longbow
02-15-2010, 12:48 AM
Thanks to the generosity of Dale53 and Miha I am the proud owner of one of these wonderful moulds.
I couldn't wait to cast and shoot so like most here I put the pentagonal pins in and set to casting.
I hadn't pre-heated the mould quite enough so got a few rejects until it got up to temperature then it cast flawlessly. The Boolits are beautiful!
I only cast up about 75 keepers just to try them out but will be casting many, many more.
I hot tumble lubed with my homemade lube then loaded these bad boys over 22 grs. of IMR4227. I only loaded up 15 to test since the weather was horrible and I didn't have much time.
The goal was just to shoot a few shots to see how they do but mostly a test of the hollow point expansion.
I got six 1 gallon jugs filled with water, grabbed my Marlin 1894 and headed out to the bush about 20 minutes from home.
I tacked a target on a dead tree and paced off 50 long steps. I took nine shots at the target (8 1/2" x 11" paper with a 3" dot on it). The group is not fabulous at 3" x 4" (6 are in 3" x 1 1/2") but I was shooting offhand, open sights, no support and in driving wind and rain. Under the circumstances, this is probably as good as I can shoot. I am sure the gun and boolit can and will do much better.
More importantly, I lined up the six jugs of water and shot them from about 30 yards. The first jug exploded, the second split badly and the bullet went through all six. I hadn't expected that.
I found the mushroomed boolit in the photo a few feet behind the last jug. Not sure if it also hit a tree and bounced off as the surface is not smooth. It is possible this is one that was shot through the tree the target was on but I don't know how it would have gotten to where it was if so unless it was very acrobatic and bounced!
The other boolit was shot through three jugs that still had about half the water in them and was found with the base flush to the surface of a tree so I dug it out. This one blew the nose right off and the shiny bits of lead were found in the jugs.
That is one explosive hollow point!
I am extremely happy with the mould and will be going to the range to shoot off the bench next time to see how well it will shoot. I am also hoping to do some expansion testing with my Bullet Test Tube. I will reduce loads for that to simulate a hit from longer range. Should be very interesting!
I will have to cast some boolits with the other hollow points too and give them a go. I will have to get more jugs, wet newspaper or whatever ~ that was fun!
Longbow
I couldn't wait to cast and shoot so like most here I put the pentagonal pins in and set to casting.
I hadn't pre-heated the mould quite enough so got a few rejects until it got up to temperature then it cast flawlessly. The Boolits are beautiful!
I only cast up about 75 keepers just to try them out but will be casting many, many more.
I hot tumble lubed with my homemade lube then loaded these bad boys over 22 grs. of IMR4227. I only loaded up 15 to test since the weather was horrible and I didn't have much time.
The goal was just to shoot a few shots to see how they do but mostly a test of the hollow point expansion.
I got six 1 gallon jugs filled with water, grabbed my Marlin 1894 and headed out to the bush about 20 minutes from home.
I tacked a target on a dead tree and paced off 50 long steps. I took nine shots at the target (8 1/2" x 11" paper with a 3" dot on it). The group is not fabulous at 3" x 4" (6 are in 3" x 1 1/2") but I was shooting offhand, open sights, no support and in driving wind and rain. Under the circumstances, this is probably as good as I can shoot. I am sure the gun and boolit can and will do much better.
More importantly, I lined up the six jugs of water and shot them from about 30 yards. The first jug exploded, the second split badly and the bullet went through all six. I hadn't expected that.
I found the mushroomed boolit in the photo a few feet behind the last jug. Not sure if it also hit a tree and bounced off as the surface is not smooth. It is possible this is one that was shot through the tree the target was on but I don't know how it would have gotten to where it was if so unless it was very acrobatic and bounced!
The other boolit was shot through three jugs that still had about half the water in them and was found with the base flush to the surface of a tree so I dug it out. This one blew the nose right off and the shiny bits of lead were found in the jugs.
That is one explosive hollow point!
I am extremely happy with the mould and will be going to the range to shoot off the bench next time to see how well it will shoot. I am also hoping to do some expansion testing with my Bullet Test Tube. I will reduce loads for that to simulate a hit from longer range. Should be very interesting!
I will have to cast some boolits with the other hollow points too and give them a go. I will have to get more jugs, wet newspaper or whatever ~ that was fun!
Longbow