MiHec .45 200g Cramer HP 4 cavity mold.

[USSR]

Finally got around to casting and loading up a few of these fine bullets. The alloy used is my favorite for sub-1k fps hollowpoints: 25:1. The more I cast with Hiha's moulds, the more familiar I become with the little things that they like. Such as, running my Lee Production Pot at a higher temperature and REALLY warming up the mould before starting a casting session. Unlike some of the other moulds of his, there is very little difference weight-wise between the round hollowpoints and the penta points. I made up two loads, both of which had an OAL of 1.180" in Federal brass. The one load consisted of 5.2gr of Solo 1000, while the other was 8.2gr of AA#5. I really like Solo 1000, as it is an economical powder that is VERY clean burning. Both loads listed above are full power loads. I hope to build a Fackler box sometime this summer, and see exactly what kind of terminal performance I am getting from these bullets.

Don

[snuffy]

Don, I just cast some tonight with what I'll call 90 to 1 lead tin. I failed every math class I ever took, and they let me get away with it! But it's 1# of lead free solder,(95-5 five being antimony), in 90 pounds of almost pure lead.

I will load and fire some tomorrow, into a bullet test tube from these folks;

http://www.thebullettesttube.com/

It should be interesting as that dead soft lead is very pliable, it should mushroom well.

[MiHec]

Don, I just cast some tonight with what I'll call 90 to 1 lead tin. I failed every math class I ever took, and they let me get away with it! But it's 1# of lead free solder,(95-5 five being antimony), in 90 pounds of almost pure lead.

I will load and fire some tomorrow, into a bullet test tube from these folks;

http://www.thebullettesttube.com/

It should be interesting as that dead soft lead is very pliable, it should mushroom well.

This should be very interesting.....

[L1A1Rocker]

Don, I just cast some tonight with what I'll call 90 to 1 lead tin. I failed every math class I ever took, and they let me get away with it! But it's 1# of lead free solder,(95-5 five being antimony), in 90 pounds of almost pure lead.

I will load and fire some tomorrow, into a bullet test tube from these folks;

http://www.thebullettesttube.com/

It should be interesting as that dead soft lead is very pliable, it should mushroom well.

I had never heard of the bullet tube before. That's COOL!!! I may be getting one of those for Christmas this year.

[snuffy]

The firing went fine, except for the Texas weather we imported! 93 humid degrees, I'm still trying to get re-hydrated.

Now if I could just get that #@)*^!!+ camera to download, I'd be able to show some fantastic expanded boolits! The bullet test tube worked really well. Surprised at the limited penetration. 5 inches with little or no wound cavity.

The round HP did best, .890 expansion, perfect round disc, expanded back PAST the lube groove.

Penta point expanded to .850, was lop-sided, very uneven expansion, and deviated from going straight in. I had to dig it out of the expansion material,(wax).

There was no sign of any lead being shed by either boolit. In fact, they both weighed in the same average of the boolits I cast last night.

I got 2 test tubes, one is for defensive handgun, the other for non-magnum rifles. I used both today, that might scew the results, as the rifle tube has 4X the material and 2x the diameter. They can only be used once per day, the re-casting takes 24 hours to cool.

Accuracy was pretty good, considering I used my standard 200 grain load of 5.7 WW-231 that was already set-up in the dillon 650. Group size @ 25 yards was around 3 inches, which is about all these old eyes can do. Velocity was in the low 900's. I shot the boolits at 5 paces from the test tubes.

If I get the consarned camera figured out, I'll post pics tomorrow.

[snuffy]

After a knock-down-drag-out-fight with the camera, here's the pics!

Round HP left, penta right.



Same as above.



This is the round HP.



And then the penta point, it curved to one side, so I had to dig for it.





I will test more of these boolits as soon as I figure out how to re-cast the medium. It appears the boys at bullet-test-tube are t!ts up! Their email account returns emails, mailbox full, and their phone is disconnected. I did a search for cardboard tubes, there's a bunch of suppliers that I can order from.

[L1A1Rocker]

Excellent! Thank you very much for posting this. I would imagine I'd get similar results from my 50/50 alloy.

[MajorDude]

Thanks for the great info! Hope we can find bullet-test-tube again.

I shot my first tests from this same type mold today. Just 20 rounds for function in the plinkin' pit, but I'm really juiced about the results! Nary a bobble with my Springfield GI, which I chose because it doesn't feed 200 gr. SWCs well at all. I used all round hollowpoints today. I used Lyman #2 equivalent, sized to .452 and lubed in a Lyman Lubrisizer with a homemade concoction of beeswax, paraffin and STP oil treatment with Crayola for color. I had to seat and taper crimp in separate operations to avoid damaging the boolits. Charge was 4.0 grains of Clays and the accuracy (as near as I can tell with the bitty sights on the Springfield) was great, recoil was decent and best of all, at first look it doesn't look like there's any carbon on the gun at all! Almost all the shells were laying on the ground right behind me. I'm going to load up a bunch and do some accuracy testing next.

This was my first Mihec mold and it sure won't be my last. Like everybody else, I can't say enough good about Miha's product design and quality!

[southpaw]

I tried loading some using bluedot. Suffice it to say I will leave the bluedot for my shotguns. I tried some unique next. Crony decided it wasn't going to work till I was almost done. I got 2 rounds to crony. 1) 6.5 gr 815fps 2) 7 gr 955fps. I loaded some at 7.4gr but didn't have any of them left when the crony decided to start working.

Here is a pic of the 7.4gr shot into mild jugs at 20'. Boolit destroyed 2 jugs and stopped in the 3rd jug. 25-1 alloy round hp.

Sorry for the poor pic. Its the wife's fault, she took the pic. Don't tell her I said that.


Jerry Jr.

[USSR]

Jerry,

Nice to know they expand well with 25:1. That's the same alloy that I use.

Don

[southpaw]

I fired some others into water jugs that were less than 900fps and they went through all 5 jugs. This leads me to think that they did not expand. I loaded some more up with 7.4 gr. of unique. Now I just need to find the time to go out and shoot them.

Jerry Jr.

[MajorDude]

Here's some MP eye candy. Too bad it doesn't look like this anymore!

[L1A1Rocker]

I was just casting with this yesterday and the day before. Day before I was using the penta pins and was having all manner of Heck. Rough opening and closing lots of flashing on the boolits. Then resizing I had some that were very hard going through the resizer. Did some weight comparisons and found the hard ones to resize were 8 grains heavier.

Yesterday I swapped out to the round pins and discovered the problem. About a third of the small pins that go through the mold (the ones that have the little keeper keys on them) were too big in diameter. I wound up taking almost all the pins apart. I would then do a trial fit to see which pins would easily go through the hole in the mold and put a set together for use with the round hollow point pins. No problems at all after that.

I know Miha subs out the pins so I wonder if he got some that were out of spec.

[mstarling]

Anyone start with wheel weight allow and add lead to get a reasonable HP alloy?

Thanks!

[Shooter6br]

Depends on the pin taper. I have 41 mag molds weight out at 225 solid and 215 HP. Also of course youe alloy ( I use mainly 20-1)

[USSR]

Anyone start with wheel weight allow and add lead to get a reasonable HP alloy?

I started out using WW's with lead and a little tin added, but the bullets fractured instead of mushrooming. Now I keep the antimony content down to 1% or less, and the tin content at 4% (essentially 25-1 alloy) and life is good.

Don

[Tazman1602]

Can't say how they shoot yet, just got to cast with this mold last week. Started out with the penta pins and was having all manner of issues with getting the bullets to release from the pins. Took them out and Emory clothed them well and that seemed to help a bit along with running my alloy a bit hotter than i normally would and casting at a fairly rapid rate, got a few hundred nice ones to try but don't expect expansion to be too good.....Lyman #2 is the only mix I have right now and IME HP's hold together much better with close to straight soft lead. With Lyman 2 they tend to shatter.

Now the good. Changed out pins to straight round pins and what a difference! Bullets just fall off of them and I was able to cast a ton of really nice bullets in a very short time as they drop like butter.

Overall VERY happy with another of Miha's high quality molds, can't wait for more!

Art

[mstarling]

Finally got to use the mold today. Did the penta pins as I suspect they'll be the most challenging.

Worked the pins after cleaning the mold thoroughly. Were stiff but smooth.

Preheated the mold to 500F and ran the alloy at 700F measured with a Fluke digital thermometer. Used 60/40 lead/ww to begin with. Don't have a source of tin at the moment.

Need to preheat the mold hotter ... going to try 600F next time.

Mold did limber up well. Did have some difficulty with bullets hanging on to the pins. Will polish the tips before the next casting session. Bet the conical pins are easier to use.

Put about 10 pounds of allow through the mold with initial culling as I went. Have not done the final culling yet. I expect to have 300 or so to play with.

Results are nice. When I get the pin sticking fixed this is going to be a lovely piece of kit!

[mstarling]

Got to size the projectiles cast yesterday. I have an old Lyman 450. The top punch sent with the mold is putting a line on the front of each bullet. I fished around in the drawer and found a punch that does work. Is for a 458 FN rifle bullet ... but it does work.

After resetting the sizer from a throw for the 311-247 rifle bullet, the little hollow point is really easy to size and get a good fill with no excess on the top of the bullet.

Get to play with loads now The fun part!

[tcbnick]

If I may say so
I love these molds but the penta pins were hard to fiqure out. BUT after alittle closer look all they needed was a "trigger job". A fine toothed file to smooth out around the base of the penta part and no more problems. Now do'nt take me wrong these are very good custom molds but sometimes things just need alittle TLC. Heck I had to do trigger jobs on some of my best pistols. Now let me say I bought the .45 and the .44 mould in the last GB my first customs and I do love them and vey happy I did.
Thanks Nick