Separation Anxiety ?

[white eagle]

On casting soft point boolits
Here is what I have done to try to curb this
it all started with my 30-30 Winchester Model 94
I am using a Lyman 311041 180 gr single cavity mold
first I cast the tips out of dead soft lead<I use a cut off 45 colt case with a tie wire handle for a dipper
get the amount that you want for your tip
then I only pour the tips
then I take the tips and drill a small hole in them and chamfer that hole with a flash hole deburring tool from Lyman just to remove any crud and enlarge the opening a bit
after all that I heat up a pot of alloy that is harder< I used wheel weights> and place the tip back into the mold with a gloved hand and pour the harder alloy on top of that producing a Nosler Partition or Swift A Frame type boolit
I think the hole in the tip will make a mechanical bond between the two alloy's, but not resting on that alone I then powder coat the finished boolit to seal these together
This is very time consuming and slow moving but making a box of 20 or so will last you through a hunting season or two

[lar45]

You might try one on several water jugs to see how the react. I'd be interested in some pics of the fired bullets.

[Dusty Bannister]

If you consider that a small hole in the sprue plate will result in rounded bases, I would think your "Small hole drilled in the tip" might not vent and the union would be compromised. Perhaps the largest hole might work better and a straight, not tapered hole might be even better. Any air trapped in the drilled hole would affect the balance of the bullet in a negative manner.

[MarkP]

I have a Accurate 3 cavity mold that has tip a Cavity and two full profiles 358 - 247 and 273 gr. Preheat your tips when putting them back in the mold and run your alloy warmer than normal. My accuracy was never as good with the two piece bullet as compared to a mono cast bullet. The cavities were adjusted for alloy as well. I am on my phone now but will post a picture of my mold and testing if I can find them

[725]

Will love to see the pictures of the shooting results with this one. Have heard, but never tried to drop a pure soft (hot) buckshot in the mold followed by a quick pour with a sustained over flow to heat the mold. Soft tip and regular base.

[HWooldridge]

Wonder if some sort of epoxy would work? You could then handle them cold.

[white eagle]

yeah they do come out rounded I just file those flat and put a dimple on them to start the drill bit
the drill I used on my .310 dia boolit was .062 the finished it up with a .125 with a chamfer so I think that is plenty big for what I am using
not sure of accuracy but will check that out tomorrow

[Mk42gunner]

I had some soft tips break off when I first tried the BruceB method of casting softnoses. I had just used some old dark gray swaged .375 round balls for the soft nose. What I found through trial and error was that it was best to use freshly poured (i.e. non oxidized) balls for the nose.

I still have some from a decade ago, they are still one piece boolits. 452424 with an ~81 grain pure lead nose/ACWW base.

Robert

[charlie b]

I like the idea of pure lead ball dropped in the mold first, then a pour over.

In the old days....there was at least one two piece mold. One of them was made to cast two part bullets. One cavity was the base, the other was the nose. Then you epoxied them together. There was another that had a screw in portion for the nose. Screw it in and cast the nose. Unscrew and lower it, then pour the base.

[MarkP]

305933

My Accurate Mold with tip cavity

[white eagle]

Accuracy was on par with my other ww alloyed boolits
I made a mistake on my first batch and had to re-do them and
I used a harder alloy on the back portion, instead of ww I used monotype
man is that stuff hard had a hard time getting it through my sizer and had to hand lube
with some White Label Lube I had

[Finster101]

I seem to remember Bruce B doing a very good write up on making soft points.

[45_Colt]

I'm not sure about posting this, but recently I read an article about creating duplex bullets. The issue is that I can't find where I read it. This article may have been in Harrison's Cast Bullets book. As I was perusing it in the past few days.

The part that struck me was that once the two bullet halves were together in the mold, is that it was put into the pot. That is until the lead/tin/whatever re-melted.

Then removed and left to cool.

Thus a bullet with a hard base and a soft nose.

45_Colt

[Dusty Bannister]

I have read about doing that, but see no reason to abuse a mold with that kind of heat. There are many that have their special way of forming a soft nose on a cast bullet, but since it is not commonly done, perhaps it is not a necessary practice. That must be why those bullets with extra long gas checks are available.

[white eagle]

I have read about doing that, but see no reason to abuse a mold with that kind of heat. There are many that have their special way of forming a soft nose on a cast bullet, but since it is not commonly done, perhaps it is not a necessary practice. That must be why those bullets with extra long gas checks are available.

yeah but to create something yourself brings a certain satisfaction in itself