Soft point mould idea...

[longbow]

I used to make two piece boolits for my .45-70 using a small dipper with pure lead then a large dipper for wheelweights. Pour the nose then quickly pour the body. I got virtually perfect boolits and could cast them quite fast.

Having said that, I never had trouble if casting hot and using a Lyman 457125 500 gr. mould. However, when I tried it using my Lyman 314299 more recently things did not go well! I had mucho trouble getting a good solid joint with no obvious seam. I am sure that pouring then heating the mould would work but that gets slow.

The goal here was pure lead (or at least very soft) nose and hard driving bands, not just a slightly softer/annealed nose.

I think a two piece boolit using separate nose and body cavities would suffer from the same issues. Probably why Lyman went the epoxy route rather than re-introducing the old Ideal two piece boolit moulds.

Possibly pre-heating noses to near melting then quickly placing them in a hot mould, then pouring the body would work.

Longbow

[nanuk]

....However, when I tried it using my Lyman 314299 more recently things did not go well! I had mucho trouble getting a good solid joint with no obvious seam. I am sure that pouring then heating the mould would work but that gets slow....
Longbow

I think BruceB showed us how to do just that..... slow, maybe, but you only need a few.

[MT Gianni]

I had decent luck with 32 cal rb as noted you need to clean the nose well for adhesion, What I have not tried was to just melt the shot in the mold and remove to be inserted later after an acetone or other good wash into a hot mold. I have fat enough fingers it would be tweezer work but might be worth a shot.

[brstevns]

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.

Veral Smith made the pot. Quit making them because he could not make them at a cost efficient price for resale.

[nanuk]

I had decent luck with 32 cal rb as noted you need to clean the nose well for adhesion, What I have not tried was to just melt the shot in the mold and remove to be inserted later after an acetone or other good wash into a hot mold. I have gat enough fingers it would be tweezer work but might be worth a shot.

what would be the advantage with using a solid nose inserted then base poured on it, over just melting the shot, and pouring the base immediately on top of the molten nose?

[rintinglen]

Allegedly, mixing the two molten metals defeats the purpose of having a soft alloy nose. The swirling action is supposed to homogenize the alloys--don't Know, never tried it, but I did try a 358-624 two part Lyman mold.
It was a pain and not worth the effort. It was very difficult to get the noses to cast clean, so they would glue into the base, and since I only had one pot at the time, I had to smelt the soft lead, pour the noses, empty the pot, melt the hard alloy, cast the bases, mix the epoxy, coat the "tail" of the nose and then insert the nose into the body. As I recall, it took me about 5 minutes per boolit, by the time all was said and done. I was shooting 3-600 rounds a week in those days and did not have time to waste on HP wannabees.
IIRC, Lyman made these molds in 38, 44 and 45 caliber, but the only one I ever saw was the afore-mentioned .358-624 which was the property of my shooting buddy Randy.

[rr2241tx]

On page 99 of the 1928 Ideal catalog, mold 457194. It was likely a two mold set as I have an original box with the round nose bullet blocks and there is room for a small block to cast the mushroom tip which I've never had. The idea was that you could cast the mushroom in hard or soft alloy and place them in the second mold to complete the bullet with whatever hardness you needed to avoid leading. I'd venture that one needed to have asbestos fingers or be very dextrous with chopsticks to get that mushroom into hot blocks.

[Changeling]

It's technique, not two molds and NOT rocket science, just simple technique.

Best done by guys that use the dipping cast method, with a main pot and a smaller pot. The main pot is for the pouring of the base, such as what you use to dip/pour regular projectiles.

The secendary pot is for the pouring of the "pure" nose, can be a small pot on a hotplate that will get the pure lead to the HOT melting point where you can use a small dipper like a wire handle with an empty case brazed to it in the amount one wants to use without getting the "PURE" into the driving bands of the bullet.

Then you just pour the nose with your improvised dipper (The ammount of softnose you want), and immediately pour the base from your main pot as one would normally do it, the two will weld together perfectly.
Hint, do not wait from the time you pour the nose till the time you pour the base. 1 then 2 just like that!

[longbow]

You make it sound easy Changeling. For me it was with a large .457" boolit and I never thought twice about it ~ easy, I could cast almost as fast as single alloy boolits.

Not so easy with my small diameter 314299 mould though even running hot. I made several attempts with few successes. I am sure if I used the BruceB method it would work just fine but that is quite slow. Not a big deal for a few hunting boolits but it is if you want to blow stuff up with expanding boolits

As for the two pours mixing, that certainly was not my experience when casting two part 457125's. They had a well defined line between the pure lead nose and wheelweight body and they expanded amazingly well without breaking apart.

I suspect that large diameter handgun boolits would be fairly easy but small boolits and/or small diameter boolits (say .30 cal and under) may not be so easy. My experience anyway.

Longbow

[MT Gianni]

I also tried a 2"x4" pipe nipple as a secondary pot. I put a hook on it after getting one end cherry red beating it together and running a wire feed across the bottom. I hooked it over a warm pot, put soft in it and tried dipping into a hot mold then casting atop the pure. I had adhesion problems. I was a young caster and it may have been technique, or just an inability to keep things level. I remember color variations down the side of the mold, uneven color lines and noses that fell off in a sizer. I am not sure I ran enough bullets through to have a hot mold and I didn't own a hot plate.

[catskinner]

When i cast soft nose bullets I used a bottom pour pot for the hard lead and my Lyman dipper for the soft lead. I've got a Lyman adjustable core mold that I used to cast the nose pieces ahead of time. Set the dipper on a Coleman camp stove with the pre measured soft lead in it. Cast regular bullets till the nose lead was melted then poured it in the mold then the hard lead from the bottom pour pot. Then cast regular bullets til the next nose piece was melted and start the cycle over. Had lots of regular bullets for sight in and practice.

[bosterr]

Has anyone tried this? I had Tom at Accurate Molds make me the 376275B for my 14" Contender in 375 JDJ. It weighs at around 279 gr. I also have a 6 cavity Lee 358-125RF mold. Cast the 358's out of pure lead. The nose of the Accurate is .370 and the 358 lays in there pretty nice with only a difference in diameter of about .010. Pre-heat the 358's on a hot plate shy of pure lead melt temp. I always run the 376 at 820 degrees(PID). I don't have a way of checking mold temp, how hot do you think the .376 mold gets. If the pure lead "nose" melts before you get the mold closed, there would be a mess, of course. Do you think the .010 difference in diameters would allow the WW metal to get past the nose lead the completely fill out the boolit? The 358 is too big to just drop into the closed 376 mold. An appropriate sized pure lead ball or two dropped into the closed mold might be more doable. Lee catalogs a .350 and .360 round ball mold. Just wondering...

[357maximum]

I had Mountain Molds cut me a 2 cavity mold exactly like Gears first post many years back. I did not like the method and ended up selling the mould to that four fingered fella in Australia........I hope he liked it better than I.

Read post #13, ...........all the rest is fluff and mental masturbation..

[Bullshop Junior]

I'm fine with a WFN. My 300gn lee RF will make almost a identical mushroom as the 300gn Hornady XTP shot with the same loads. The boolits are cast from COWW air cooled. Works wonders on anything ive shot with it from my 454.

[Shuz]

Here's what has worked for me..........I use a Lyman 429625 nose point only mould that casts a nose outta pure lead that is allowed to cool, and then in a later casting session with a harder alloy; dropped into an up to temp, 429421 or 429244 or 429650. (Those boolit designs have the same nose profile as the nose only mould from the 429625.) The nose point as cast has a little tale at the base of the nose. It is this little tale that gets melted into and thus bonded to the harder alloy of the 429421,429244 or 429650 as the composite boolit is made. If any of you .44 fans out there would like me to send you a few of the noses already cast from pure lead for trial yourself, please drop me a PM and we'll see what we can work out.

Lots of luck looking for one of those Lyman 429625, 2 part A and B mould kits, I think they were only offered for a couplea years because the idea of gluing the nose to a hollowed out base just didn't hold up to the recoil.

[Changeling]

I hear you Longbow, the method I am talking about is not my idea, it was told to me by a forum member that I just can't remember the name of (really sorry). I have watched as a friend poured to my direction and setup and he had no problems. He was pouring 280 gr +/- for a 44 mag, with the soft point.

Having trouble with the smaller lead projectiles makes sence. The technique works great with large bullets like the .44/45 but I can see where you would have problems on smaller bullet pours since the small nose/amount of lead would cool maybe to fast for a good union. I don't cast small bullets so I don't know!
If you figure something out for the small nose situation please let me know.

You make it sound easy Changeling. For me it was with a large .457" boolit and I never thought twice about it ~ easy, I could cast almost as fast as single alloy boolits.

Not so easy with my small diameter 314299 mould though even running hot. I made several attempts with few successes. I am sure if I used the BruceB method it would work just fine but that is quite slow. Not a big deal for a few hunting boolits but it is if you want to blow stuff up with expanding boolits

As for the two pours mixing, that certainly was not my experience when casting two part 457125's. They had a well defined line between the pure lead nose and wheelweight body and they expanded amazingly well without breaking apart.

I suspect that large diameter handgun boolits would be fairly easy but small boolits and/or small diameter boolits (say .30 cal and under) may not be so easy. My experience anyway.

Longbow

[Henryman]

I have done the two pot method for casting some 45-70 500 grain points. I even clamped a pair of vise grips on the point and shank and twisted several bullets trying to get them to separate with no luck. The short time between pots gave the pure lead enough time to partially set up and the alloys did not mix. I got decent expansion of the nose out of a trapdoor with low pressure loads.

[Wayne Smith]

I have used BruceB's method of two pots on 8mm projectiles and, once I get the rifle working the way I want, I will with the Oldfeller Frankenstein. I got the professors nose first sizing adapter just for this project.

[fredj338]

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

A cup point deign, Crame style mod, casts just as easy as solids & you cab get very uniform results.
Fwiw, there have been some mold makers that did just as the op noted, cast nose & bullet in same mold. Lyman even had one you cast the base & nose separate & then glue them together.

[Gtek]

This thread reminded me of thoughts I had in regards to something kind of like a soft point. Mold that duplicates your favorite bullet that once past bore into nose ninety degrees into a light taper center shaft to length of say .125" or as needed base. Then make nose section a soft doughnut (expander ring) that would be pressed on. Kind of like those nasty handgun hollow points with center shaft in nose for punching and swelling in cavity creation.