Soft point mould idea...

[geargnasher]

Since we have a great custom mould maker who can do such things, how about having a mould cut with one cavity being just the shape of the nose, or the forward part of the nose of the regular cavity? Then one could cast pure lead noses accurately and insert them into the main cavity later to finish up the boolits. Sort of like the buckshot trick but better, maybe. Being able to "nose pour" the tips and have a rebated, truncated cone shape moulded onto the back might make a better mechanical lock with the boolit body, but nose flashing would need to be accounted for to make sure it wasn't a fight to get the tip inserted into a hot mould.

Gear

[btroj]

For the small number of soft points needed for hunting I will just use a small secondary pot to pour soft into the nose with a dipper then bottom pour the body.

I'm too cheap to buy a mould for just the noses.

Didn't Veral do something like this years back?

[Beagle333]

Well, I ain't gonna give up my HPs, because they look so awesome loaded and also work quite well at energy transfer, but I'd buy one of those, just because I like playing with new things.
:lovebooli


and then I would powdercoat the whole thing. ;)

[geargnasher]

I'm sure somebody has thought of it and probably done it before, I just haven't seen it. It would be a cheap 'n' dirty way around Accurate not offering a HP option "yet". He mentions on the site that he doesn't do nose-pour designs, but I'm sure that depends on the meplat size desired. It would work as a base-pour, too. Until then I guess there's always the "old fashioned way" of SP'ing or even hiring Erik Ohlen to HP an Accurate mould, but I'm not all that fired-up about HPs for hunting.

Gear

[btroj]

I will take a soft point over a hollow point any day. Just as easy to cast and easier to get reliable results from.

[catskinner]

Ideal made molds for nose pieces at one time and I believe NEI also did.

[Tonto]

Yes this has been done, I remember Lyman having a two mould system where you would cast a soft nose then epoxy that onto a hard alloy base. Sounded cool, not sure it worked as well. The run two pots method is easy, somebody also modified a Lee pot to dispense a consistent amount of soft alloy for a nose too. Always room for a better mousetrap though. I wonder if powder coating pure lead bullets would be the next step on expanding cast designs?

[Sweetpea]

Gear, I have seen a picture of the very thing you describe, though I couldn't tell you where it was, been too long ago.

I like the mechanical lock, but as you mentioned, placing the noses back into the hot moulds would be tricky, at best.

[Sweetpea]

Also, brass is probably out, from a mould temp standpoint.

I believe about the only way to run a combo mould would be a two pot system, but you could also just have another mold cut for the noses, cast a bunch up, and then finish out with your harder alloy.

[Beagle333]

I wonder if powder coating pure lead bullets would be the next step on expanding cast designs?The powdercoating will let you slide anything you want down the tube, but it only provides friction protection. If you want it to spin, you also have to have something firm under the thin polyester film to provide some grip on the rifling. I can shoot pure lead at cowboy speeds when coated, but I haven't wanted to try it at magnum loads, at least not enough to spend some quality time unravelling a ChoreBoy pad. :?

[Piedmont]

Veral Smith used to make molds like that and Ross Seifried wrote it up twenty years ago.

[rockrat]

Didn't someone have a dual alloy pot at one time? Dropped a small measure of softer alloy, then you just poured the rest with your harder alloy?


I usually just get the mould to temp, and use my casting ladle with a boolit in it that is about the size of the soft nose I want, and melt it on a small propane burner. Pour the soft alloy, then move to the pot with my harder alloy. Works well enough for the few I might use.

[BABore]

Water drop 50/50 (Pb-WW) alloy, torch anneal the nose in a pan of water. Done!

[Whiterabbit]

I always thought about inserting a boolit into a HP boolit. Why not cast a BPS type boolit with, say, a 29 or 30 cal HP? Then cast some soft 30 cals and press fit.

Or even a HP where the pin matches the ogive of a FB jacketed bullet. Cast, then press the jacketed bullet in backwards. You end up with FN boolit with a brass nose that I can only imagine would aid in splitting the lead boolit apart on impact.

Of course, I can only imagine that at that point meplat kills just fine too. I can imagine...

[FLHTC]

Yes this has been done, I remember Lyman having a two mould system where you would cast a soft nose then epoxy that onto a hard alloy base. Sounded cool, not sure it worked as well. The run two pots method is easy, somebody also modified a Lee pot to dispense a consistent amount of soft alloy for a nose too. Always room for a better mousetrap though. I wonder if powder coating pure lead bullets would be the next step on expanding cast designs?

Yes Lyman did it and back in the late 70's, I owned one. I wasted no time in getting rid of it once the internet became popular. The two halves were epoxied together, making a 240 grain embarrassment to Lyman.
What I did find useful was melting a round ball in a dipper and pour it into a 9mm cavity. Wait a few seconds and follow it up with WW at about 750 degrees. It worked surprisingly well into wet newspaper but to me, it wasn't worth the trouble.

[geargnasher]

Water drop 50/50 (Pb-WW) alloy, torch anneal the nose in a pan of water. Done!

There is that. Kinda makes the rest pointless, no pun intended.

I remember the Lyman glue-on noses, and there was a fellow who made a magnificent handheld contraption to dispense pure and alloy, but I wasn't aware of the LBT project or anyone else's. I'm glad I dredged the concept back up, this history gets lost especially on guys like me who've only been casting for 20 years. Thanks for all the input, gentlemen.

Gear

[BruceB]

Do a search for "softpoint".

This ground has been plowed MANY times, and there are large amounts of discussion and information on the subject of softpoints.

[geargnasher]

I actually did, Bruce, I got the idea for casting points and inserting them in another thread discussion and it occurred to me that a custom mould maker could make a nose-only mould to match. There wasn't much on SP moulds, just the technique.

Gear

[BruceB]

Gear;

If we used an accurately-weighed pure-lead component, it could be melted in the nose area of any mould we might want to use in softpoint version.

Split shot comes to mind.... a given number of a given size will offer us a repeatable nose weight from bullet-to-bullet.

Drop the needed number of shot into the mould, melt it on top of the furnace contents, cool, and VOILA'.... pre-cast soft noses.

I believe I'd give the shot a good rinse in an acetone bath first, in case there's any oil or whatever on them.

[runfiverun]

you definitely want to clean the nose where it joins the body.
the oxidized alloy will make them not stick together so well.

[longbow]

I used to make two piece boolits for my .45-70 using a small dipper with pure lead then a large dipper for wheelweights. Pour the nose then quickly pour the body. I got virtually perfect boolits and could cast them quite fast.

Having said that, I never had trouble if casting hot and using a Lyman 457125 500 gr. mould. However, when I tried it using my Lyman 314299 more recently things did not go well! I had mucho trouble getting a good solid joint with no obvious seam. I am sure that pouring then heating the mould would work but that gets slow.

The goal here was pure lead (or at least very soft) nose and hard driving bands, not just a slightly softer/annealed nose.

I think a two piece boolit using separate nose and body cavities would suffer from the same issues. Probably why Lyman went the epoxy route rather than re-introducing the old Ideal two piece boolit moulds.

Possibly pre-heating noses to near melting then quickly placing them in a hot mould, then pouring the body would work.

Longbow

[nanuk]

....However, when I tried it using my Lyman 314299 more recently things did not go well! I had mucho trouble getting a good solid joint with no obvious seam. I am sure that pouring then heating the mould would work but that gets slow....
Longbow

I think BruceB showed us how to do just that..... slow, maybe, but you only need a few.

[MT Gianni]

I had decent luck with 32 cal rb as noted you need to clean the nose well for adhesion, What I have not tried was to just melt the shot in the mold and remove to be inserted later after an acetone or other good wash into a hot mold. I have fat enough fingers it would be tweezer work but might be worth a shot.

[brstevns]

Didn't someone have a dual alloy pot at one time? Dropped a small measure of softer alloy, then you just poured the rest with your harder alloy?


I usually just get the mould to temp, and use my casting ladle with a boolit in it that is about the size of the soft nose I want, and melt it on a small propane burner. Pour the soft alloy, then move to the pot with my harder alloy. Works well enough for the few I might use. Veral Smith made the pot. Quit making them because he could not make them at a cost efficient price for resale.

[nanuk]

I had decent luck with 32 cal rb as noted you need to clean the nose well for adhesion, What I have not tried was to just melt the shot in the mold and remove to be inserted later after an acetone or other good wash into a hot mold. I have gat enough fingers it would be tweezer work but might be worth a shot.

what would be the advantage with using a solid nose inserted then base poured on it, over just melting the shot, and pouring the base immediately on top of the molten nose?

[rintinglen]

Allegedly, mixing the two molten metals defeats the purpose of having a soft alloy nose. The swirling action is supposed to homogenize the alloys--don't Know, never tried it, but I did try a 358-624 two part Lyman mold.
It was a pain and not worth the effort. It was very difficult to get the noses to cast clean, so they would glue into the base, and since I only had one pot at the time, I had to smelt the soft lead, pour the noses, empty the pot, melt the hard alloy, cast the bases, mix the epoxy, coat the "tail" of the nose and then insert the nose into the body. As I recall, it took me about 5 minutes per boolit, by the time all was said and done. I was shooting 3-600 rounds a week in those days and did not have time to waste on HP wannabees.
IIRC, Lyman made these molds in 38, 44 and 45 caliber, but the only one I ever saw was the afore-mentioned .358-624 which was the property of my shooting buddy Randy.

[rr2241tx]

On page 99 of the 1928 Ideal catalog, mold 457194. It was likely a two mold set as I have an original box with the round nose bullet blocks and there is room for a small block to cast the mushroom tip which I've never had. The idea was that you could cast the mushroom in hard or soft alloy and place them in the second mold to complete the bullet with whatever hardness you needed to avoid leading. I'd venture that one needed to have asbestos fingers or be very dextrous with chopsticks to get that mushroom into hot blocks.

[Changeling]

It's technique, not two molds and NOT rocket science, just simple technique.

Best done by guys that use the dipping cast method, with a main pot and a smaller pot. The main pot is for the pouring of the base, such as what you use to dip/pour regular projectiles.

The secendary pot is for the pouring of the "pure" nose, can be a small pot on a hotplate that will get the pure lead to the HOT melting point where you can use a small dipper like a wire handle with an empty case brazed to it in the amount one wants to use without getting the "PURE" into the driving bands of the bullet.

Then you just pour the nose with your improvised dipper (The ammount of softnose you want), and immediately pour the base from your main pot as one would normally do it, the two will weld together perfectly.
Hint, do not wait from the time you pour the nose till the time you pour the base. 1 then 2 just like that!

[longbow]

You make it sound easy Changeling. For me it was with a large .457" boolit and I never thought twice about it ~ easy, I could cast almost as fast as single alloy boolits.

Not so easy with my small diameter 314299 mould though even running hot. I made several attempts with few successes. I am sure if I used the BruceB method it would work just fine but that is quite slow. Not a big deal for a few hunting boolits but it is if you want to blow stuff up with expanding boolits

As for the two pours mixing, that certainly was not my experience when casting two part 457125's. They had a well defined line between the pure lead nose and wheelweight body and they expanded amazingly well without breaking apart.

I suspect that large diameter handgun boolits would be fairly easy but small boolits and/or small diameter boolits (say .30 cal and under) may not be so easy. My experience anyway.

Longbow

[MT Gianni]

I also tried a 2"x4" pipe nipple as a secondary pot. I put a hook on it after getting one end cherry red beating it together and running a wire feed across the bottom. I hooked it over a warm pot, put soft in it and tried dipping into a hot mold then casting atop the pure. I had adhesion problems. I was a young caster and it may have been technique, or just an inability to keep things level. I remember color variations down the side of the mold, uneven color lines and noses that fell off in a sizer. I am not sure I ran enough bullets through to have a hot mold and I didn't own a hot plate.

[catskinner]

When i cast soft nose bullets I used a bottom pour pot for the hard lead and my Lyman dipper for the soft lead. I've got a Lyman adjustable core mold that I used to cast the nose pieces ahead of time. Set the dipper on a Coleman camp stove with the pre measured soft lead in it. Cast regular bullets till the nose lead was melted then poured it in the mold then the hard lead from the bottom pour pot. Then cast regular bullets til the next nose piece was melted and start the cycle over. Had lots of regular bullets for sight in and practice.

[bosterr]

Has anyone tried this? I had Tom at Accurate Molds make me the 376275B for my 14" Contender in 375 JDJ. It weighs at around 279 gr. I also have a 6 cavity Lee 358-125RF mold. Cast the 358's out of pure lead. The nose of the Accurate is .370 and the 358 lays in there pretty nice with only a difference in diameter of about .010. Pre-heat the 358's on a hot plate shy of pure lead melt temp. I always run the 376 at 820 degrees(PID). I don't have a way of checking mold temp, how hot do you think the .376 mold gets. If the pure lead "nose" melts before you get the mold closed, there would be a mess, of course. Do you think the .010 difference in diameters would allow the WW metal to get past the nose lead the completely fill out the boolit? The 358 is too big to just drop into the closed 376 mold. An appropriate sized pure lead ball or two dropped into the closed mold might be more doable. Lee catalogs a .350 and .360 round ball mold. Just wondering...

[357maximum]

I had Mountain Molds cut me a 2 cavity mold exactly like Gears first post many years back. I did not like the method and ended up selling the mould to that four fingered fella in Australia........I hope he liked it better than I.

Read post #13, ...........all the rest is fluff and mental masturbation..

[Bullshop Junior]

I'm fine with a WFN. My 300gn lee RF will make almost a identical mushroom as the 300gn Hornady XTP shot with the same loads. The boolits are cast from COWW air cooled. Works wonders on anything ive shot with it from my 454.

[Shuz]

Here's what has worked for me..........I use a Lyman 429625 nose point only mould that casts a nose outta pure lead that is allowed to cool, and then in a later casting session with a harder alloy; dropped into an up to temp, 429421 or 429244 or 429650. (Those boolit designs have the same nose profile as the nose only mould from the 429625.) The nose point as cast has a little tale at the base of the nose. It is this little tale that gets melted into and thus bonded to the harder alloy of the 429421,429244 or 429650 as the composite boolit is made. If any of you .44 fans out there would like me to send you a few of the noses already cast from pure lead for trial yourself, please drop me a PM and we'll see what we can work out.

Lots of luck looking for one of those Lyman 429625, 2 part A and B mould kits, I think they were only offered for a couplea years because the idea of gluing the nose to a hollowed out base just didn't hold up to the recoil.

[Changeling]

I hear you Longbow, the method I am talking about is not my idea, it was told to me by a forum member that I just can't remember the name of (really sorry). I have watched as a friend poured to my direction and setup and he had no problems. He was pouring 280 gr +/- for a 44 mag, with the soft point.

Having trouble with the smaller lead projectiles makes sence. The technique works great with large bullets like the .44/45 but I can see where you would have problems on smaller bullet pours since the small nose/amount of lead would cool maybe to fast for a good union. I don't cast small bullets so I don't know!
If you figure something out for the small nose situation please let me know.


You make it sound easy Changeling. For me it was with a large .457" boolit and I never thought twice about it ~ easy, I could cast almost as fast as single alloy boolits.

Not so easy with my small diameter 314299 mould though even running hot. I made several attempts with few successes. I am sure if I used the BruceB method it would work just fine but that is quite slow. Not a big deal for a few hunting boolits but it is if you want to blow stuff up with expanding boolits

As for the two pours mixing, that certainly was not my experience when casting two part 457125's. They had a well defined line between the pure lead nose and wheelweight body and they expanded amazingly well without breaking apart.

I suspect that large diameter handgun boolits would be fairly easy but small boolits and/or small diameter boolits (say .30 cal and under) may not be so easy. My experience anyway.

Longbow

[Henryman]

I have done the two pot method for casting some 45-70 500 grain points. I even clamped a pair of vise grips on the point and shank and twisted several bullets trying to get them to separate with no luck. The short time between pots gave the pure lead enough time to partially set up and the alloys did not mix. I got decent expansion of the nose out of a trapdoor with low pressure loads.

[Wayne Smith]

I have used BruceB's method of two pots on 8mm projectiles and, once I get the rifle working the way I want, I will with the Oldfeller Frankenstein. I got the professors nose first sizing adapter just for this project.

[fredj338]

I will take a soft point over a hollow point any day. Just as easy to cast and easier to get reliable results from.

A cup point deign, Crame style mod, casts just as easy as solids & you cab get very uniform results.
Fwiw, there have been some mold makers that did just as the op noted, cast nose & bullet in same mold. Lyman even had one you cast the base & nose separate & then glue them together.

[Gtek]

This thread reminded me of thoughts I had in regards to something kind of like a soft point. Mold that duplicates your favorite bullet that once past bore into nose ninety degrees into a light taper center shaft to length of say .125" or as needed base. Then make nose section a soft doughnut (expander ring) that would be pressed on. Kind of like those nasty handgun hollow points with center shaft in nose for punching and swelling in cavity creation.

[spfd1903]

The idea of a two alloy, soft point boolit is something I always wanted to make. Acquiring a .44 Mag Ruger SRH and a Lyman 429421 was the tipping point. I made a SWA guess and dropped an 85 grain, .30 caliber pure lead boolit into both cavities of the mold. Kept the sprue plate open and held the mold in the pot until the 85 grain points melted. In one trial, I poured Lyman #2 alloy (with Sprue plate closed) in the remaining space and kept the mold level until cool. The other method was to let the 85 grain points solidify first, then top off with Ly #2, but keeping the whole mass liquid for 4 to 5 minutes by dipping in the pot. Placed the mold level on the bottom of a cast iron pan and let the alloy solidify. The 85 grain boolit formed most of the nose past the end of the driving band. With an LBT hardness tester, the noses of both trials were checked. The first trial resulted in too much mixing because the nose registered 12 BHN. The second trial gave a hardness of 5. The fusion mark was barely visible on the second trial and the nose could not be broken or pulled off. Took an hour to cast twelve. When I get a break from working, I will shoot some of them into wet phone books and see what the results are.

[Bigslug]

...........all the rest is fluff and mental masturbation..

The nice thing about a thread like this - through reading what other people are doing, I receive affirmation that, despite all my concerns to the contrary, I am still sane.:kidding:

[white eagle]

I actually talked to Tom at Accurate about this idea awhile ago
at that time he said that was something he would not be doing