2-part/Soft-point Boolit mould.

[rebliss]

I'm really a beginner at this forum, especially when compared to lots of the good folks I've met here, so I'm not even sure if this is feasable.

Would it be possible to create a mould for hunting rifles that has a cavity or two meant to be filled with pure lead to make a soft 'point,' and then the user can take this piece, place it into the nose of another cavity in the same mould and then it be cast with a harder alloy?

Would this be useful, or too much work for what it's worth?

[Ricochet]

There are several threads about this idea on the boards recently.

[Dale53]

One thing to keep in mind. A 45/70 starts out at nearly ½". I LIKE 45/70's. If the bullet is shaped correctly, I don't need much more.

To be absolutely truthful, I have shot my deer with .44 mag revolvers (they are "nearly" ½" also). Flat noses, the bigger the better (more or less) do fine work.

Dale53

[grouch]

LBT had it years ago. I think so did Cast Bullet Engineering. Try them first.

[Boz330]

I thought that Lyman used to make a 2 part mold that you glued the 2 parts together with epoxy or did I just imagine it. Apparently it must not have worked very well since you don't see them now. I did see a mold as mentioned but don't remember where.

Bob.

[versifier]

Boz,
BruceB has come up with a workable softpoint casting technique, and by following his instructions carefully, you can make them too. Do a "Search" for the threads that talk about it. You don't need fancy moulds, just a way to melt both the pure lead for the nose at the same time as the alloy for the base. Alternately, you can take small round balls/boolits of pure lead, put them into the mould, melt them in place, then top them off with the base alloy. High casting temperatures must be maintained, and it takes a while for the mould to cool enough for the sprue to harden, so production is pretty slow, but you don't need a lot of them for hunting. Board members have been trying this fall to test them on game animals, but no one has reported results or recovered a boolit yet that I am aware of. I did not see a shootable deer this season myself, or I might have had something constructive to add to accumulated data.

[floodgate]

Boz30:

They did - pistol SWC's #358624, #429625 and #452626 - offered only from 1978 to 1983 (actually, the #452626 was dropped in 1981). Apparently, they were not successful; it has been reported here that the epoxied joint did not hold up reliably. But back in the early 1900's, Ideal offered several of their standard rifle bullets with a separate "tip" mould that was mechanically locked (via a "golf-tee" projection on the bottom of the tip) to the base, to provide a softer tip for expansion, OR a harder tip to avoid slumping. These were all dropped at the start of World War One. These seem to work much better, but the mould sets are VERY pricey, if you can even find one. I struck lucky - found a #311291 TIP mould on eBay, and a friend was so impressed he flat-out GAVE me an as-new, boxed standard body mould. They bond together nicely. But NOT for sale, at any price!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

floodgate

[rebliss]

Well, then I wonder how many folks would be interested in creating a combination mould, and doing a group-buy for it?

[Nrut]

rebliss.... read this starting with post #45
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=8590&page=3 .........actually read the whole thread but things did'nt start comming together until BruceB's post #45...up until that time the problem was the mixing of the pb softpoint and the alloy body of the bullet......using a two part or combination mold I bet you'll have a seam between the pb and alloy....What I did was put a pure pb Lee "soupcan" bullet in a small casting ladle and floated it in the pot until it melted meanwhile casting straight WW bullets...then I poured the alloy into the mold (a RCBS .377/269gr mold) and topped it off with WW for the base...that gave me a two part bullet with a pure pb nose and a WW body.....And an ugly seam between the two parts!....But that is ok because then you know that that WW body did'nt mix with the pb nose....next step is to reheat your mold with the bullet in the mold and some spure material in your spure.....hold your mold handles together with a rubber band or elect. tape......I did the reheat by setting the mold on a propane camp burner but I suppose you could use a hot plate or float it in a full pot of melt in your casting pot......wait until your spure remelts then let it cool and either drop the bullett in a bucket of H20 or air cool keeping your mold level a spossible until it is cool enough to drop the bullet......... You are going to have to do this step with a combination mold anyway if you don't want a seam....
The only benifit of a combination mold that I see is that it gives you a certain sized piece of pure pb to use for your nose.....you can get around that by doing what BrushBuster and Robert Bank do by cutting off a small piece of lead fishing sinker wire, use lead shot balls (see post #28), use a smaller cal. lighter pure pb bullet like I did or two pots one with pb and the other with your alloy and use a small dipper (see post #34)....maybe I'm missing sometihing but I don't see the advantage of a combination or two part mold for casting softnose bullets....even if they gave them away.... If you do then please enlighten me as I'm all ears......:)

[Boz330]

Versifier,
I did see that thread. I usually hunt with larger caliber BPC guns so the harder bullets are not that necessary for me. I thought that I had seen an article on the 2 part bullets years ago and figure if anybody knew anything about them it would be here.

Bob

[frank505]

We have played with these quite a bit and might say they are worth the effort on small deer. The method we use is a small pistol case dipped in pure lead and then pour a harder base on top. When everything gets HOT it works fairly well. I really like hollow point cast bullets for smaller animals like Texas deer but not for everyday use here with grizzly bears getting more nasty each year.