What's your hollow point casting technique? Lyman devistator

[Radarsonwheels]

I've seen the fancy multi cavity HP molds that slide around- I'm working with a Lyman single cavity .44 250g Lyman mold.

This is my first time casting bullets and of course I can't start with an easy setup because I'm a stubborn jerk. I have the Lyman book and I've spent days reading here and watching videos. My equipment is all collected but I'm confused by the HP pin.

I feel confident I'll be able to cast ok bullets and conquer the learning curve after some time working. I've read about how it's important to keep the HP pin hot and possibly cast a little hot to make good HP bullets.

The question I haven't seen answered anywhere yet is how do folks use the HP pin itself? Does the tension of the closed mold keep it from falling out until you pull it? Or do you have to keep the pin from falling out while you pour? Mine has a rim that I assume regulates the depth but it also has a c-clip on it. What is that for?

What is the order of operations? I assume after the sprue is sucked down and begins to cool the pin can be pulled? Is it easier to pull after you open the mold or does pulling it from a closed mold insure that it is pulled straight down and not messing up the meplat lips?

Any explanation of how you like to work a HP pin style mold would be helpful. Someday I'll get a fancy one that drops a bunch of boolits from sliding pins but I am happy to start with a challenge!

Kevin in bucks co. PA

[geargnasher]

Close mould, close sprue plate, insert pin and twist to lock the e-clip under the screw head on the bottom. It will hold itself in. Then pour your boolit and sprue, cut the sprue, twist and pull out the pin, , open the blocks, drop the boolit out, repeat.

The secret to casting good HP boolits is get the mould HOT. Cast as fast as you possibly can, this will take practice. Cut the sprue when it has just barely set enough to not smear melted lead across the top of the blocks, meaning when you can still flick it open with a gloved thumb. That pin must be scalding hot or the nose won't fill and the cavity will have a big bubble void in the bottom.

Think 5-6 pours a minute, minimum, Time it. Practice dry runs with a cold mould to develop some muscle memory in your hands. Concentrate on minimizing the amount of time during the pouring cycle that the pin is out of the blocks and losing heat. Mould and pin heat is what makes good boolits, not necessarily extremely hot alloy. Your alloy only needs to be about 100-150 degrees hotter than the fully molten point in order to cast excellent boolits. If your boolits don't fill out fully and have very sharp edges, the mould and/or pin is likely too cold.

Gear

[Larry Gibson]

As gear says the clip on the HP stem is twisted under the screw on the mould bottom to hold it in(photo). Depth is set and is not readily adjustable.....no need to adjust anyway.

I use a 16-1 alloy or COWWs + 2% tin and then mixed 50/50 with lead for velocities above 1350 fps. For those below that muzzle velocity I use a 20-1 or 30-1 alloy. I keep the alloy at 725+/- degrees when casting HPs so I don't cast as fast as gear does but it is necessary, as he says, to cast fast enough to keep the mould hot. I also adjust the spout of the bottom pour furnace open to get the alloy into the mould as quick as possible and I leave a healthy sprue on the mould.

I use a simple and easily made wire fixture on a propane torch (photo) to keep the stem hot. Adjust the flame to just keep it hot. When casting these don't piddle around......cast bullets. Close the blocks, insert the pin, pour the alloy, let sprue harden, open sprue plate, twist and remove the HP stem putting it in holder, open blocks, tap on handle nut until bullet falls out, close the blocks....repeat.....briefly inspect the last cast bullet while waiting for the sprue to harden but don't get distracted by it or mess with anything else......cast bullets. If you do then you will make some really nice 429640HPs (photo).

Don't get frustrated as you learn.........once you learn casting HPs with Lyman moulds comes easy.........

Larry Gibson

959409594195942

[geargnasher]

+1 Larry. The less antimony and tin present the warmer the alloy likes to be, and the slower the casting pace to maintain a temperature the mould likes. Hard to go wrong with most common alloys at 700 +/- a bit.

Gear

[41mag]

Also don't get your feet up close under your pouring area either, because once you get into a good rhythm your going to forget that pin at least once, and when you do the lead goes straight through.:wink: don't ask me how I know.

Aside that it is a prety easy mold to keep going once you get it there, also the tips above are priceless.

[Radarsonwheels]

Thanks so much fellas!

I was having trouble wadeing through search results until I got smart and searched 'devistator' after I posted and found some better threads. I felt kinda dumb for not figuring out the retaining screw/twist the pin thing. At the same time hearing all your orders of operations is very helpful.

I'm planning to do some scrounging and smelting later on but I'm starting with clean 90-5-5 lyman #2 type ingots. I'm hoping that a little fluxing to keep the tin from going away will be all I need to do. For now I just want to make servicable rounds to practice with my ruger sbh and to learn casting. If I only get a few good bullets the first run that'll be a victory as long as I learn my equipment.

I plan to cast some pure pb 454 balls for my 1860 bp revolver later, and maybe figure out what my best alloy will be for deer next season to get reliable expansion out of the devistators without fragging. In the meantime I hope the #2 will work well for a newby.

Thanks again. I'll post some pics of my failures and triumphs whenever I get time to fire up the pot.
Kevin

[TMenezes]

You have to pull the pin every time? wow what a pain. I thought about getting that mold but was put off by the high price and casting only one boolit at a time. I would very seriously suggest you get a cheap Lee mold for 2 reasons.

1. To learn casting on, everything takes practice and there's no sense risking a nice expensive mold when you can get a cheapo practice mold for less than $20.

2. Casting hollowpoints at least for me is slower and more laborious than solids. This Lyman casts 1 at a time, plus your going to be fiddling with the pin. I cast some 429421 .44 mag hollow points for defense but a TON of much faster to cast Lee solids for practice.

[Radarsonwheels]

Ok so I fired cranked open my garage door, set up a fan, degreased my lee 4-20 pot and my Lyman 429640 mold and got cooking! The ingots melted pretty fast with the heat at 9, and I turned it down to 7 for the casting run.

I made about 115 boolits in just over an hour. 22 are rejects, including the first bunch that warmed up the mold. Out of the 92 keepers there are a few with very slight flashing on the rim, all have a visible parting line that just catches a fingernail, and a few have barely perceptible roundness to the rear edge that wouldnt be ok if I wasnt going to put on gas checks.

I figure the flashing on the meplat edge is no big deal it is so thin I can touch them up with a cartridge chamfer tool. The vertical parting line is normal and Im guessing that since it's on both sides it won't affect flight?

All in all for a first attempt and not even trying any different heats or anything I think it went well. The thing that bothers me the most is that on almost every boolit there is some small amount of roughness to the surface.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f324/PhiladelphiaR/DDE352BB-2206-44B6-A203-E246E4589743_1.jpg (http://s50.photobucket.com/user/PhiladelphiaR/media/DDE352BB-2206-44B6-A203-E246E4589743_1.jpg.html)
It is so faintly rough that I can almost polish it out with a fingernail (#2 alloy).

Unsized the boolits are .432 and .435 wide at the seam. As long as the smallest width is more than the final sized width I assume they'll get nice and round in my 450 sizer/luber?

They weigh mostly 259.7-260.2 grains with a handful weighing in at 158.3ish due to a small cavity at the base of the hollow point. Could be the difference in a tight grouping on a 50 yrd target or could affect hunting accuracy? I'll have to try them and see. Certainly when I go to try and get meat next year I'll have some uniform boolits loaded up!

So that's how I did on my 1st try. Any thoughts or suggestions are more than welcome. Thanks again for the tips and knowledge that helped me get this far and not be afraid to go for it.

Kevin

[TMenezes]

Good job! My first time casting HP's wasn't as fun, I opened the mold to fast a few times and the pin tore open the top of the hot lead slug. With NOE and Mihec molds you don't pull the pin so you have to be careful about that. I too use Lyman #2 mixed 50/50 with soft lead rolls from the local metal recyclers.

[TMenezes]

Oh by the way, the less Atimony in HP's the better. Antimony is about the best lead hardener out there for solids but doesn't play nice with HP's. I have heard 20 to 1 works very well.

[Bigslug]

Got to say that I'm in awe of you folks that have not only the patience, but the dexterity to run such things. Picking up and putting down multiple pieces while dealing with molten metal and maintaining critical temperatures would drive me bat poop crazy in short order. Even my handle-whacking stick is more than I like to juggle. That whole pick-everything-up-from-and-put-everything-down-in-the-same-place-every-single-time approach only works for me when every single variable performs the same way every time, and they pretty much never do. Even with sliding/tilting pins - bullets alternate between sticking to the pins, then to the left side of the mold, then to the right, then suddenly falling totally free as intended, which allows the mold temperature to drop below the sweet spot because I am left staring stunned at the occurrence. Suffice to say, a casting "rhythm" with pin molds is part of the art I'm still mastering.

[whisler]

"They weigh mostly 259.7-260.2 grains with a handful weighing in at 158.3ish due to a small cavity at the base of the hollow point".
I assume this is a typo as a 100 gr. "cavity" would not be small. If you did mean 258.3ish then you are indeed doing very well.

[Radarsonwheels]

Oops!

Yeah I meant 2xx grains- it was more like a one grain defect. A 100gn defect would be a heck of a hollow point! 2" mushroom, 3/8" penetration! Honestly Im way more flattered that you read my post carefully than I am embarrassed by my typo- thanks.

I loaded up 50 last nite, sizing to .430 with hornady gas checks and Lyman moly lube. I got the wrong top punch (429) so all my tips had a ridge engraved in them just behind the meplat. I ordered the correct punch but I was eager to shoot and if the shoulder on a SWC doesn't hurt accuracy I went ahead and did 50, trying to keep them consistant.

I didn't do any load development, just seated them to the crimp groove over 19.1gn accurate #9, my normal 240gn cast magnum load or light jacketed charge. Got to thinking it might be a little stiff under the heavier bullet (dropped at 260 for me before GC and lube) and re-checked the Lyman cast handbook. Gulp! .6 over max! And heavily crimped 44 rounds suck to take apart! Well I was only 3.5% over charged so I figured I'd try a couple and look for signs. I am shooting a super blackhawk after all, but I'm always interested in accuracy not hot rodding.

The recoil was stiff but not crazy, primers looked fine not even flat, and the brass was falling out without having to smack it with the rammer. All good! Three cheers for ruger! The groups were around 2" at 25 yards and I shot 18 into a 4 1/2" circle at 50 yards. I have some work to do getting a load together but my crown showed lube, the barrel was clean, and that accuracy would take a deer up to around 75 yards- I'm a happy camper. It's my first time shooting gas checks too!

Here's a 25 yard group
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f324/PhiladelphiaR/57227250-11DC-40EE-9491-8A274D56192F.jpg (http://s50.photobucket.com/user/PhiladelphiaR/media/57227250-11DC-40EE-9491-8A274D56192F.jpg.html)

[Larry Gibson]

Appears you are well on your way. Cast of 16-1 or COWS my 429640BPs weigh 270 gr fully dressed.

Larry Gibson