My first hollow point experience... Lyman's 45 express

[c1skout]

Right before Christmas somebody posted in the swap&sell section that Amazon was having a sale on a Lyman mold. I clicked the link but saw I missed out on the posted mold, so I started looking around at what they had available on sale. I bit on a single cavity 45 180gn Devastator (Mr Fryxell mentioned calling them express bullets, I like the sound of that) mold at 30 bucks off the regular price. It came in the mail yesterday so I started schooling myself on how to make hollow points.

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This requires a steep learning curve. I had run almost completely through a 10lb pot of lead before getting my first keeper. Eventually I figured out that I need to keep the pot over 800 and don't stop casting or the pin cools down and the nose doesn't fill out. I cast some from the range scrap that I use for most everything, both air cooled and water dropped. I also made them from a 50-50 mix of range scrap and wheel weights, and from straight (clip on) wheel weights, both air cooled and water dropped. I have no idea what the hardness of my mixes are, but the wheel weight boolits end up weighing just over 200gn. and measure .452-.453 .

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Now I need to load them up and start shooting some water jugs! Anybody have a favorite recipe for these from a 45acp? I can go pretty stout in my Blackhawk, but I hope to keep them around 1100-1200 fps. I've been shooting the Lee 200rf at just under 1100 with accurate #7 powder so I'll probably start working up a load with that powder.

[Bored1]

That's quite the bundle of work you got done there! Nice job, especially with a single cavity

[fredj338]

It's a very good shooting bullet & cast soft, quite explosive on impact, even with smaller targets like jackrabbits.

[c1skout]

Thanks Bored1, that's quite a few hours worth there.
Fredj338 I'm hoping with the wheelweight boolits they're not exactly explosive. I'd like to get a nice mushroom though.

[harley45]

I think you will find the air cooled ones will give you the mushroom you desire!

[WARD O]

With a Lyman single HP mould that is a lot of dedication to your sport! You'd better not try one of the multiple cavity HP's from NOE or Miha.....

I like the 50/50 alloy for HP bullets run slightly over or under 1,000 fps - they seem to open nicely.

Nice job.

[AnthonyB]

I use 6.0 gr Unique in 45 ACP with that bullet.
Tony

[c1skout]

I loaded some up with Accurate #7 to try out.

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same powder charge in each, but 5 rounds for each alloy I had cast, 25 rounds total. I couldn't wait to try some, so I filled up 10 gallon milk jugs with water and went out back to burst some jugs. We ran out of jugs after 5 shots, and only found 3 slugs. My water dropped range scrap/wheel weight mix lost the whole hollow point area and ended up weighing 121.2gn. When we were cleaning up I found another that also lost the nose and weighed 117.3gn. I don't know which blend this was, but I'm guessing one of the water dropped ones. The other slug was the air cooled wheel weight slug. 200.9gn after expanding to .811"

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I've shot this load with other 200gn boolits and it ran 974fps through this gun. I like the ac wheel weights, but I'll keep playing around.