Mihec 452-200 Cramer HP - great mold

[BeeMan]

Had my second casting session yesterday, with my new 4 cavity brass Mihec 452-200 mold. This mold is simply amazing. I have a couple of aluminum customs by Mihec and NOE, but brass trumps them soundly for easy temperature control, consistent fill-out, and effortless drop from the mold.

Even though I've never used any HP mold before, I dropped bullets non stop until the 10 lb Lee was nearly empty. I rejected only half a dozen bullets, total, for the run. This was using the round HP pins.

Up til now, my most consistent results were with RCBS molds. Those still run great, as I also cast some RCBS 9mm yesterday. But now I can cast hollow points four at a time at almost identical yield.

Time to start saving for more brass molds from Miha...

BeeMan

[L1A1Rocker]

I've got that mold too. It's great but I think my favoite is a 38/357 mold that has a rerun that just started.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=146731

[slide]

I've got the 452-200 also. Agree with everything you said. They are fantastic. Shooting them through my Kimber. It liked 5.5 grains of Unique with an oal of 1.200" I didn't come up with the load. It came from Triggerhappy. The only problem is when the pot runs dry and you have to stop for a while.

[buyobuyo]

I was casting with mine today. It was great. The stars and planets aligned, and I ended up with 9.25 pounds of bullets after the initial sort to cull rounded bases. I still need to do one more sort to cull any torn cavities. To top it off, I was able to cast at sub-700 degrees without problems which has never happened before.

[Michael J. Spangler]

this mold was my first, and the only one i use (i have a 358156 and don't even own a .38/357)
its amazing. pump out boolits all day long, and i barely every get something that i wouldn't shoot.

i load them to 1.190 over 4.5 grains of bullseye and they're sweet. flawless in my 1911 and so far flawless in my 625-4

now that i have my sizing for these boolits figured out, and just about out of bullseye and i'm going to mess with some WIN 231 to see if i can find a nice accurate load.

glad everyone else loves this mold too!

[xacex]

I have tried bluedot, bullseye, clays ,w231 to date, but my most accurate loads for this mold are made with universal pushing them about 950fps.

[Dale53]

I have both 1911's and 625's. I haven't found any of them to be powder sensitive. Any powder that has the correct burning rate for .45 ACP seems to work extremely well. I'm talking consistent groups under 1" at 25 yards.

Right now I am using Titegroup. However, I have successfully used Bullseye, Dupont 5066, Dupont PB, Dupont 7625, Win 231, and Unique.

Titegroup measures well and is not position sensitive (not particularly important with the .45 ACP/Auto Rim but a useful characteristic for .38 Special, .44 Special, and .45 Colt).

FWIW
Dale53

[HiVelocity]

I too love this mold; I actually have 2 of them.

My load for my Kimber and my XD Tactical is 5.9gr of Titegroup. This is about
.4 over the published load data for a 200 grain cast bullet. Yet, no signs of excessive pressure, est velocity is ~960 fps.

Just my $.02 worth. Enjoy!

HV

[lead_her_fly]

Culls still in there but, I got a 1lb coffee can in about an hour and a half.

Did I say I love this mould?

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r115/Sackettwannabe/Snapbucket/EDD8CD79-1.jpg

[HATCH]

I had to run my pot to 800 to get constant good ones.
But it spits out perfect ones every time.

Wish i had one like this for my mastercaster

sent from my mobile

[MiHec]

I have some of this molds on hands. If you want one, please PM me.

[Balta]

Culls still in there but, I got a 1lb coffee can in about an hour and a half.

Did I say I love this mould?

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r115/Sackettwannabe/Snapbucket/EDD8CD79-1.jpg

oo that looks great..Can wait to get one in my hands...

[Michael J. Spangler]

wow now i want to go to the shop and heat up my mold.
great boolits. i want to cast some in FP. all have been HP thus far

[Balta]

Can you guess what postman bring to me yesterday??
YESSS ,MP HP mold....
Gonna share my experience in another post..this mold deserve that.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=754&pictureid=5892

[MiHec]

I still have some of this molds on hands.....
If you want one , please PM me.

[thebigmac]

Yes, fellows, It is A GREAT MOULD. No doubts about it. These feed in my 1911's;
Grizzly LAR; and Springfield much, much better than the 230 ball. bigmac

[TheCelt]

Haven't cast any bullets with this mold yet as I just recieved it 15 minutes ago! Sure is a fine looking mold though, and I got it quick! Believe I'll be doing buisness with Mihec again!!!

[trixter]

Haven't cast any bullets with this mold yet as I just recieved it 15 minutes ago! Sure is a fine looking mold though, and I got it quick! Believe I'll be doing buisness with Mihec again!!!

I want a full report, with photos if you can.

Thanks

[TheCelt]

Hi Trixter,
Well, it took awhile to get after it with this mold but I did cast today and as per your request here's my report.

In preperation, I heated the mold to 300 deg F on the Hot plate and let it cool down three times. It seemed like the HP pins and guide pins seated well so I fired up the pot.

I must admit that I can't tell you much about my alloy except that it's got lead, tin, arsenic and antimony in it. The BHN works out to about 15 when air cooled and up to 20 when quenched in cold water and that's about all I can tell ya about the metal. If I can melt it I'll make boolits out of it!!! When aged about 30 days I get a BHN of ~25 when quenched in cold water.

It took awhile before I was getting acceptable boolits cause I'd never cast HP boolits before and I had to climb a bit of a learning curve. First, I discovered that the alloy has to be HOT. I ran the melt at about 750 deg F and kept the mold on the Hot Plate set to about 400 deg F. That and keeping up a brisk casting pace produced good HP bullets in short order.

The results of the first casting session with this mold are nothing short of FANTASTIC!!!! Boolits miked out at 0.4525" and weighed from 199.1 to 200.3 for ALL boolits!!!! That is a 1.2 grain spread for all boolits!!! I don't know about you but I've never cast that many boolits with that small of a weight distribution!!!

Gonna size them tomorrow and load some up in a 45 ACP in front of 8.3 gr of Acc #5. It's a fairly stout load for my Officer's model but it's an "authorative" round!!! I'll ley ya know how they shoot later!55378553795538055381

[kgb]

I just received one of these molds, have a question or two. First, can either set of pins be installed in reverse to form flatpoints? Second, the pins are a very snug fit which I assume is a good thing, but the penta set doesn't allow the mold to close. Do you need to clearance anthing for a proper fit or do they wear in?

[Dale53]

Yes.
Unscrew the pins about a quarter turn. That'll allow just a bit of play and allow them to line up perfectly.

I rate my Mihec (MP Molds) the highest of any moulds EVER made. You will LOVE them once you get up to speed. Further, I lube my pins where they go through the blocks with Bullshop Sprueplate Lube.

FWIW
Dale53

[TheCelt]

They'll wear in. Best thing to do is to heat the mold up on a hot plate to ~ 300 deg F and lube the sprue plate pin and alignment pins, open and close the mold a few times and then put it back on the hotplate, turn it off and let it cool down. Do that about three times and everything kinda "works in" to place. Also, on the Penta pins use the supplied tool to loosen the pins 1/4 turn or so, should let the mold close OK then.

[kgb]

Thanks guys, just loosening one of the guides on each pin seemed to do the trick, and a little of the supplied grease on each one should help keep it that way.

I've heated other molds by resting them atop the pot and dipping a corner in the melt, then getting them fully up to temp with a few castings of bullets that I figure are heading straight back into the pot. Sounds like these take a few extra steps, but that should be no problem.

[trixter]

I've heated other molds by resting them atop the pot and dipping a corner in the melt, then getting them fully up to temp with a few castings of bullets that I figure are heading straight back into the pot. Sounds like these take a few extra steps, but that should be no problem.


Please do your self a favor and go get a hotplate and use it to heat your mold, trust me you will really like it, no more casting wrinkled boolits.

[kgb]

Is there a reason I must buy a hotplate and cannot use the "burner" on an electric stove?

[dragon813gt]

You can use the burner. But if its a coil type you want to put a solid metal piece, such as a saw blade, on top to distribute the heat evenly. Brass has the potential to warp from overheating as well.

I just received one of these molds in solid form. Heat treated it over the weekend so I can't wait to start casting with it. I might go do it now :)


Brought to you by TapaTalk.

[TheCelt]

Is there a reason I must buy a hotplate and cannot use the "burner" on an electric stove?

You can get a single "hot plate" like mine on-line for about $20. Sure makes casting a lot easier. If you're gonna use your electric coil stove get a piece of 1/4" aluminum for heat distribution, it works almost as well as a hotplate and won't warp your new mold.

[kgb]

Sounds like good advice, I saw the video on the MP-Molds website showing how to cast hollowpoints and the individual there uses a single-"burner" device that looks a lot like an electric stovetop coil.

http://mp-molds.com/index.php?pr=R_and_D

[dragon813gt]

Man is the country music annoying in that video. And I wish my four cavity crammer molds dropped bullets like that. Maybe every tenth cast they will. He's using a coil hot plate and as others have mentioned it's best to put a piece of metal on top. You run the chance of overheating spots on the mold and warping it if you don't.


Brought to you by TapaTalk.

[trixter]

Is there a reason I must buy a hotplate and cannot use the "burner" on an electric stove?

More controllable temperature.

[kgb]

Man is the country music annoying in that video.


My thought as well......not that it's country, just annoying is all!

A plate on the stove burner sounds like a good idea. Thanks.

[paborn]

MiHec:

Always seem to be a day late and a dollar short. If you ever make more of this mold, a 452-200 Cramer 4 cavity with all the pins, I'll take one.

Paborn

[dragon813gt]

Check out this thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=170935

I don't know if any are left but this mold was available. I picked it up in a solid version.


Brought to you by TapaTalk.

[2wheelDuke]

I think it's time for a re-run of this mold.

[Michael J. Spangler]

i wonder which group buy is the most rerun of all time? this must be a pretty hot one?

i would love one in sold too. the HP cast just as fast a a 4 cavity solid mold, i would imagine a solid would cast like lightning

[MiHec]

See here for available molds

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?184164-Mp-Molds-Mihec-molds-on-hands-Februar-2013

I still have some 452-200 HP's and some HG#68 molds

[paborn]

I just bought a 4 cavity 452-200 with all the goodies from MiHec's e-store does this come with a choice of hollowpoint size?

[MiHec]

I just bought a 4 cavity 452-200 with all the goodies from MiHec's e-store does this come with a choice of hollowpoint size?

Round and penta pins are included. With pins reversed you can cast solids (210 grains)

[paborn]

Mihec 452-200 HP Mold showed up USPS today. Nine days from order date....not bad.

Very nice mold. Will start casting some round pin hollow points tomorrow.

Paborn

[xacex]

I have several hundred of these cast, and loaded ready to shoot at all times. It took a couple hundred to get the formula down for good expansion but I found what worked. For my alloy these like to be pushed a little over 900fps to get full expansion.

[trixter]

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/03/05/a6u6adeg.jpg

Wow I think I have gone to mold haven, wow these are great bullets my new MP mold works wonderfully.

Bullet in the middle is not MP mold.

[Michael J. Spangler]

Man I love that boolit. I need to cast some soon.

I need to get some lead too! I'm all out and down to only about 1800 cast of those beautiful boolits!

Great pic man!

[MightyThor]

Shot about 20 rounds in my brother-in-laws house. I like 5 grains of greendot. They punched holes through the lathe and plaster then out the other wall lathe plaster and 1/2 sheetrock, across the living room (scattered all over the place) through the other wall of sheet rock and were recovered in the wall space. Shots through the ceiling passed through the lathe and plaster, through the subfloor and lifted the oak flooring but did no pass through. No rounds mushroomed after hitting the walls, they were packed solid with wall material.

I am very confident that this round will make excellent home defense round with the understanding that anything on the other side of the wall or door stands an excellent chance of being severely injured or killed. This means you must know where loved ones and other innocents are at all times and adjust field of fire accordingly.

Oh yeah, they were tearing the house down anyhow so I got to play tactical.

[Speedjunke]

73645

Shot 400 bullets trough my G21 factory barrel today. No leading! Just some fine powder left overs. Im very happy with this mold. Bullets lubed with selfmade bullet lube.

More molds to come from miha

[dragon813gt]

What OAL has everyone been loading to? I'm having issues w/ it in a Remington R1. They are seated to 1.180 and pass the plunk test. And some of them shoot just fine. But the slide won't close fully on some of the rounds when feeding from the magazine. I'm loading w/ W231 and don't know how deep I can seat them. They're already a lot deeper then when I load jacketed.

[Down South]

This is a nice boolit. All of my 45's love them. I have an earlier 2-cavity and a newer 4-cavity. I like the round HP pins. All three of my 45's eat them like candy.

[Forrest r]

dragon, I did my 1st test loads with an oal of 1.20 & had feeding issues in a friends xds & my range officer. Dropped the oal down to 1.190 & had 1 round that still didn't go into battery out of 50 in the tight ro.

I did another test run of 50 with the oal @ 1.18 and crimped these a little tighter .468/.469. I crimped the other ones @ .469/.470. I'll be going to the range today to see what happens.

[dragon813gt]

I have to check my crimps. And I'm pretty sure I have to drop my OAL a little more. I think they're just barely hitting the rifling. Once I get this one figured out I can start playing with the new RCBS mold I just got from Miha.

[Forrest r]

Ran another test run of 50 rounds today.

I have a tight nm bbl & a 1.180"oal & a .468/.469 crimp ran flawlessly.

!st tried 1.20"oal & .469/.470 crimp & had feeding problems (had to push the slide home on several rounds).
2nd 50 round test I loaded 1.190"oal .469/.470 crimp 7 had 1 failure to go into battery (had to push the slide home).

Hope this helps anyone trying/testing these bullets.

The powder was herco, 7.5gr.

[quasi]

Forest R, thank you for the specific information. This should help me and lots of other owners of this mould.

[Forrest r]

No problem, I'm going to do another test run of 50 rounds.

This time I'm going to bring the oal back out to 1.190" & use the tighter .468/.469 crimp & use the same 7.5gr herco load. If that runs flawlessly I'll start trying/testing other powders.

On a side note:
I'm using a wolff variable power 16 1/2# recoil spring.

[Down South]

If it were me, I would only use just enough crimp to take the bell back out of the case. You don't need much crimp on these boolits. Case tension should be more than good to hold the boolit in place.
If you do decide to use a heavier crimp, I would suggest making a couple dummy rounds,pulling the boolits and micking them to make sure the crimp is not sizing the boolits.
Just a suggestion, Sam

[trixter]

This time I'm going to bring the oal back out to 1.190" & use the tighter .468/.469 crimp & use the same 7.5gr herco load. If that runs flawlessly I'll start trying/testing other powders.



I am no expert by any means, but when shooting both the hex, and the round h/p's, My XDM really loves 1.185 to 1190 at .468, with 4.6gr Bullseye. It works the mechanism every time. I love making holes in paper.

[freebullet]

Too much crimp resizes boolits also. When you pull the boolit from the dummy round it should still measure the proper diameter.

[novalty]

Just received this mold in from Miha today--my third one from him this year. Excited to start casting with it.

[Forrest r]

Hello novalty, you're going to luv this mold!!! Bought 1 for plinking/hd so I really wanted to dial the bullets oal/crimp in.

Shot the 1.190"oal with the .468/.469 crimp & the 50 rounds ran flawlessly.

Trixter nailed it, loaded a couple different powders/loads/light/heavy & put them in a bag & took them to the range.
Set the oal to 1.187 & the crimp to .468/.469.
All 200 rounds fed flawlessly!!! It was a little odd shooting shooting a light load of 5.0gr of hp-38 the the next round having 6.3gr og universal clays, etc. But After this final test run I can clearly see this is going to be a great boolit that can be driven from mild to wild.

On a side note:
I'm not getting any leading with the .468/.469 crimp. After 200 rounds down the tube today, the bbl looked good.

[novalty]

Hello novalty, you're going to luv this mold!!! Bought 1 for plinking/hd so I really wanted to dial the bullets oal/crimp in.


Forrest r, I cleaned the mold the other night, and ran it through toaster oven to heat it up to 400 degrees for a little while. After it cooled down, I put the pins in, and they work so much smoother than my 359-125 mold, pins move in out out with ease--no binding. Can't wait to try it out.

[dragon813gt]

I finally found the time to make adjustments to my rounds. My crimps were just slightly to loose. They ranged from .474 to .476. It was the looser ones that were giving me the problems. So I adjusted the die and made sure all of them crimped at .474. I'm still running an OAL of 1.180. With how well they shot and fed I don't think I will be changing it unless I find the time to experiment.

[novalty]

Finally got a chance to try out my 452-200 mold yesterday. The pins in this mold move so much better than my 359-125 mold, and the mold works amazing, while casting at 760 degree melt tems and the mold sitting on a hot plate on medium setting. Had very little reject rate on the mold, and water dropped the boolits, which didn't seem to frost like the few that I air cooled. They dropped right off the large HP pins with a simple push. Will try out the penta pins, and reverse some pins for solid boolits in my next session.
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m11/novalty1970/Reloading/Casting/4thSession3_zps0b653221.jpg (http://s100.photobucket.com/user/novalty1970/media/Reloading/Casting/4thSession3_zps0b653221.jpg.html)

Both the 452-200 and 359-125 batches I cast yesterday.
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m11/novalty1970/Reloading/Casting/4thSession1_zps1ff3a826.jpg (http://s100.photobucket.com/user/novalty1970/media/Reloading/Casting/4thSession1_zps1ff3a826.jpg.html)

[Leadmelter]

Group
I went through my cleaning routine: Hot Water/Soap/ Tooth brush. Rinse with acetone, wipe out grooves with a cotton swab.
I put the mold together, put it on the hot plate x3 to get it to about 300 degrees, air cooled. Put some old liquid graphit on the pins.

I set my RCBS to 750 and a thermometer read 740. After about twenty casts and adjusting the fill rate, everything started to come together and I got 9+lbs of boolits in about two hrs. All I could rememember is HEAT HEAT HEAT. ended up finishing casing at about 720.
Great boolits
Leadmelter
MI

[ballistim]

Miha recently sold me an extra of this mold after I PM'd him and I finally got around to casting, loading & shooting this one and I love it! I l used 4.6gr. of Green Dot and lubed with Carnuba Red (only because it was still in the lube/sizer, will try BAC and Xlox 2500 plus later). OAL 1.185 and crimped with Lee FC die and loaded rounds run through Lee Bulge Buster. Alloy hardness was 10 BHN/approx. 20-1. I fired 3 clips full through my brand new RIA 1911 and they fed and fired flawlessly. I really like both the gun and the boolit, very good accuracy offhand and shoots to point of aim. Next up is to go through pretty much the same procedure for my brand new MP 359-125 for my Beretta M9. Can't wait! Here are some pics of the boolits in loaded rounds and 3 recovered after hitting a very thick gauge steel drum. One went through another thinner steel drum and a 2x4 inside of it. Great fun all around, will be shooting these a lot in the near future. I have about 5lbs. of Green Dot so should be good to go for quite a while.http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/10/27/daqu7ene.jpg

[tja6435]

I recently came into possession of one of these molds
105141
After I cleaned it and goer it heated up hot enough, it runs great.

Will post pic of hi-tek black coating on this bullet when finished

[Rick45Colt]

I also own this mold and have that works best for me when running hot. I ran some tonight while using the warming tray on my new Mag 25 to alternately warm up and cool down a couple of other brand new molds.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[MiHec]

There is active GB going on for this mold

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?306670-452-200-HP-Flat-base-(45ACP)-4-cav-Brass-MP-Molds-re-run-May-SPECIAL-OFFER

Join inn.

[Down South]

Ha, got one already from the first GB. It's a great mould.

For the guy that posted the pic of a few loaded rounds a few posts up above. You are using too much crimp. Those cases head space off the chamber. I'm surprised that you don't get a few FTF due to the casing slipping past the chamber.
All the crimp that you should need is just enough to take the bell back out of the case mouth.

Man, this thread got dug up from the grave.