Volume Casting with Hensley & Gibbs 10 Cavity #50 PB

[Texasflyboy]

Time: 47 minutes.
No. of Sprues: 72
No. of reject bullets: 2
Net Casting Amount: 72 x 10 - 2 = 718

The mould is a ten cavity plain base Hensley & Gibbs #50 for .38 Special Wadcutter. It's a Murphy, OR mould.

I cast with my big bottom pour pot, the temperature setting on the old analog temperature contoller is set to 675F, with a drift range of plus or minus 25F.

I preheated the mould on an electric hotplate (WalMart) set on high for about 20 minutes. After about 10-15 casts, I cool the sprue plate on a dripping wet towel and briefly clasp the wet towel between the mould blocks to drop the temperature when I start to get smearing on the bases.

Other than those precautions, I just press the foot pedal and cast until I get tired. Which does not take long. I rarely cast more than an hour because I just get worn out from swinging that 10 cavity block back and forth to the towel.

No water quenching, as the alloy is almost pure lead with 5 1lb. spools of pure tin solder tossed in for fillout. These are destined to be loaded in .38 Special Wadcutter cases with 3.5 grains of Bullseye and a light crimp.

700 wadcutters is enough to feed my .38 Wadcutter needs for about two weeks, then I have to do it again.

The projectiles are loaded as cast, tumble lubed with Lee Liquid Alox and set on a cookie sheet to dry for about three days before loading.


Pic:

http://hgmould.gunloads.com/a/H&G50_2.jpg


Link to Larger Pic (http://hgmould.gunloads.com/a/H&G50.jpg)



http://hgmould.gunloads.com/a/dog.jpg

Quality control and security provided by my ASPCA rescue mix "Whisper" who makes sure I take a break and don't stay too long in the basement....:-P

[jsizemore]

How much tin are you adding to your alloy?

[Texasflyboy]

I add 1lb spools at a time to whatever is in the pot until I get the fillout I want. I rarely add more than a couple to three before I am there. I added 5 tonight because it was a fresh pot of pure lead.

[Echo]

Great Zot! You are running a least 25% Sn! GREAT ZOT!

[Texasflyboy]

5 lbs of tin to 50lbs of lead is 10%. The pot capacity is somewhere around ~170lbs of lead. I rarely fill it up anymore. The next one I build is going to top out at 60 to 70 lbs.

[fecmech]

You must have arms like Popeye after casting with that mold! I've got a San Diego #50 4 banger that I use, IMO the #50 is the best .38 cast WC going. My casting sessions are very similar to yours in that I only want to cast about 1 hour at a time. Love those H&G molds!

[Tom Krein]

Looks like you made good use of your time!!

I love the dog looking in the window!

Tom

[Bret4207]

I have the same mould. I've only used it twice. When you turn out thousands of boolits in an hour you tend not to use the mould much.

[Texasflyboy]

When you turn out thousands of boolits in an hour you tend not to use the mould much.

Exactly. I rarely have time to cast during the week and when I do, it's only for about two hours at night. I turn the big lead pot on, in 20 mins or so it's ready to cast. Cast for about an hour and then flip the off switch. I have enough time to hang around the basement to insure that the pot isn't going to cause problem with all that heat wafting off. By two hours, I am done.

The next night I tumble lube and set out the cookie sheets to dry in front of a box fan. 24 hours later I am ready to load.

If I start on Monday, by Wednesday evening I can load enough to shoot on our regular Thursday night shooting session at the local indoor range.

For me, it's about adapting my needs to the time available. I didn't have a 10 cavity #50 until 4 months ago (or so). Up until then I was using a 4 cavity and I was running out of bullets long before I was ready to stop shooting.

The 10 cavity keeps me ahead of the game.

[Dale53]

Texasflyboy;
I have an H&G six cavity mould for the #251 dbl ended wadcutter. It is really heavier than I like but...

I pre-heat it on a hotplate while my RCBS pot is heating. When the bullet metal is up to heat, the mould is up to heat.

I can run 21 lbs of bullet metal in an hour to an hour and a half. That's about 980 bullets. THEN I quit. I am too tuckered out to continue - one pot at a time is enough with that heavy mould. It weighs nearly five lbs. I can hardly imagine how fatiguing the use of a ten cavity mould would be.

I will say one thing about those H&G Moulds, they sure do cast good bullets. I have several of them (two to six cavities) and treasure them all.

Dale53

[alamogunr]

I've got a 4 cavity H&G #50 that I've had for several years but never got around to using until a couple of weeks ago. It does make good boolets. I was setting up a hot plate to pre-heat molds and wanted to see how long it took for an iron mold vs. an aluminum mold. I use a 3/8 thick aluminum plate on the hot plate. I don't trust any mold on the bare coils.

I haven't turned up the heat to high yet. That would probably make a difference. Not sure I would do that with an aluminum mold though.

John
W.TN

[Swede44mag]

You didn't say how much it cost. I bought a H&G 10 cavity new many years ago and it was between $250.00 & $300.00 in a 158 gr Bevel Base. Never tried cooling it off with a towel I just slow down my casting.

I also have a #68 I think it is a 6 haven’t looked at it for years. A use to be friend used a wire wheel to clean it up and trashed the mold.

I also have one in 9mm can’t remember how many cavities though 4 or 6.

The H&G molds are great too bad they went out of business.
I tried to deal with the business that supposedly makes the same molds now but got no ware.

[44fanatic]

Washer explains the nice clean bullets and easy of tumble lubing.

[Texasflyboy]

Washer explains the nice clean bullets and easy of tumble lubing.

LOL. Yeah.

I take it you're single....or about to be?


:kidding: