Making my own .452 300gr pc bullet mold

[Brewster6514]

Being a moldmaker/machinist, i decided to try making my own mold for my .460 s&w.
Here is my first test from some blanks i used to see if my weight and diameters come out as I'd like. I got .454 diameter and just a little shy of 300 grains (294), i plan to powder coat these and see what i can get them to do for deer hunting. Let me know what you guys think.326724

[deltaenterprizes]

Looks good!
Did you make a cherry?

[fordwannabe]

What do I think.....I want some. Thats pretty slick.

[KenH]

That looks really good - crimp groove looks just right. Tell us about making the mold - aluminum? Steel? Brass? and how you machined it.

[Sandro_ventania]

Very good!

[Brewster6514]

Made my blanks out of 2 pieces of aluminum, milled square and just clamped them together. Made some graphite electrodes and burnt them with the shops edm. Poured them without a sprue plate and just trimmed off the excess in the lathe.
Once i get what i like for weight and diameter im going to take a used lee mold of a smaller diameter and burn that out with my electrodes.
Hardest part was getting the edm to orbit only while all the way down in the z axis to keep my crimp groove. The machine wanted to orbit in 2 axises at once which would have wiped out my crimp groove.

[country gent]

The charmay (sp) I ran had a flat orbit for doing threads that should work. That sub routine burnt down the radially out.

I used alot of copper electrodes and some carbide ones also. carbon is easy to machine and form.

[Brewster6514]

Yes, same with the ona edm i used to use, this mitsubishi has weird burns that we have never had to tweek before so it was an experience. :mad:

[Brewster6514]

Got my mold finished, the bullets almost fall out of it. They are coming out at .454dia and at 20bhn they are weighing in at 287 before powder coat. Diameter i like since im going to resize them after powder coating to .452, just wish they were at 300 grains like i planned. I figure they will be close enought anyway. Plan on running them somewhere around 1900 fps and figure they will punch through anything I'm going to shoot. 326878

[20:1]

But how do they shoot?

[Brewster6514]

Dont know yet, just cast them and powder coated them. Waiting on my sizing die to come then i can load them up and see how they do.

[Brewster6514]

Got my sizing die and got them sized.
Loaded them with 38.0gr of h110 and am getting 1600fps with no issues and a little bit of a thump in the hand. Was hopimg to get 1900fps but i like how these feel shooting and i didnt when i went up to 39.0gr. Those thumped real hard and had one heck of a muzzle blast. So i think 1600 will be good enough. Now to see how they group.327034

[boatswainsmate]

I use CFE Black in the 460 with good results. I haven't had chance to put any across my LabRadar yet.