HP mold build success!

[MBTcustom]

I keep hearing about how great a HP mold is, so I decided to try it. I made the cherry by eyeball, using half of an RCBS mold as a rough guide as I made the ogive profile. I used 303 SS for the HP pins and just eye-balled them too. The result was a 229 grain HP that feeds great. I flew a few hundred of these this last weekend and I didn't have a single jam. My buddy ran some through his Glock without any problems either. I just had to share:

No vent lines. I thought I would try it first and see how it did. I could always add the lines later. As it is, I am getting perfect fill-out.
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2679.jpg
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2706.jpg
They drop out @ .455 on the base, and about .447 just above the lube groove. After a quick pass through the Lyman 450 with a .4525 sizing die, this design matches my 1911 chamber very closely. I was quite pleased with the accuracy I was able to achieve at 30 yards. (minute of pop-can for sure)
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2708.jpg
These babies open up like an umbrella upon impact. Not quite a devastator, but I wanted to keep the mushroom tight so that I can carry them in the winter also.
With a 4 cav., I can sure pile 'em up in a hurry! You will please pardon the frostiness? I was casting in the dark by the light of a street lamp, so I was unaware that I was running a little bit too fast. Oh well, the target wont know the difference!
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2709.jpg

[jmsj]

Tim,
Very, Very Cool!!
I like the idea of a 230 grain .45 ACP HP better than the 200 or 185 grain HP
Good going, jmsj

[smoked turkey]

Tim very nice. The size and depth of the HP seems to be just right. It looks good and from your report they work good. Good job.

[buyobuyo]

Very nice!

[Link23]

i want one!!!!

[MBTcustom]

It's not quite finished yet, I still have to round the corners, polish it up, and stamp some info on the side of it, but none of that stuff is going to make it work any better.
I dont know if I will go with that style of HP holder in the future. Its heavy, hard to clean, and very time consuming to build. I put way to much time into this mold. I'm going to keep experimenting and see if I can get any better at this.

[Lefty SRH]

Haha very nice! We need exspansion tests next my friend....

[Lefty SRH]

Wheres the group buy list? LOL

[Elkins45]

That mold looks fantastic. Can we possibly see a picture of the cherry?

[375RUGER]

I LIKE IT! wish i had the money to have you build me one.

[Echo]

Outstanding, Tim!

[captaint]

Nice job Tim. Looks like you're getting the hang of this deal !!! Mike

[Mk42gunner]

I dont know if I will go with that style of HP holder in the future. Its heavy, hard to clean, and very time consuming to build.

The only thing I have used to cast HP with is the removeable pin Lyman style, so any type of multiple cavity HP looks to be a very big improvement.

I am not sure how else you could do the pins, maybe on a flat plate attached to the bottom of the mold blocks? For an example see the little Italian minie ball molds, they are slow, and I think to get enogh steel to hold its shape, it would weigh more than your round rod and possiblty take more time to machine the camming cuts.

Robert

[MBTcustom]

Well, it beats the heck out of the dovetail holder I had on the hollow base rifle mold that I built, but it sure gives a lot of surface area for a stray speck of lead to stick to. I have to tap the mold once its together to get it to fully close. I think the basic idea is sound, but next time I'm going going to ream the hole for the HP bar about .005 oversize. Right now, everything fits so perfectly that I had to use it quite a bit just to get it to quit sticking in the closed position. I have a bad habit of assuming that tight tolerances are better. If I was to build an engine block, you would have to fill it with sewing machine oil, and it wouldn't turn over for the cylinders ringing to the pistons.
I went back into the mold and honed out the holes and chamfered the edges real well, then it started running a lot better. Also, I made the pivot bushings exactly .001 taller than the sprue plate thinking that was plenty of clearance. Yeah right! I went back and made a split washer to give the plate a little spring tension and it started working a lot better. It's truly amazing how much aluminum grows with heat. I am redesigning my hinges so that they will use a wave washer or a lock washer or something to give some "springy" to the plate. It may be just a better mouse trap, but I want to come up with my own unique system just as a matter of course.

[Pete P]

WOW, that looks nice.

[40Super]

I have a Magma Engineering mold with a coil spring for the sprue plate on the bottom of the mold.I really like that setup.

[buyobuyo]

Mihec uses two siding pins through one of the mold halves for his HP pins, and NOE uses something like a sliding/tilting plate that is bolted to the bottom of the mold. I don't have an NOE HP mold, so I'm just going off what I've seen in pictures.

As for the sprue plate hinge, both use a wave washer. The washer Mihec uses is quite a bit bigger.

[phaessler]

Tim,
Hats off to you, that is a beautiful job for sure. Hope to see more results and pictures!
Keep it up and a "group buy" could be in your future...... ;)

Pete

[Grandpas50AE]

Tim, really great work, as usual. Those boolits should perform really well. Keep us up to date on how the refinements work out; from the looks of it you may have found a second job!

[longbow]

Pretty slick and a very nice job of machining!

Range reports?

Photos of expanded boolits?

We're waiting!

[Max Brand]

Excellent job on the mould, your craftsmanship speaks volumes, and I love the big hollow point.

Let us know if you ever decide to put these into production.


Max

[DrB]

Thats some nice work, much more so for a prototype!

[geargnasher]

See, you don't need no steeingking vent lines on the block faces! Some under the sprue plate sure are nice though. Lemme give you a hint about function here: Use Permatex Ultra caliper slide grease on the inset bar and sliding rods, that will keep them going together better. Tolerances of course are key, too. If you flip the mould over after you cut the sprue, before you open the blocks, trash doesn't get down in the works as easily with these types of moulds.

Gear

[Buckshot]

..............Looks very nice. A job well done. So long as ou're only making them for yourself the tme element is no big and gets chalked up to edjumakashun :-)

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

[Fishman]

Tim, I'm impressed. Best wishes for your continued success and I'll be ratholing some money for your first group buy!

[MBTcustom]

If you flip the mould over after you cut the sprue, before you open the blocks, trash doesn't get down in the works as easily with these types of moulds.
I did flip the mold over, but somehow I still got a speck of crud in there.

So long as ou're only making them for yourself the tme element is no big and gets chalked up to edjumakashun
This one took a minute or two. I dont know if I could even make minimum wage on these if they take as long as this one did. However, machining is about finding tricks, and making tools to get you where you are going quickly. We'll see how long it takes me next time. You dont want to race me in a machine shop:twisted:.

[MBTcustom]

This is the only boolit I recovered from the berm. I believe that it lost some of its mushroom on account of the berm having a lot of other boolits and a few rocks.
Still, I am pretty impressed! The same weight boolit made of the same alloy driven at the same speed in a RN design usually just gets part of the nose smeared a little.
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2710.jpg
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2711.jpg
Like I said, I wanted the base to retain some mass. I use my pistol boolits in a sabot in my muzzle loader for hunting deer, so this is intended to be a dual purpose SD/hunting boolit.
I'm glad everybody likes it.

[Beau Cassidy]

I like the way you have the HP setup. Where is he rule stating we have to stop at 4 cavities? Why don't you run it on out to 6 or 8 cavities next time.

[Buckshot]

..............Whose fingers did you use in those photo's? Those aren't machinists, nor mechanisc's fingers :-) Heck in our wedding photo's closeups of us cutting the cake I had dirty fingernails [smilie=1:

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

[MBTcustom]

I have a stunt double who takes care of all the realy grimey jobs on nasty machinery. :kidding:
I work in an aerospace company and the floor in the shop is cleaner than my wife's kitchen. Heck, we have to dress up in ESD suits to work on some jobs. Kind of putts the kibosh on a lot of that greasy machine shop stuff.
That, and I wash a lot with Goop.

[Trail Finder]

You keep referring to the next time you make a mould. Does that mean I can buy this one to help fund the next one?:bigsmyl2:

Looks very nice. Wish I had the skill.

[geargnasher]

I cranked wrenches for 20 years, always had clean fingernails and hands when I left work for the day, even after fixing many a miserable oil leak on nasty old diesel trucks. Getting soot stain out takes some special techniques, but mainly a bit of patience, and some of the soy-based cleaners with walnut grit and a small, nylon scrub brush can make old grimy mechanic's hands look baby-pink. Hard to disguise the cuts, scrapes, and bruises, though, they don't wash off so easily!

The other trick is good quality blue nitrile gloves. :grin:

Gear

[Boolseye]

awesome! great work.

[DODGEM250]

That is nice. I'd love to get my Lee .457-340-F modified to be an HP mold. I only use these for my muzzleloader bullets, but, I'm not confident enough to drill a hole in a $35.00 mold.

[40Super]

Aww,come on now,you can do it.There are Bubba's out there that could do it with their Dremel:lol: