Hollow Point Pin Heater

[HeavyMetal]

Had an idea last week and put it into play this week end.

I have several HP molds and have had fair to not so fair success with using them. As I'm sure others have found out keeping the pin hot enough for good fill out is a challange.

Now I've seen several suggestions: dipping the pin each time, a little wire rack to hold the pin in the alloy between fillings, even the continuous running propane torch to wave the pin in before you make a pour.

Each of these ideas has some merit but also many pitfalls. Dipping the pin always left some crud on the pin, the wire rack worked until the alloy level dropped to the point it wouldn't touch the pin plus it made the whole thing hot not just the pin!

The propane torch just plain scares me!

So here's an idea I will try out today and maybe others might be interested?

I purchased a cheap hot plate out of Wal Grens for keeping my 6 banger Lee's hot during casting. I put a 1/4 inch thick steel plate on the "burner" and heat it up. Set on medium or so it works great and keeps the molds at constant temp
which reduce's scrap from poor fillout or weight variation.

By welding a steel cylinder about an inch long, and an inch in diameter, with a hole in it to match pin diameter, to the same steel plate I can now use the hot plate next to my diping pot to keep the pin hot!

I figure the steel pin holder will act as a "chimney" and direct heat from the tip of the pin up and keep it at the right temp! I did cut the holder to the length of the pin so that the tip just touch's the steel plate it's welded to.

The idea being to help conductive heat transfer from the plate to the tip of the pin.

I plan to heat up my Lyman dipper pot this morning and make some 429421 HP's and see how this works.

I will post my results later today!

[HeavyMetal]

Just finshed making a few hundred 429421 HP's using my Pin Heater.

This thing is Wicked!

Once the alloy was melted I took a pair of vise grips and grabbed hold of my pin heater. I waved the flame from a propane torch across it for a few minutes and then dipped three corners of the plate itself into the pot full of alloy until no lead stuck to it.

I then put the pin heater plate on my hot plate and turned it on medium put the HP pin in it's hole and set the mold next to it to heat up. Then started casting with a 38 S&W mold I got a few months ago.

After I had made a hundred or so with the 38 mold, it's also a single cavity mold, I figured the 429421 was ready to try out.

First boolit cast was perfect!

I have no idea how many I made but not one was rejected because of improper fillout of the nose section!

Since I quench cast I have dumped the water and poured the boolits out on a towel to dry. When thats done I will sort and count both the 38 S&W's and the 429421 HP's and get an accurate count of total production and how many I scrap because of imperfections that might cause inaccurate grouping.

This is a huge improvement over the last time I used this 429421 HP mold. On that ocassion I belive I put about half or more back in the pot because the nose was jacked up!

If anybody has been having problems getting an HP mold to do what you want this pin heater idea is they way to go!

[HeavyMetal]

OK here are the stats on todays casting effort.

I started with a 38 S&W mold, Lyman 35864. This was the second time I'd used this mold since it's e bay purchase. I'd made a small run earlier this year and had trouble with base fillout. I'd taken the time to make sure the plate was flush and then took a very fine file and beveled the top of the mold blocks in an effort to add one more vent line.

As I started casting I realized that I still had the same problem: a slightly rounded edge at the base of the mold right at the sprue plate. It wasn't always in the same place and it wasn't always the same size but it was consistant!

On a whim I dipped my sprue plate in the melt, that part of it that is supposed to be struck when opening the mold and I dipped it all the way to the block!

Bingo! The next boolit cast had a perfect base! As long as I dipped the sprue plate in that fashion I never had another base issue.

Final talley for the 35864 mold? 87 cast 23 rejected because of faulity base fill out.

The rest of these will get sent to a site member who requested some 38 S&W boolits to try out in his Break top H&R.

When I switched to the 429421 HP mold I continued dipping the sprue plate for a 5 count each time before I poured, then pulled the pin from my heater gizmo installed it in the mold and poured.

The difference this makes? I cast 158 boolits from the 429421 mold and rejected 9! Interesting that 8 were from base issues and only two were for faulty HP fillout!

I figure any day I learn something is a good day! I will remember the sprue plate trick in the future!

I hope my experiment with the pin heater helps someone else out with a mold problem HP or not!

[Catshooter]

Excellent reoprt Heavy. Thanks for the tip on dipping the sprue handle, that's a good idea. I've got an old Lyman 454424 that didn't want to fill out the base either from time to time. I'll give that a try.

By the way, what diameter is the 35864 casting at? What alloy?


Cat

[HeavyMetal]

the 35864 is coming out of the mold at .360 - .361 depending on where I measure!

The alloy is clip onWW and 2%tin weight is 141 grains

So far I've had real good luck with this in an old H&R 38 S&W. ddly I bought a 38 slim mold that poped up in the swap and sell section those boolit only weigh 100 grains or so but measure a full .361 all the way around the 38 S&W really likes that boolit and I didn't think it would because of the weight!

[Mavrick]

I just got my hollow-pointed mold back, and finally got a chance to try it out.
Frankly some of the solutions I've heard about lately give me chills.
I started pouring, trying to get good results, with the least amount of trouble.
It seems that the consensus is the the pin must be kept "warm."
I cast outside, on my pickup tailgate(gives new meaning to tailgate-party) and I use an RCBS bottom-pour. The mold is an RCBS .41210KT(HP), the alloy is ww+2%tin.
I ran the pot up to 800*, and fluxed. After the first few boolits to heat the mold, they started dropping right out. The thought of holding the pin in the flame for "minutes" seemed counter-productive. I started casting as fast as I could, which isn't THAT fast, but it is steady. As soon as the puddle "freezes," I knock the spue-plate, twist the HP handle, pull that, open the mold and knock the slug free. As the boolit is bouncing on the folded towel, the mold is closed, and the spue-plate is pivoted back, all in one move. Since the mold is now on it's side, I'm inserting the HP-pin, and twisting the mold back under the pour-spout. Every 5-10, I give melt a stir with my ladle(actually, a large serving-spoon that's had recontouring done.)
If I were holding the pin in a torch-flame, the time spent would be enough to cast about 5-10 boolits. Ya gotta keep movin', OR to rest for a few seconds, leave the boolit in, as ya do.
OK,OK- My wrists are the size of the average person's ankle, but you get the idea.
Have fun,
Gene

[DLCTEX]

Why stir the melt if it is a bottom pour? That would seem to just expose more melt to air to oxidize. Did the boolits fill OK? I assume they did, but what percentage of rejects did you have?