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Thread: Hollow Pointing A Cheap Lee Two Cavity Mold

  1. #1
    Boolit Master
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    Hollow Pointing A Cheap Lee Two Cavity Mold

    I recently bought what I thought was a Lee six cavity 125 grain 9mm round nose bullet mold.

    I thought I'd gotten a smoking deal on it too but, it turns out I didn't read the item description close enough and it turned out to be the two-cavity version of this bullet design.

    My mistake
    . I didn't return it so I decided to cast with it to see what kind of bullets it would give me. The bullets looked really good but the weights I was getting, no matter what alloy I cast with was 130-plus grains.

    Originally I wanted to buy a 9mm bullet mold that dropped 115 grain cast bullets. That grain weight falls closer in line with the carry ammo I generally have in my magazines.

    So, I decided to do the same thing with this mold that I had done with my recently sold Lyman 45 caliber Devastator single cavity mold. I fabricated some adjustable hollow pointing spuds and reamed out my little Lee Two cavity mold.

    In theory, and in practice it allows me to adjust the weight and even to adjust the amount of expansion I can get from a given cast bullet.

    Deeper hollow point cavities equal a lighter weight bullet and more expansion. This allows me to get those 115-grain cast hollow point bullets I was after in the first place; without paying an arm and a leg for a custom mold.

    When I did my first casting session with this newly hollow pointed Lee 9mm two cavity mold, I was able to adjust the hollow pointing stem in and out to give me some hollow pointed bullets that weighed from 112 to 126 grains depending on how deeply I seated the hollow pointing stem. It took some trial and error to dial it in to the desired 115 grains.

    The only down-side is that these Lee bullet molds are made of aluminum so, they seem weaker or not as sturdy as the 45-caliber cast-iron bullet mold that I'd done this too before. No matter. I generally only do one or two big casting session a year so it's not like this little Lee mold will be getting constant usage.

    I made the adjustable hollow pointing spuds and a couple of round nose spuds so that I could still cast the round nose 9mm bullets at the 130-grain weight if I so desire.

    I'm surprised that bullet mold manufactures don't offer adjustable hollow pointing spuds with their single or double cavity bullet molds. At least as an aftermarket option.
    It would give the bullet caster some options as far as tuning our bullet to meet our shooting needs.
    Last edited by HollowPoint; 10-14-2022 at 06:03 PM.

  2. #2
    Boolit Bub TribunusSanGeorgii's Avatar
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    That looks great!

  3. #3
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    Really well done HP; you have any close up pics you could share?

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    Nice work.

    MP molds does almost what you want..whe not variable..they do include hollow point pins with many of their molds..per cavity.. So you can choose nose profile on each cavity. I shoot less hp than RN ..so on their 3 cavity molds I generally run 2 cavity as RN and 1 as hp each session. Makes for a good run not having to do separate sessions ..mold stays hot..etc..

  5. #5
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by sparky45 View Post
    Really well done HP; you have any close up pics you could share?
    I can probably take some closeup photos next week some time. Right now, I'm looking for some suitable wood dowel material to remake the little wooden thumb-turning handles. I need to find a harder wood. Initially I was using some knurled aluminum rod but, I found out real quick that aluminum gets real hot real quick even with thick leather gloves on. Wood doesn't get too hot so it's easier to use for this application.

    I'm using set screws to secure my brass hollow pointing pin within the main threaded steel pin. I've drilled and tapped the actual wood, and this wood I'm using now must be pine-wood or some other type of light wood. I can get those set screws to secure that little brass hollow pointing pin pretty well but If I had a harder wood to work with it would make me feel more secure.

    I have a set screw coming in from opposite sides of the little wooden handle that sandwich the brass hollow pointing pin in place after I've made my depth adjustments. I finally got them dialed in just right to give me that 115 grain weight range I was looking for so, I'm reluctant to take them apart just yet.

    Once I find some hard wood to re-make my little handles, I'll have to take them apart anyway so that would be the perfect time to photograph them completely disassembled for you all to see.

    I'll make it a point to post those closeup photos once I get those new little hardwood handles made up.

    HollowPoint

  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soundguy View Post
    Nice work.

    MP molds does almost what you want..whe not variable..they do include hollow point pins with many of their molds..per cavity.. So you can choose nose profile on each cavity. I shoot less hp than RN ..so on their 3 cavity molds I generally run 2 cavity as RN and 1 as hp each session. Makes for a good run not having to do separate sessions ..mold stays hot..etc..
    When I had ordered what I thought was a six-cavity 9mm bullet mold it was my intention to hollow point four out of the six cavities and leaving the remaining two cavities as the round-nose bullets they were designed to be. Well, that didn't pan out for me so, I went with plan-B instead. Since the only pistol round I'm casting for now days is the 9mm, I can devote a little more attention to it.

    This means that in the near future I might go ahead and order one of the six cavity models and do what I had initially planned to do. That is, hollow point four out of the six cavities and fabricate a four-cavity adjustable hollow pointing jig of some kind. I may go with the truncated-cone 9mm next time though.

    HollowPoint

  7. #7
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    This company does a very nice job and had a great design. https://www.hollowpointmold.com/

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    HP, if you do get a 6 cavity and mod it, would live to see pictures!

  9. #9
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by garandsrus View Post
    This company does a very nice job and had a great design. https://www.hollowpointmold.com/
    I actually bought a 30 caliber single cavity Lyman mold from these folks back when I first joined this forum. I had just rebarreled my Lee Enfield rifle and rechambered it to a 308/303 chambering. I could use the same 303 brass but the bullets had to be of the 308 variety. I had a couple of other 30 caliber molds but for some reason my Enfield didn't shoot those other bullets very well. I had shortened the barrel on my Lee Enfield so it may be that those other 30 cal bullets were a bit to heavy to be stabilized by the shorter barrel length.

    The single cavity Lyman 30 caliber mold I bought from Hollow Pointing Service did the trick.

    HollowPoint

  10. #10
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soundguy View Post
    HP, if you do get a 6 cavity and mod it, would live to see pictures!
    I'll try to remember to do that. It may be a while, unless I find a used one that I can pick up cheap. Then I maybe can get to it sooner.

    HollowPoint

  11. #11
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    How did you find perfect center and how did you drill the holes out in the mold and keep it straight ? Admiring minds want to know lol ? Thanks in advance for any information. I’ve got a few molds I’d like HP’s out of , but can’t justify using Hollowpoint mold service.

  12. #12
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by bronte454 View Post
    How did you find perfect center and how did you drill the holes out in the mold and keep it straight ? Admiring minds want to know lol ? Thanks in advance for any information. I’ve got a few molds I’d like HP’s out of , but can’t justify using Hollowpoint mold service.
    Someone asked me a similar question just last night. I hope you don't mind if I'm lazy and just copy and paste my answer to that guy here instead of writing it all out again.

    I don't want to come off trying to look or sound like I'm an expert of this sort of stuff because I'm not an expert. I'm just a chronic do-it-yourselfer.

    I'm sure there are different ways of going about this but the way I've done it in order to ensure concentricity and getting as close to dead-nuts on center as possible is to simply cast some bullets out of the mold in question. I then wrap the newly cast bullets with a thin layer of aluminum sheet, (same stuff I make gas-checks out of) chuck them up individually in my lathe and drill an eight-inch hole down the center of them.

    The aluminum sheet is so that they don't get deformed when I snug the chuck-jaws down on them. The eight-inch hole is used to index them dead-on when I go to do the actual mold alteration.

    I'll put all of the cast bullets with holes drilled in them back into my mold. At that point I can find dead center using my pre-drilled holes as a reference.
    The smaller eight-inch holes that I've drilled into my bullets allows me to better see if I'm spot-on or not when I index those hole on my small desktop mini-mill. Even If I were the slightest bit off, the fact that the predrilled lathe-holes are already there to guide my drill bit straight down helps me to keep everything as centered as I can get it.

    Once I find dead-center I'll then ream out the same hole with progressively larger diameter drills until I get to the size drill bit that's one size smaller than my finished hole.
    At that point I'll chuck up a hole-reamer of the appropriate size to get a clean finished diameter hole through my mold cavities.

    If I were to do this particular project over again, I would most likely go with a slightly smaller finished hole. I went with a 1/4" finished hole this time around because I just happened to have that diameter of metal stock in my junk pile. It just happened to be some 1018 steel rod stock.

    Next time I'll probably buy some more 12L14 steel rod. For this application, it's much easier to work with in my opinion.

    For the wooden knobs, I didn't have any kind of scrap wooden dowel rod laying around so I cannibalized my Harbor Freight wooden bench. It happens to have a screw-in clamp-handle on the end made of wood so, I cut some of that handle material off to use as my little wooden hollow pointing twist handle knobs.

    This was actually a poor choice in wood. This particular wood is not dense enough for this application. I plan on driving over to the Home Depot and buying a short length of Hard-Wood dowel rod and re-making those little wooden thumb-screw handles/knobs.

    If I remember correctly, they are 3/4" in diameter or, maybe less. By necessity they have to be a small diameter being that they will be set so close together. I knurled them using my knurling tool. I also drilled and tapped those little wooden dowel knobs to accept the threaded main shank of my hollow pointing spud and the little set screws. I then sealed those wooden knobs with plain superglue, making sure to get some glue deep inside the holes and letting it all thoroughly dry before dipping them into some wood stain. Before screwing in my metal components, I made sure it was all dried out.

    As I've already mentioned, this wood was a bad choice. It was far too light for this application. If I screw those setscrews in too tightly, I know it will strip the threads. With a denser wood I'll be able to keep everything nice and tightly secured. That's not to say that my adjustable hollow pointing spuds aren't working well as they are because it works very well but, there is always room for improvement, and changing out those lightweight wooden knobs with a denser wood is the improvement that's needed now.

    Well, that's it. That's how I went about centering the holes and completing this project. With my previous or original Adjustable Hollow Pointing Spud project, the one I did on my recently sold 45 caliber Lyman Devastator mold, I didn't have to do anything to the mold because it was already hollow pointed from the factory. All I did to that was just fabricate the adjustable hollow pointing spud to fit the exiting hole for the factory spud.

    Hope this helps. Good luck.
    Last edited by HollowPoint; 10-16-2022 at 02:17 PM.

  13. #13
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soundguy View Post
    HP, if you do get a 6 cavity and mod it, would live to see pictures!
    I was able to get over to the hardware store to pick up a 12" length of 3/4" hardwood dowel rod to re-make those little wooden twist knobs. While I had everything taken apart, I snapped a quick photo. This should give you an idea of how I put it together.

    I made one longer than the other this time because when I twisted the original little wooden knobs or handles, the fact that they had to be set so close together, in addition to the cumbersome leather safety gloves I wear when casting, it made it difficult to get a good spin on them to break the grip of the solidified lead on the hollow pointing pin.

    With one slightly longer than the other I can easily spin the longer one first and then remove it, which will then give me easy access to the shorter wooden twist-knob thingamabob.

    Notice that one out of the four original wooden knobs on the right had started to crack already. The lower most knob is pictured before sealing it and dipping it into some stain for further sealing. The new wooden dowel is oak wood. I'm not real knowledgeable about different woods but the original wood I'd used must have been pine wood or some other lighter wood.

    HollowPoint
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails HPspuds.jpg  

  14. #14
    Boolit Grand Master
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    Sir, nice description of how you centered things. Good job.
    Don Verna


  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by HollowPoint View Post
    I can probably take some closeup photos next week some time. Right now, I'm looking for some suitable wood dowel material to remake the little wooden thumb-turning handles. I need to find a harder wood. Initially I was using some knurled aluminum rod but, I found out real quick that aluminum gets real hot real quick even with thick leather gloves on. Wood doesn't get too hot so it's easier to use for this application.

    I'm using set screws to secure my brass hollow pointing pin within the main threaded steel pin. I've drilled and tapped the actual wood, and this wood I'm using now must be pine-wood or some other type of light wood. I can get those set screws to secure that little brass hollow pointing pin pretty well but If I had a harder wood to work with it would make me feel more secure.

    I have a set screw coming in from opposite sides of the little wooden handle that sandwich the brass hollow pointing pin in place after I've made my depth adjustments. I finally got them dialed in just right to give me that 115 grain weight range I was looking for so, I'm reluctant to take them apart just yet.

    Once I find some hard wood to re-make my little handles, I'll have to take them apart anyway so that would be the perfect time to photograph them completely disassembled for you all to see.

    I'll make it a point to post those closeup photos once I get those new little hardwood handles made up.

    HollowPoint
    Standard dowl rods are usually out of popple, can get them in oak, some are birch, some are walnut ? Can make them out of any wood you like easly? Make a wire cage around the pins as a handle and to keep them cool?
    Last edited by BLAHUT; 10-17-2022 at 10:35 PM.

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    I did this a couple years ago for my 1911 I went another way on the hollow point pins The 230 grain lee mold now give me a 208 grain Hollow Point . The bullet gives me some grief coming of the pins so I ended up making a tool to grab them by the lube groove to remove them from pins.

    I cast that the Lee 9 MM bullet in the 6 Cavity mold They have two diameters some drop at .355 others at .359 weights still average 125 grains I powder coat the bullets then sized them to .359 and shoot them in my .357 Magnum . They shot quite well I am averaging 1617 f/s .
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails H.P..jpg  
    When I think back on all the **** I learned in high school it's a wonder I can think at all ! And then my lack of education hasn't hurt me none I can read the writing on the wall.

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    This view may be better. These bullets expand to .66" in water. Well now I can not add an image?
    Last edited by firefly1957; 10-18-2022 at 06:51 PM. Reason: no image
    When I think back on all the **** I learned in high school it's a wonder I can think at all ! And then my lack of education hasn't hurt me none I can read the writing on the wall.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by firefly1957 View Post
    I did this a couple years ago for my 1911 I went another way on the hollow point pins The 230 grain lee mold now give me a 208 grain Hollow Point . The bullet gives me some grief coming of the pins so I ended up making a tool to grab them by the lube groove to remove them from pins.

    I cast that the Lee 9 MM bullet in the 6 Cavity mold They have two diameters some drop at .355 others at .359 weights still average 125 grains I powder coat the bullets then sized them to .359 and shoot them in my .357 Magnum . They shot quite well I am averaging 1617 f/s .
    If it works when you're done with the project, I call that a success.

    HollowPoint

  19. #19
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    I did another short casting session trying to further dial in the "As-Cast" weights of my cast hollow pointed bullets.

    Now I got the weights pretty well dialed in but in the process of doing that my little wooden dowel spin-handles started cracking to the point where they would no longer stay in place.

    The combination of the extreme heat they were exposed to and the little setscrews that were also putting a strain on the wood just caused them to come apart. I ended up having to rework my little adjustable hollow pointing spuds.

    I was able to keep the original main components of my adjustable spuds, it was just the parts that consisted mainly of the wooden dowels that I had to reconfigure.

    I turned some aluminum sleeves and I threaded the core of each one. These aluminum sleeves took the place of the wood I was using before. I then simply placed a smaller piece of that original wood at the very tip of that assembly as far away from the main source of heat as I could get them.

    I also added some heat-dissipating fins to those aluminum sleeves in hopes of dissipating enough of the heat before it reached my wooden spin-tips.

    All is right with the world again.

    I've got my eye out for a good used Lee Six-Cavity 125 grain round nose bullet mold of the same design now. I've even listed my Lee Six-Cavity 200 grain truncated cone 45 caliber mold in the swapping and selling section of this forum. I'm hoping someone there has this 9mm bullet mold of the same design as mine that they'd be willing to trade straight across for my 45-caliber mold.

    My two cavity 9mm round nose mold does a good job as far as giving me good bullets to work with but it would be nice to be able to crank them out a little faster than just two at a time.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails NewSpuds.jpg  

  20. #20
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    Nice work, well thought out.
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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check