ollow Pointing a mould

[redneckdan]

I have a lee mold that I'd like to try and hollow point. The problem is that they have the alignment pins along the bottom. I was wondering if I could drive one pin out leaving the second pin to align the blocks. Would a punch and a hammer be sufficent to push the pin out?

[Four Fingers of Death]

Man, Buckshot is the man when it comes to hollow pointing moulds, no doubt he will chime in here soon, Mick.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Oh, Bye the way Dan, in such polite company as we have here, it is usual to use the h in hollow point (just joking) That is one fine looking lady you have there in your avitar. She looks like the kind of nice lady who would make a guy and a family happy, good to see you emabrrasing the heck out of her, Mick.

[Buckshot]

redneckdan........"I have a lee mold that I'd like to try and hollow point. The problem is that they have the alignment pins along the bottom. I was wondering if I could drive one pin out leaving the second pin to align the blocks."

Sure you could. Sometimes they even fall out all on thier own :-). You'd have to be gentle in closing the blocks (more then usual) to be sure the alignment was good. Depending upon how long the HP pin was in the blocks, it might even help your alignment some.

You could also cut the pin down with a Dremel (or grind it) and stick it back in the blocks to clear your HP pin hole. Maybe?

...............Buckshot

[dragonrider]

Get the mold set up as accurate as you can and try for perfect fit with the h/p pin in the hole you make in the die and it will beome an alignment pin by itself.

[beagle]

We were recently doing some modification shenanigans to a Lyman mould and the alignment pin was in the way.

Our solution was to leave the pin in place and drill a new set of alignment holes in a new location on the blocks with the mould clamped shut to index it.

Then, the old pin was tapped out and reinstalled in the new hole and the modification proceeded.

This turned out really well and may be a solution for you./beagle

[versifier]

I thought about modifying some of my moulds, but Buckshot does a much better job for a more than fair price considering the labor involved. I have two Lee HP moulds that I really like (they are slow to use, but they drop good boolits). I decided it was a lot less work and just as effective to make a hollow pointing jig to fit a case trimmer ala Foster than to modify any of my moulds. I had a spare RCBS trimmer, so I got a drill bit that would fit the pilot hole, shortened it, and turned a centering jig out of aluminum stock on the lathe. Total time invested, about 15 minutes, and it works slick for both handgun and rifle boolits. Now if I wonder what a certain boolit would be like with a hollow point, I can find out easily. It would be a royal PITA to do a lot of them at once, but I do it for hunting boolits mostly, and I don't need a lot of them at any given time. Also, I am happy enough so far with results from soft point experiments that I probably won't bother to use it very often. The Lee moulds I have are both handgun boolits, in .357 & .45, and I use them in carry loads, not target, so that after initial testing, I don't go through a lot of them. Due to the slow rate of production, you probably won't be using a HP mould a lot, either, but they are nice to have. OTOH, if you are going to experiment with modifying a mould, Lee's are cheap enough that if you made a mistake it wouldn't break the bank to get another.