MP .402 group buy

I just PCd my first run of our .402 group buy HP mold. It's raining here so I figured I wouldn't have that great of coverage. I even used old powder I had sitting it Tupperware wit air soft BBs. I used Smokes powder. First go was traffic purple with black and blue mixed in. I noticed the HP cavities didn't want to have PC stick to them today. I had a few bright specs of bare alloy showing as well. All colors I tried did the same but seemed to flow into the spots but not the HP cavities. Not to worried about the HP areas anyway. I then had some red, Green, and orange mixed from last year or longer. Made a nice brown. I ran out so I dumped some.orange in I had in a another Tupperware tumbling container.

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I'll have to get a .401 lee sizer ordered up! I did get some tinning towards the end of my casting session. I think I scraped most of it out with a wood dowel. I'll have to take it apart for cleaning and run another batch. I have 2 buddies waiting for small flat rate boxes full.to test. I did put a heavy patina on my mold but just end up running them to hot and to long.


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My patina with salt and vinegar fumes before casting...

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My outter pin kept not wanting to release boolits. I did end up spraying a little dry graphite on the pins and spru plate to help with the release. I'll have to debur the pins when I take the mold apart to clean and check for tinning.

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I did get some finning right towars the end. Around the HP area and then by the crimp.groove so I knew I either didn't get the mold shut all the way and or tinning was present. Oh well, what can I say? I like to cast pretty bullets...and hot! Had my lee.4/20 on 8.5 and it still took alot to keep my mold and pins hot consistently so the boolits would drop and not wrinkle. Been a while since I casted anything so I had to get my groove back in order. I'll be loading these in my glock 20. I used 16/1 pure lead and pewter alloy with a BH of 7.5.

GOOD LOOKING BULLETS!!!

I love my MP HP molds.

Get your self a HOT PLATE and a thermo. I rarely need more then 700° and get very few culls using the hot plate. I cast nearly as many HP as I do solids.

CW

Got a hot plate…forgot to try it. Picked one up in a thrift store NIB for $2 or $3 a year or so ago and forgot about it. Need a thermometer though. I never sorted and weighed. Got to excited and wanted to PC them. I found only 3 boolits that I missed with lack of HP fill out. I’ll smash test them. Still got to order a .401 push through sizer so I load and shoot them.

Updated: I weighed one of my 16/1 ally deep HPs after PCing. It weighed 160 grains. I also found out why I had one cavity that would not release a boolit every time. I could not find the issue till I zoomed in on some photos of the mold. The brass edge by one of the HP cavities is damaged or chipped off. It allowed alloy flow into the mold. I have pics of the mold before I casted showing it was pre existing. I sent photos late morning our time to MP hoping they will make it right. Think it’s nighttime there (and Sunday) so hopefully I’ll hear back tomorrow. I have to say There was barely a little tinning in other spots but it wiped off really easy with the patina applied from vinegar and salt fumes. I’ll have to make the patina a new practice with all my brass molds from now on. I haven’t decided to try the penta pins yet but have two buddies chomping at the bit for some of these.. I might have to make another run of them tomorrow using the good cavity.

Those bullets look delicious! Nice job on PC'ing and creativity! Any color will do the job, but I am impressed with yours!

Just heard back from MP. They are sending replacement blocks. Thanks MP!

Polished up the HP pins with mothers today before trying a go with it again. They dropped and released the boolits by themselves for thr first 2/3's of my casting session. After that a quick tap with my glove on the back side of the pins and they dropped right off. I unfortunately still had finning around the HP area. I haven't inspected the mold but will after it cools down. Not worried since MP said they would send replacement halves. They sure look pretty with 16/1 alloy. I will have to do some PC color mixing again.

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Alright...done with PCing batch #2. I mixed Smokes traffic orange, bacon grease, and black for about half. Thought they would turn out more orange but I'm pleased with the outcome.

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And wanted something different for the second half. I first mixed traffic yellow and bacon grease together. Tumbled and rolled in black afterwards in a separate Container. Didn't trip my trigger after baking so I used a Qtip with traffic orange and stuck it in the HP cavities and baked again. Gonna call it Firetiger..
O
or better yet, T Rex color!

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Just waiting on my .401 sizer to show and I'll load a few up and test!!!!

I agree. Not apealing yellow is a tough color.
But highlighted noses is something I also do and
Like the effect!

I do it on different hardnesses from norm. Harder (quenched) or softer to highlite.

CW

My lee .401 size showed today. Ran a boolit through and measured it. It was sizing small at .400. My plan was to hone it to .402 anyways. I used 320 grit wrapped around a pencil and a little oil. I then polished the inside with my drymel. It's at .402 now. I sized about 20 of them and loaded up with 7 grains of unique to shoot a few test loads. I took the load from Lyman 50th and a 165 grain jword. Loaded them at the book size listed at 1.250". I used a lee crimp die to just knock down the bells. They all drop right in my barrel but a few won't fall back our easily. Maybe they are on the verge of just touching the lands. I'll run them the way they are for now. I measured where I knocked down the bells. They are .423 or a little smaller. Maybe I quick fix might be to crimp them a little tighter next time around or shorten the OAL.

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I belled the cases a little to much. These 4 I had to hit my press handle to get it to enter the crimp die. One didn't pass the plunk test. I will shoot the other three out. The one I pulled didn't seem to have boolit crimp damage which shocked me...

https://i.imgur.com/1VtUdqj.jpeg


It's definitely a color I don't plan on repeating.

Well my 10mm doesn't like soft 7.5 alloy. I casted up 2 different coww alloys today. Added 2% pewter to each alloy so I'm guessing I'll end up with 15bh on the harder coww alloy and 13BH with the softer. Made 4 pounds of the harder alloy and PCd purple...

https://i.imgur.com/WcOpPHX.jpeg

And the softer alloy I used my left over orange mix. I also I gave one a smash test to rule out a PC issue...

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With the coww alloys the boolits turned out nice. Frosty and silver looking like always with COWW alloy...

https://i.imgur.com/hkPYdHt.jpeg


Well, I have 20 pounds of the 7.5 boolits casted up and can't use. I'll have either smelt them back down or do some with 40S&W shooters before I do.

Casted up about 7 pounds of 16:1, 11BH today. Must have got some alloy in one of the pins. The mold was hard to open and started to no close on the bottom towards the end so I quit. Looks like the pin halves are shiny. I'll have to clean, polish, and lube them. Hopefully i didn't beagle any. They still looked great!

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Thought NY purple wasn't sticking so I dumped some blue in...


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I had a chance to weigh the 16:1 , 11BH alloy boolits today after I sized them. I knew I was going to have some variance in weight because the blocks had a gap in then towards to end from the mold not shutting. The majority of the them weighed 158.0 to 159.0 grains had a decent amount in the 157. 0 to 157.9 and 159.o to 159.9 grain variance as well.

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