26Charlie
04-23-2006, 07:43 AM
Picked up a 6-cavity "pot-belly" Hensley mould for .38 wadcutter on ebay. It is marked Geo. A. Hensley 50358148. I take it to mean the design for the 148 gr. wadcutter, .358 diameter, design #50. It is pre-Hensley & Gibbs, and weighs about 7 pounds.
I have never had a mould for 6-cavity, made of iron. It is a really good workout for the wrist & forearm muscles, I'll tell you. But, you come out with a can full of bullets in a hurry.
As you might imagine, a gang mould this old is a little beat up on the outside - the sprue cutter and the body of the pot belly part are peened from ignorant casters using a metal hammer to cut the sprue, and the edges at the top near the last two or three cavities where the mould is widest open are rounded a little from use and careless closing, but by and large the cavities are still nice and the six bullets come out OK.
Management of this mould is as follows -
I keep 3-in-1 oil on iron moulds for rust prevention, which I smoke off by laying the end or bottom of the mould against the melted lead for a little while. This mould is too big for that, so I laid it on top of the pot - a Lee 20-pound bottom pour with the 4" clearance underneath - and made a tent of aluminum foil around it. By the time the metal was ready to cast, the mould was at nearly the same temperature and had smoked off all the oil. I laid it against a wet rag to cool it enough for the bullets to solidify, and started casting. The first bullets out were heavily frosted, but then they came out nice and shiny.
The trick on filling is to slide the mould along under the spout while it is held open, so the lead streams into each cavity about the same time the runoff in the sprue cutter trough reaches it. Then there are no round-butts.
Cut the sprue fairly quickly, because cutting six bullet sprues when they are fully hard is going to take a lot of beating with the stick. Then put some opening pressure on the handles, so the bottom of the blocks start to open, and give the blocks a sharp rap with the stick. This springs the blocks all the way open and loosens the bullets at the same time, so almost all of them fall right out - one or two might stick a little but one rap of the stick usually gets them out. If I don't do this routine, some stick in one half and some stick in the other, and I have to rap each half several times to get them all out.
I'm looking forward to loading up some .38 Special target & plinking loads, and I'll get some results next week.
I have never had a mould for 6-cavity, made of iron. It is a really good workout for the wrist & forearm muscles, I'll tell you. But, you come out with a can full of bullets in a hurry.
As you might imagine, a gang mould this old is a little beat up on the outside - the sprue cutter and the body of the pot belly part are peened from ignorant casters using a metal hammer to cut the sprue, and the edges at the top near the last two or three cavities where the mould is widest open are rounded a little from use and careless closing, but by and large the cavities are still nice and the six bullets come out OK.
Management of this mould is as follows -
I keep 3-in-1 oil on iron moulds for rust prevention, which I smoke off by laying the end or bottom of the mould against the melted lead for a little while. This mould is too big for that, so I laid it on top of the pot - a Lee 20-pound bottom pour with the 4" clearance underneath - and made a tent of aluminum foil around it. By the time the metal was ready to cast, the mould was at nearly the same temperature and had smoked off all the oil. I laid it against a wet rag to cool it enough for the bullets to solidify, and started casting. The first bullets out were heavily frosted, but then they came out nice and shiny.
The trick on filling is to slide the mould along under the spout while it is held open, so the lead streams into each cavity about the same time the runoff in the sprue cutter trough reaches it. Then there are no round-butts.
Cut the sprue fairly quickly, because cutting six bullet sprues when they are fully hard is going to take a lot of beating with the stick. Then put some opening pressure on the handles, so the bottom of the blocks start to open, and give the blocks a sharp rap with the stick. This springs the blocks all the way open and loosens the bullets at the same time, so almost all of them fall right out - one or two might stick a little but one rap of the stick usually gets them out. If I don't do this routine, some stick in one half and some stick in the other, and I have to rap each half several times to get them all out.
I'm looking forward to loading up some .38 Special target & plinking loads, and I'll get some results next week.