going to take awhile to load. It's a Quicktime movie file:

Link to 16.5 MB Quicktime Movie of two 10 cavity H&G Moulds in action.

Here is a screen shot for those who just want a glimpse:



I made my own bottom pour pot out of common household and locally available items. The movie is me casting with two Hensley & Gibbs 10 cavity #115 125gr. Lead Round Nose 9mm moulds. This was filmed summer 2007 when I lived in Houston. With both moulds going, I could cast a .30 caliber ammo can full of bullets in under 45 minutes of casting. The pot in the movie holds about 200 lbs of lead and has 3 six inch electric stove elements (bought from an appliance repair store) for the heat source and draws about 18 amps at 220V.

The total cost for materials to build the pot was about $250.00 give or take. I did most of the welding myself. You can check out the page on the pot construction here:

Cast Boolits Model 1 Casting Pot

It's just an example of what an individual caster can do with a 10 cavity mouldm access to a torch, welder, grinder, and a appliance store.

As I've always said, I like casting, but I want to be done in under and hour and be able to load what I need in under an hour so there is more time on the weekend to shoot.

Tom in VA

[jdgabbard]

First off, I envy your casting setup! I wish I could output like that. Second off, I would keep the mold if I could. After watching that vid, it seems like it would be worth it with a bottom pour.

[hammerhead357]

Packin, You have aquired a fine mould it should serve you well. I have several 8 & 10 cavity H & G moulds. The only time I pick them up is to move them from the hot plate to the heat sink under the casting pot. I think you can come up with a way of not having to lift the moulds every cast, it just takes a little thought. If you need some help just PM me and I will give you my useless 2 cents worth. I can probably send some pictures to help....Wes

[Shotgun Luckey]

If you need to get rid of it, I am interested!!!