“Soft point, hardcast”????

[Outpost75]

With mold pre-heated on hot plate, with sprue plate open, drop a single US 00 buckshot into each cavity, then immediately close spruce plate and fill mold.

[Iwsbull]

I know the soft nose need a bit of velocity to reach their full potential but when they are in that zone many have reported that they have had excellent results. If I were to use a rifle I would think hard about going to the effort, as it is I can hit the expansion threshold for soft hp much easier.

[Soundguy]

That's where I'm at.
Look at all the big, dangerous African game rifles.
Like the Nitro Express and Rigby stuff.
And the 'buffalo guns' that take a shell about the size of a banana.
Their bullets are made for doing some serious killing.
They're made to kill animals that have the will and ability to 'harvest' you.-- they're all RNs and FP.

Agreed. My factory federal deep penetrator 416 Rigby are flat nose..my hornady factory 458 winmag and 458 Lott are all round nose as well as my 470 nitro express. Even my 9.3x74r and 375h&h are some type of round nose.

[mehavey]

With mold pre-heated on hot plate, with sprue plate open, drop a single
00 buckshot into each cavity, then immediately close spruce plate and
fill mold.

Fascinating.
Trying it now w/ a 340gr* solid (gas-checked) version of the classic Gould.
.375" RB in the nose overlaid w/ Lyman#2 and then to be PC'd.



a leeeeeettle rough -- but we'll see if will hold together far enuf' to make 50/50.
(50 yds w/ 50gr of 3031)


* 330gr even as-cast above


.

[barkerwc4362]

You realize that Lyman at one time made several two part molds in I believe 38/357, 44 and 45. You cast the nose portion in a soft allow and the rear portion in a harder alloy. The two portions were epoxied together, before being lubed and sized. There was another vendor who approached the problem by having two pots, colocated one held the soft alloy and the other the harder alloy. You adjusted the soft allow pot to dispense a limited amount of alloy, then immediately filled the remainder of the mold with the harder alloy. Both I believe were marked in the 70s.
Bill

[jim 44-40]

Handloader #222 magazine,has a great article on casting softnose bullets.
I like the idea of doing the opposite by making the base soft and the nose hard lead.

[cajuntec]

Thanks everyone! Lots of good info provided on this subject. I appreciate it.
All the best,
Glenn

[Winger Ed.]

I wouldn't go to all that trouble, But I'd be curious to hear what your results are.

[GLynn41]

I got mine as idea from Ross Sayfried? anyway it is easy to do and have killed deer with them. any mold can used--have 255 MM lwn-- and it makes great 257gr flat soft points for my .410 GNR conversion. I have 3 hp/cup molds and I like them but truthful I really do not need them it was a want as far as expanded bullets. I mean what's not to want in Keith .41 cal hp or CP., Btw I use two pots...one soft one normal-- homade dipper.. only make them to hunt as the normal bullets shoots to same point of aim

[beagle]

Lyman/Ideal at one time made a mould, the 308291 for this purpose. Had a nose portion that resembled a mushroom.
You cast them first. Then inserted the "nose" in the other cavity and cast the regular bullet.
The nose was soft alloy and the base hard. Orygun Mark had one of the moulds when he was with us.
He said that even that sometimes messed up. I've seen pics of the whole bullet. You could see a color difference between the alloys. He said it worked well and he "made meat" with them but said there was a lot of rejects./beagle

You realize that Lyman at one time made several two part molds in I believe 38/357, 44 and 45. You cast the nose portion in a soft allow and the rear portion in a harder alloy. The two portions were epoxied together, before being lubed and sized. There was another vendor who approached the problem by having two pots, colocated one held the soft alloy and the other the harder alloy. You adjusted the soft allow pot to dispense a limited amount of alloy, then immediately filled the remainder of the mold with the harder alloy. Both I believe were marked in the 70s.
Bill

[BNE]

So I tried this in the past. Just because I thought the idea was cool. It was not easy to get the casting to work. It sounded great, but I was not able to make a good looking cast out of it, so I gave up. I agree with the above guys points. Go soft, powder coat and go shoot. If you think you need it....

[Wolfdog91]

Kiwi fella posted link to old thread he had on here years back.... making these duel density boolits

Ole gruff is good people, hope he doesn't mind me sharing this


Sent from my motorola one 5G UW using Tapatalk

[megasupermagnum]

That's where I'm at.
Look at all the big, dangerous African game rifles.
Like the Nitro Express and Rigby stuff.
And the 'buffalo guns' that take a shell about the size of a banana.
Their bullets are made for doing some serious killing.
They're made to kill animals that have the will and ability to 'harvest' you.-- they're all RNs and FP.

Yeah, and almost all soft points. Solids are optional.

[megasupermagnum]

I didn't realize soft point cast bullets were a secret. They have been around a long time, for sure going back before anyone here was alive. They were never all that popular because they are only useful in a relatively small number of instances. I've made them, and I think Bruce B developed one of the best methods there are. Easy? No, but after a little time you have a handful of fine bullets. Here in the USA where we can have any bullet our mind and wallet can handle, it's not that big of a deal. Get velocity up a little and a flat point rifle bullet expands fine with normal alloys. You can buy very wide nosed bullets for handguns anywhere. Hollow point molds are not rare. Other places in the world they may not be.

[Rapier]

In a 38 Spl in my experiance it is best to use a hard cast SWC like a Keith or Thompson style and forget the double pour, use your time saved to practice shooting.