HP a WC mould? Good idea or bad?

[Tristan]

I was looking online at an auction site, searching for a single cavity mould to send off for HP'ing when I saw a Ideal WC mould and had an evil thought; would that make a good candidate for HP'ing? Generally accurate, the 358495 might make a great HP for potting the occassional varmit, so's I thinks...

Anybody know if this been done before?

Good idea or bad?

Thanks!!!

[Thin Man]

This sounds interesting, and it makes me remember the "hollow base WC's" we used to consume in quantity in PPC and similar competition. Several of us would invert the boolit to create a flat base, wide-mouth HP load. We had to use caution with the seating depth, so it would not generate excess pressures, even with medium charge loads. Another problem was with seating the boolit out of the case to provide extra powder space in the case, we ran into the forcing cone of the cylinders. Just took a bit of experimenting to get things to balance out, but these sure were fun. These were factory bought boolits, rather soft, gave fine HP expansion at modest speeds. You could experiment with your alloy to get a good working metal for your purposes. All this sounds like great fun with your own mold - would be interested to hear it you get this one up and running.

Thin Man

[Tristan]

Yep, that's the inspiration, I think.

I remember reading some articles about users loading the HBWC's backwards, and seated out over some fast powder; the concerns you mention were serious considerations...

If I were to do this, I would have a tapered, and smaller cavity than in the HBWC, say half the volume and only about 1/3 the depth of the slug.

Cast at about 50/50 WW/Lead, pinch of tin for casting; or perhaps either 16:1 or 20:1 Lead/Tin for smooth expansion...

Just from eye-balling it, it looks like you could seat out to the first lube ring, and have a devastating varmit killer.

I guess those HBWC's do have one advantage, though: their cheap and fast (read: already made...)

[Buckshot]

................Caution with storebought soft HBWC's shot reversed as HP's. If heavy loads are used you can blow the center of the boolit out leaving a lead cylinder stuck in the barrel someplace.

There shouldn't be a problem shooting a HPWC if cast of AC-WW or maybe a tad softer with hotter loads. I've never altered a WC bullet mould for a HP pin, but I did make a swage die set for swaging boolits into a HB-WC or HB-SWC.

http://www.fototime.com/069CB1A7DC6AF34/standard.jpg

On the extreme right is a swaged HB-WC reversed and seated. Not a very long ranged design :-)

....................Buckshot

[Leftoverdj]

Buckshot, I made up a replacement center pin for a Lyman .41 HBWC mould to make super HPs. It worked wonderfully.

[Bucks Owin]

I lucked onto a used Lee .358" HP mould the other day that drops beautiful HPs of about 140 grs. I especially like the fact that there is no messin' around with plugs with Lee HP moulds, the "plug" stays on the mould and the blocks close around it.....

FWIW,

Dennis

[HiWayMan]

something similiar to the Backwards HBCW is the Safestop bullets made by Fuzzy. Is there a way to cast a slit in the nose of a WC rather than a HP.

[floodgate]

HiWayMan:

"Is there a way to cast a slit in the nose of a WC rather than a HP?"

Yes, it's an old idea; here's an illustration from an old Ideal Handbook from the 1890's. Sketch "D" shows a the results of a four-way slit, but as in "E" you can get a two-way one by pinching a small strip of paper (like, from a paper shredder) between the mould blocks (experiment to see whether clear out at the tip or a bit back leaving the nose solid works best). Of the other designs, "A" shows a .50-70 bullet with a BIG HP that would accept a .22 blank; DON'T try this in a tubular magazine! "B" shows the results, and "C" shows the (then new) #457122 Gould HP, still in the Lyman / Ideal line. Let us know how it works out.

floodgate

[HiWayMan]

Well now, I hadn't thought of the paper method. In the end it may just be easier to make a jig for use on the band saw or jig saw. Couldn't be any slower than trying to orient a piece of paper onto a set of hot mould blocks.

[45 2.1]

If you put the paper below the end of the nose leaving a connected strip at the nose, it will delay explosive expansion somewhat.

[David R]

The piece of paper will always be centered. A bansaw slit will never be centered.

David

[MT Gianni]

I have an old american rifleman from 1969 that a writer describes this using check paper blanks but warns never to have anyone in front of you as the occasional bullet splits at the muzzle and goes at an odd tangent. that was enough to put me off. Gianni.