NOE HP Molds - easy to cast with?

[Fluxed]

I'm thinking about trying one of the NOE HP molds. I notice that the pins for the HP feature are replaceable with non-HP pins. What I wonder is how that configuration compares to using a standard mold. Do the pins slow you down a lot or does it pretty much run like a standard mold?

Thanks in advance.

[Love Life]

The HP pins require a little more attention and have a larger learning curve. Once figured out you can drop HP boolits just as fast as solids.

With the solid pins installed it runs like a standard mould.

I don't think you'll be disappointed with a NOE HP mould at all.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Here's a little tip.
NOE's RG HP pins require lots of heat to drop the boolits easily.
Larger bullets, like for 41 Mag or 44 Mag or 45 are a natural fit to that design.
when casting small sized bullets, a Hot plate may be needed to heat the mold/pins up after a number of pours if you can't cast fast enough for the alloy to keep the pins hot enough.
Good Luck,
Jon

[Love Life]

Thanks for filling in the info I neglected JonB.

I have the NOE 360477 RG2 mould. It is 35 caliber and I preheat, pin side down, on a hotplate set on almost high or the lead pot lip while my lead is heating up. What I usually get are well filled out, but frosty boolits. So I let the mould cool on a room temp ingot for approx 30 seconds, and that usually gets the mould to perfect casting temp for me. From there you have to cast at a quick cadence, but you will be happy as the HP boolits rain out. Once you start getting overly frosty boolits again let it cool again and cast away.

Using 40:1 lead/tin I can cast a coffee can full in short order. I hope that helps.

[rintinglen]

The key, as has been mentioned, is to cast fast. Where you sometimes have a problem is when the boolit sticks to the HP pin. The seconds you spend convincing the recalcitrant boolit to let go let the mold cool off. I shoot for 3 casts a minute with larger boolits--.44 and .45--and on smaller 9mm-38 molds I try to run 3 1/2 - 4 casts per minute. Try to keep your casting rate so that the boolits are lightly frosted for best fill out and maximum production rate. But by all means, give 'em a try. The RG and Cramer Style HP molds can cast nearly as fast as a conventional mold, and you end up with a hollow point boolit that allows you to mimic your carry ammo for training purposes, or great hunting boolits.

[btroj]

I have a 3 cav 450350 RD with one HP cavity with a traditional pin. Easy to get plenty o solids or the few HP needed for hunting.
Works like a charm.

[Blammer]

Here's a contrary opinion.

I was casting with my NOE RG4 the other day. I would pour, and then wait. I had enough time to fill another 5C mould and empty and then pour it again.

Then I would crack the sprue on the RG4, quickly open, dump and close then fill. That part was done quickly, but then I'd wait a bit before doing it again.

I was using an RG4 230gr HP mould. I suspect the larger boolits held more heat than the smaller ones, thus having to wait.

When I run my 9mm RG mould it's a quick working deal to get good boolits.

You just have to learn what works, but be prepared to run fast and hot, but of course not too hot and not too fast. :)