Soft point mould idea...

[geargnasher]

Since we have a great custom mould maker who can do such things, how about having a mould cut with one cavity being just the shape of the nose, or the forward part of the nose of the regular cavity? Then one could cast pure lead noses accurately and insert them into the main cavity later to finish up the boolits. Sort of like the buckshot trick but better, maybe. Being able to "nose pour" the tips and have a rebated, truncated cone shape moulded onto the back might make a better mechanical lock with the boolit body, but nose flashing would need to be accounted for to make sure it wasn't a fight to get the tip inserted into a hot mould.

Gear

[btroj]

For the small number of soft points needed for hunting I will just use a small secondary pot to pour soft into the nose with a dipper then bottom pour the body.

I'm too cheap to buy a mould for just the noses.

Didn't Veral do something like this years back?

[Beagle333]

Well, I ain't gonna give up my HPs, because they look so awesome loaded and also work quite well at energy transfer, but I'd buy one of those, just because I like playing with new things.



and then I would powdercoat the whole thing.

[geargnasher]

I'm sure somebody has thought of it and probably done it before, I just haven't seen it. It would be a cheap 'n' dirty way around Accurate not offering a HP option "yet". He mentions on the site that he doesn't do nose-pour designs, but I'm sure that depends on the meplat size desired. It would work as a base-pour, too. Until then I guess there's always the "old fashioned way" of SP'ing or even hiring Erik Ohlen to HP an Accurate mould, but I'm not all that fired-up about HPs for hunting.

Gear

[btroj]

I will take a soft point over a hollow point any day. Just as easy to cast and easier to get reliable results from.

[catskinner]

Ideal made molds for nose pieces at one time and I believe NEI also did.

[Tonto]

Yes this has been done, I remember Lyman having a two mould system where you would cast a soft nose then epoxy that onto a hard alloy base. Sounded cool, not sure it worked as well. The run two pots method is easy, somebody also modified a Lee pot to dispense a consistent amount of soft alloy for a nose too. Always room for a better mousetrap though. I wonder if powder coating pure lead bullets would be the next step on expanding cast designs?

[Sweetpea]

Gear, I have seen a picture of the very thing you describe, though I couldn't tell you where it was, been too long ago.

I like the mechanical lock, but as you mentioned, placing the noses back into the hot moulds would be tricky, at best.

[Sweetpea]

Also, brass is probably out, from a mould temp standpoint.

I believe about the only way to run a combo mould would be a two pot system, but you could also just have another mold cut for the noses, cast a bunch up, and then finish out with your harder alloy.

[Beagle333]

I wonder if powder coating pure lead bullets would be the next step on expanding cast designs?

The powdercoating will let you slide anything you want down the tube, but it only provides friction protection. If you want it to spin, you also have to have something firm under the thin polyester film to provide some grip on the rifling. I can shoot pure lead at cowboy speeds when coated, but I haven't wanted to try it at magnum loads, at least not enough to spend some quality time unravelling a ChoreBoy pad.

[Piedmont]

Veral Smith used to make molds like that and Ross Seifried wrote it up twenty years ago.

[rockrat]

Didn't someone have a dual alloy pot at one time? Dropped a small measure of softer alloy, then you just poured the rest with your harder alloy?


I usually just get the mould to temp, and use my casting ladle with a boolit in it that is about the size of the soft nose I want, and melt it on a small propane burner. Pour the soft alloy, then move to the pot with my harder alloy. Works well enough for the few I might use.

[BABore]

Water drop 50/50 (Pb-WW) alloy, torch anneal the nose in a pan of water. Done!

[Whiterabbit]

I always thought about inserting a boolit into a HP boolit. Why not cast a BPS type boolit with, say, a 29 or 30 cal HP? Then cast some soft 30 cals and press fit.

Or even a HP where the pin matches the ogive of a FB jacketed bullet. Cast, then press the jacketed bullet in backwards. You end up with FN boolit with a brass nose that I can only imagine would aid in splitting the lead boolit apart on impact.

Of course, I can only imagine that at that point meplat kills just fine too. I can imagine...

[FLHTC]

Yes this has been done, I remember Lyman having a two mould system where you would cast a soft nose then epoxy that onto a hard alloy base. Sounded cool, not sure it worked as well. The run two pots method is easy, somebody also modified a Lee pot to dispense a consistent amount of soft alloy for a nose too. Always room for a better mousetrap though. I wonder if powder coating pure lead bullets would be the next step on expanding cast designs?

Yes Lyman did it and back in the late 70's, I owned one. I wasted no time in getting rid of it once the internet became popular. The two halves were epoxied together, making a 240 grain embarrassment to Lyman.
What I did find useful was melting a round ball in a dipper and pour it into a 9mm cavity. Wait a few seconds and follow it up with WW at about 750 degrees. It worked surprisingly well into wet newspaper but to me, it wasn't worth the trouble.

[geargnasher]

Water drop 50/50 (Pb-WW) alloy, torch anneal the nose in a pan of water. Done!

There is that. Kinda makes the rest pointless, no pun intended.

I remember the Lyman glue-on noses, and there was a fellow who made a magnificent handheld contraption to dispense pure and alloy, but I wasn't aware of the LBT project or anyone else's. I'm glad I dredged the concept back up, this history gets lost especially on guys like me who've only been casting for 20 years. Thanks for all the input, gentlemen.

Gear

[BruceB]

Do a search for "softpoint".

This ground has been plowed MANY times, and there are large amounts of discussion and information on the subject of softpoints.

[geargnasher]

I actually did, Bruce, I got the idea for casting points and inserting them in another thread discussion and it occurred to me that a custom mould maker could make a nose-only mould to match. There wasn't much on SP moulds, just the technique.

Gear

[BruceB]

Gear;

If we used an accurately-weighed pure-lead component, it could be melted in the nose area of any mould we might want to use in softpoint version.

Split shot comes to mind.... a given number of a given size will offer us a repeatable nose weight from bullet-to-bullet.

Drop the needed number of shot into the mould, melt it on top of the furnace contents, cool, and VOILA'.... pre-cast soft noses.

I believe I'd give the shot a good rinse in an acetone bath first, in case there's any oil or whatever on them.

[runfiverun]

you definitely want to clean the nose where it joins the body.
the oxidized alloy will make them not stick together so well.