My review of my Mihec brass mold w/pics

[MSGO-Hammer]

My review of my Mihec brass mold.
(a copy and paste of the review I made on my forum---MSGO-Hammer)
I am not a casting expert as in the likes of Captain or SubGun, but know a thing or two and how the boolits should look and how the mold should perform.


I'll go through my equipment and materials first, then my process.

Casting pot: Lee Pro 4-20 20 pound capacity bottom pour pot
boolit mold: Mihec 200 gr. .452 SWC 4 cavity brass mold Made by Miha Preval in Slovenia. Obtained through a group buy on the Cast Boolits (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/index.php) forum.
Mold handles: Lee 6 cavity mold handles
sprue plate lube: Bullshops Bullplate sprue plate lube. Applied to line up pins and between sprue cutter and top of mold.(Fine stuff, I promise.) Came with mold, can be purchased from Bullshop on Cast Boolit forum.
alloy: straight pre-smelted wheel weights, nothing added. Fluxed during casting with Gulf paraffin wax.

Mold Preparation:
On the advice of a few members on the Cast Boolits forum, I prepped the mold by cleaning mold with Dawn dish detergent and an old tooth brush. I followed this by boiling the mold blocks in water for 30 minutes. I rubbed Dawn on them again by hand, then boiled again for about 5 minutes, then removed from the boiling water. I dried them by heating oven up to 350 degrees and letting mold blocks stay in oven for roughly 30 minutes. After mold blocks were removed and cooled, I applied the Bullplate lube to the lineup pins and between the sprue cutter and the top of the mold blocks. This should aid in preventing wear and gouges in the top of the mold blocks. DO NOT put lube in the cavities.

Process

I started by adding pre-smelted wheel weight ingots to the Lee casting pot. The temperature of the pot was held in the 700-750 degree range. The mold was heated up on a hot plate set to medium (not sure what temp that was).
Once melt and mold was up to temp, I began casting. I had to adjust the mold guide a few times to figure out the distance from the pour spout that I needed for optimum castability. In this instance, the top of the sprue plate was approx. 3/8" from the pour spout on the casting pot. This casting pot also has provisions for setting the flow rate of the pour. This is a handy feature. I had to make a few casts and adjust the flow rate a few times to figure out the optimum rate for this mold and my style of casting. This rate will probably vary by mold, person, casting style, etc.

I started with the cavity closest to the handle, and made a continuous pour through each cavity by pulling the mold towards me and not stopping the flow, pausing just a second at each cavity. This seemed to be the best style for me. At any rate, once I got my temp correct, the mold warm, the flow rate and technique down, I began to churn out some great looking boolits. I had to make an effort to cast bad boolits, or make an error, such as stop the flow of the melt into the cavity prematurely, or try to pour too fast. The boolits fell out of the mold almost effortlessly. When the mold began to get a bit hot and the boolits started frosting, they would stick in the cavities just a bit. A slight tap or two on the handle pivot pin would jar them loose. I got a smooth, rhythmic casting technique going and could drain a 20 pound pot in relatively short order. I usually stopped to replenish the pot when it got down to around a 1/4 of the pot left, approx. 5 pounds left.
By the time the pot needed refilling, the mold needed to cool a bit, and I needed a short break as well. That 4 cavity brass mold gets heavy!!

All in all, the mold performed exquisitely. Easy to cast with, not very finicky as are some of the production boolit molds out there. This is a mold I would recommend to anyone looking for a high quality, easy to use mold. There are several group buys in the works on the Cast Boolits forum for other Mihec brass molds. I will definitely be getting more of them myself. The other molds I have used cannot be compared to this mold. The only others I have used are a couple Lyman steel molds and a few Lee aluminum molds. May not pick one of them back up after this one!!

Below are a few pics (camera phone pics) of the mold and some of the boolits I cast tonight.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5253/5541660791_34f2bf16e4.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5541660791/)
Mold and Boolits (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5541660791/) by MSGO Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/people/51367220@N06/), on Flickr

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5298/5542239094_ca21ceb547.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5542239094/)
Boolit close-up 3 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5542239094/) by MSGO Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/people/51367220@N06/), on Flickr

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5094/5541659591_17c8c54bf3.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5541659591/)
Boolit close-up2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5541659591/) by MSGO Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/people/51367220@N06/), on Flickr

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5058/5541659065_a692c098eb.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5541659065/)
Boolit close-up (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5541659065/) by MSGO Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/people/51367220@N06/), on Flickr

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5177/5542237378_3578805a28.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5542237378/)
Mihec brass mold (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5542237378/) by MSGO Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/people/51367220@N06/), on Flickr

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5012/5526808015_59f721d678.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5526808015/)
Brass boolit mold4 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5526808015/) by MSGO Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/people/51367220@N06/), on Flickr

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5058/5527397326_521ac7d09f.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5527397326/)
Brass boolit mold3 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5527397326/) by MSGO Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/people/51367220@N06/), on Flickr

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5180/5526802375_88546f7f18.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5526802375/)
Brass boolit mold (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5526802375/) by MSGO Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/people/51367220@N06/), on Flickr

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5211/5526803949_60ca5de923.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5526803949/)
Brass boolit mold2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51367220@N06/5526803949/) by MSGO Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/people/51367220@N06/), on Flickr

[btroj]

I really like that mould. Mine gives more keeper bullets per pot than any mould I have used. Only negative I have seen so far is that the brass mould is so darn heavy. Talk about a work out for my skinny little arms!
I will be buying more molds from Mihec, that is for sure.

[RobS]

It all looks nice!!!

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

I have the mold in 6 cav Aluminum, nice boolits.

One correction though . . . the lube that Miha sends is not BullPlate . . . but similar . . . I believe that NOE sends BullPlate with his custom molds.

[MSGO-Hammer]

Mr. Diesel, I believe you are correct...my.mistake.

[white eagle]

Mihec molds are well worth having
most of the molds are well thought out
attention to detail is quite evident

[MSGO-Hammer]

Yes sir, Mr. Eagle. The attention to detail and fit 'n' finish is the first thing that you notice when you open the box. Miha does not cut corners on these.

[MSGO-Hammer]

My bullets, using straight WW's, dropped around .453 to .4535. Perfect for my application.
Gonna size some to .452 and some to .451.

[songdog53]

Good looking boolits and nice mold.

[Whistler]

I have the exact same mold and cast my first boolits with it this weekend.
I agree with the original poster in most of everything, it is a wonderful piece of art that can also produce quality bullets! I am most impressed with the overall feel and how the boolits drops without sticking every single time.

I did however have som problem getting the mold warm enough. I tried putting it on a hot plate, lowering it partially in my melt and also tried casting in a very high tempo to heat it up. When my pot was 1/4 from empty I refilled it and while waiting for the WW to melt the mold cooled considerably and I had to start over trying to get it up to temperature.

Here's mine:

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/4783/img3903.jpg
http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/738/img3885t.jpg

[Springfield]

Whistler: try feeding ingots into your pot while you cast. If it is a LEE it MIGHT be able to catch up. I use a 40 lb Magma pot so it isn't a problem casting for hours on end if I wish with any mould, including my Mihec's. Not really fair to blame the mould for the lead pot's shortcomings. I have yet to try a 4 cavity Mihec mould but am trying to get a 9mm version made.

[Iron Mike Golf]

Whistler: Get a hotplate and an old circular saw blade. Use that instead of the warming shelf of the pot. I went from more than a dozen heat-up casts to at most 1 with my MP 432-256 #503 clone.

[Springfield]

I bought one of the ceramic element hotplates as it is all flat on top, no need for the skilsaw blade.

[MSGO-Hammer]

I set my hotplate to medium (old hotplate with oven style element).
I only had to make at most two drops to get wrinkle free boolits.

[Whistler]

As I wrote: I have tried using a hotplate. It was set to its highest setting.
It was around freezing point outside though, so maybe it works better come spring.