Hensley&Gibbs

[pahoghunter]

Hi I was looking at a Hensley & Gibbs mold chart and the #50 is listed as .38 Gold Cup & Clark Conversions. What does this mean? Thanks Bob

[BCall]

I belive they are referring to the 1911's that were converted or made in 38 special for wadcutters only. Like the S&W 52.

[357 Voodoo]

Its for the 1911 38 special conversions. Its as cast dia is .356 instead of .358 for the standard #50 texasflyboy has a good writeup on them here (http://hgmould.gunloads.com/casting/noteson50.htm)

[MikeS]

As I understand it, the #50 was one of the most popular of the H&G designs. It's also used in 38 Special's, and used by lots of police departments as practice ammo. I think (but could be wrong on this) that the ones made for use in auto pistols was made to be sized to .356 rather than the standard .358 that the revolvers used, although that might be only when they're loaded in 38ACP cases rather than 38 Special cases. In any case, the H&G #50 is the one mould that you can almost always find being sold on eBay, with many more #50's being sold than any other design, with the #68 being the next most common mould on eBay.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

I have used this a great deal over the years, usually sizing to .357 when using the regular commercial brass. It worked very well thru my M14's. However when using military brass which is thicker I had to size to .356 to avoid problems with finished rounds having "gill bumps" and difficulty chambering. The .356 arrangement also worked very well in terms of chambering, and accuracy. In the "Art of Bullet casting", still available thru Wolfe publishing, Al Miller ran at least one article on using the H&G #50 reversed when seating and that the results were also good. I never tried this as my regular H&G bullet is #251 for the 52 so I saw no reason for the innovation. LLS