A few weeks ago I found a Hoch nose pour mould for sale on another forum - .45 Creedmoor style - 540 grains. The gentleman selling it had cast a few boolits with it, but he had decided to shoot .40 caliber due to age and perhaps shoulder issues and wanted sell the mould. A great deal as he included the handles as well!
The Hoch boolit looked nearly identical to my Saeco 745 which I’ve had good results with in BPCR silhouettes and long range - so thought I’d give it a try. I have read forum threads (mostly here) that nose pour moulds could be difficult and one tip they nearly all had was to pour hot. I usually cast at 800 to 850 depending on the mould, so that wasn’t a change.
The mould looked clean when I received it, so I fired up the pot and started ladle pouring. It took 15 to 20 throw backs until the blocks got up to temp, after that they started looking great. I couldn’t drop a bad boolit. The drive bands were filled out and square, and the bases were flat and sharp edged (I believe the main selling point of nose pour moulds). The higher quality of this mould (compared to my other ones) was apparent as I was using it.
After a few over a hundred, I quit. Only threw about three back in the pot and those were for imperfections caused by something in my alloy. Nearly every boolit weighed in at 540.x to 541.x grains - a good spread for me. Unfortunately, Dave Farmer no longer makes these fine moulds, so to get another I’ll have to scour the classifieds. I believe some of the custom mould makers still offer nose pour models - they are usually a little more expensive.
Mostly wanted to share my good experience today at the bench with a new to me piece of equipment. Now to see if I can remember how to post photos.
Cheers -
DP
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