My first MP Mold

[BRatigan]

I ordered my first MP Bullet mold on the 3rd, it just came to my door two days later. It's a beautiful and precise piece of work. I have the 357 180 grain Carb mold with all the pins. I can cast a different bullet in each cavity. Can't wait to cast and I'm conditioning the mold as I write. Did quite a bit of research before purchase. I ordered their handles also. Here is a pic.

[MrWolf]

Good luck with her. Plenty of info on cleaning the mould and such if you run into any problems.
Ron

[daengmei]

I took my new molds to work and showed them off, almost heaven is the phrase, lol.

[BJung]

New MP Mould are a work of art. Consider holding your HP pins directly down when you drop your bullets; otherwise the hp might be off round and effect accuracy.

[BRatigan]

Here is my first casting session after the molds were conditioned with 4 heating/cooling cycles. I realize I have a ways to go but fairly successful on my first try in 30 years. I ran the furnace at 715 degrees. I will cast my next session at 700 degrees. I had some frosting on the bases of some bullets. Most turned out fine with very minor imperfections. They all weighed within 1.5 grains. I tried the largest hollow point first. The mold is the 357 Carb mold with all the pinsets. I should cast 180 grains with WW from their data. The largest HP should throw 171 with WW. I am using Lyman #2 and my bullets are throwing at 140-141.5 grains. Their diameter is .3595. The mold is .360. I am thinking of sizing to .358 after PCing them.

I am going to get the Lee hardness tester to get more data on the Brinell hardness and pressure and velocity limitations, plus I want to know if I have anything even close to Lyman #2.
The bullets look much better in person, reflections made them look like crap sort of, especially in the details. The double recess for different seating depths will work well with my firearms. Here are a couple of pics of the better and frosted bullets. I'll get better with time. This mold from MP is really excellent.

[OS OK]

My first was the Mp-452-200 ... such a fine crafted mould! "Be sure to post your testing, they're going to be great!"
The cup points make huge shrooms...



The Penta is the strong HP with thick petals, resists fragging...

. .

[GregLaROCHE]

I find that their handles are a great deal. When I buy a mold, I always buy two sets of handles. One for the new mold and one to put on another mold..

[cwlongshot]

Enjoy. Its a fabulous mold. Every caster owes himself at least one. (Once ya buy one it wont be your last!!)

CW

[Teemu]

There is sale at MP-molds. -25%

[BRatigan]

My Lee lead tester kit arrived and I was now able to determine the hardness of my alloys. It turns out I have 25 pounds of alloy that is 20 BHN and 50 pounds of alloy that is 13 BHN. With coating I imagine I can cover all my rifles and pistols. Next is range time for FPS, ES, SD and will it group. Starting with a 6 grain load of Unique. Lets see what happens.

PS: I sized them to .358 with the Lee push through sizer. Unsized and coated bullets went straight through with zero upset of the coating.

[BRatigan]

Range day indicated that I was achieving velocity within a few fps. Group was somewhat open at 15 yards and I suspect slight wobble in my target results from my 4.75 inch El Patron. My test pilot next to me tried the same load in his Ruger Security Six. His bullets went in sideways so I know the bullets are undersized at .358. Next test will be in the Win Model 73 to see if I have similar results. I can easily up size these by sizing first and coating to get the extra 1000th or not size at all and coat. I'll post more as I get results.

[BRatigan]

Ok here is the result of shooting 10 shots at 50 yards with the MP Carb mold in shallow hollow point design. 150 grain with the alloy I am using. It was raining and the target were soaked. The group is about as good as it gets from this rifle. The problem is that there is leading as the rifling starts and goes up the barrel an inch or so. I'll try to post a pic of that as well. The bullet was shot as cast .3595 and coated with Liquid Alox. The coated pc bullets shot almost as well with zero leading. The pc coated bullets were .358. I was shooting 6 grains of Unique. The brinell hardness was around 12-13.

[BRatigan]

Here is the area just past the forcing cone at the start of the rifling in my El Patron 357 Magnum. I shot this pistol and the Win Model 73 with the same ammo and got exactly the same results as far as leading is concerned. Both barrels look about the same. I didn't run the scope down the rifle and its being deleaded now. They look the same though. Can I just back off the loading or is my material too hard at brinell 12-13. Pressure as per GRT is 18,147 psi.



To clarify I didn't make a video of the M73, just did a visual look with the scope.

[Txcowboy52]

Beautiful mold , they truly are a work of art. Your boolits look great ! Good luck and much success your future casting sessions!

[BRatigan]

More range time and settling in on a load with the coated version. Data comes right in line with GRT software. 1334 fps, ES 49 and SD 12, power factor 200. I'll back this down a bit to 6.1 grains. Its on to the next powder and I'll also use a softer bullet in more trials.




Here is the result using the uncoated bullet. Right in line with software also at 984 fps, ES 60, SD 17 and power factor 147. This load leaded the entire bore in a wash of lead. The BHN was too high so a softer bullet and upping the charge back to 6.0 grains should bring this load into line. Its really accurate but leady. Both were sized as high as I could make them at .3595. So getting close.

[Gobeyond]

MPs are so beautiful. They look like gold. Amazing price too. What’s the best casting temp on mold?

[BRatigan]

MPs are so beautiful. They look like gold. Amazing price too. What’s the best casting temp on mold?

After getting a Lyman digital lead therm, I saw that 715 F was the temp I was casting at. Same temp for the three alloy types I am using. Brinell hardness from 9 to 22. My RCBS Easy Melt showed 700 F. I am trying to cast bullets that are just between bright and showing the first indications of frost. The frost is not really good for my coated bullets as the grain structure can lead to chipping of the powder coat even fully cured.