44/444 Mihec 296 gr hp Bullet

[hicard]

Loaded some up with 15 grs of Alliant 2400 in magnum cases and then I thought I'd try some in 44 special cases loaded with 10 grs of 2400. Shot one of the specials into a bucket of damp sand that I use for expansion testing out of my Ruger 44 rifle and got a perfect mushroom at .76 diameter and it shed only 1.5 grs bullet weight for 99% retention. I am very happy. Will go to the range Sunday to see how these two loads group out of my three rifles.

[6pt-sika]

I'm sure I won't see mine for atleast another week since it was just shipped saturday . And once it gets here it may be awhile before I use it .

Anyway I'm curiouse to hear how it does for those using it in a 444

[bishopgrandpa]

Cast up about two hundred today. They look picture perfect and the mold worked well. Bullets dropped with ease.I will put the HP fixture on the other side to make it easy for me. I took four bullets at random and they all weighed 280 grains. they were out of round .433-.435. My alloy is wheel weight at 14 bhn. The top punch supplied will fit a Lyman or RCBS but I use a SAECO that uses a threaded shaft on the punch. My sizer is a .432 saeco. Will take some pix when I get some lubed and checked. So far looks good.

[Rico1950]

Received my 44/444 Cramer today. After cleaning with Zud and firing up the pot I began casting. Need to run a little hotter than my other molds, but not that much hotter.
Bullets dropped @ .433-.434 with a weight of 285-286 with my alloy. This pot ran BHN 12 after 24 hrs., thinking it might reach BHN 14 in a couple weeks.
Minor flashing on nose, but could easily be removed with thumbnail.

[mike in co]

got mine monday, fired up the pot, and went to town.

this thing is a piece of art. i had never used one ...and i will agree this is a good mold for gloved hand casting. may move my pins to the other side, but compared to a lee , it was a please to open the mold and hove boolits drop out( with apin push)....but no banging or tapping.

i did have a few get pockets in the hp.....

mine are ww with minor tin and ave 288.4 with no gc/no lube
with a hornady gc 293 no lube

they measure 4315/4320...perfect for me...cast hot at 800
my 4316 sizer just produced a 429 boolit....gotta find the problem there...429 will not work.

i seated to all three grooves
tall groove..1.718......i have to push this load in the last 20 thou
mid groove.. 1.658....drops in
short groove.. 1.588...drops in and will be my lever gun oal.
yours should be close, depending on case length.

with a 430/4295 sizer(rcbs labeled 431!) produces a loose hornady gc...so guess i have to open the gc section a tad.
this is not a big issue with me...i shoot 90% of my 44's WITHOUT the gc in place.

one simple issue i can deal with, high quality, 3 months vs 10 months from lee.
tell lee to kiss my......

one happy camper

mike in co

[JesterGrin_1]

i did have a few get pockets in the hp.....


tell lee to kiss my......



mike in co

I have the same problem but it is most of mine with oh a 90% rejection rate since it gets pockets in the HP or there is a pin hole in the bottom of the HP which makes them light.

Any Help here?

[Wayne Smith]

I have the same problem but it is most of mine with oh a 90% rejection rate since it gets pockets in the HP or there is a pin hole in the bottom of the HP which makes them light.

Any Help here?

Alloy. I'm using ww + unknown babbit, about 20/1 and have no pockets or pinholes in the boolits anywhere. Half are HP'ed. I do have loose GC's, but that's all. I was casting between 750 and 810 degrees. The HP'ed ones dropped right out, had to tap the handle to get a couple of the FP's to drop.

[MtGun44]

Add some tin.

Bill

[JesterGrin_1]

Add some tin.

Bill

I have 16 pounds of pure with 4 pounds lino and 5 feet of 95/5 solid core solder wire.

[mike in co]

I have the same problem but it is most of mine with oh a 90% rejection rate since it gets pockets in the HP or there is a pin hole in the bottom of the HP which makes them light.

Any Help here?

i dont have an answer...i'm new to hp's

i had 2 bad out of 10 that i air dropped.

have not checked the water dropped ones..about 100 of them.

mike in co
ok i just looked at the 100 plus i did.
27 rejected
74 "acceptable"
some very good, others with minor incomplete hp's....
we will see when it gets to shooting time.

[mike in co]

ok just in from the range;
wc820...my lot is 2gr slower than my lot of aa9.
ww/w minor tin...few perfect hps, but none that were gross.
288, no gc, water dropped/sized 432/felix lube
1.718 oal, cci300 primer/rp cases.
25yds/2x scope
ruger super red hawk 7.5"
16.0 6-.83 1070 fps (one out at 1.2 but left..so probably me)
16.5 6 -1.25..1094 fps ( one obvious flyer by me way left)
17.0 1.38-6...one pulled. 1101 fps(these strung r-l...with about .76 vertical...probably me)
17.5 """5-0.50""" /6-.61/7-1.1
1151fps( i saw the first 5 in one hole and blew the next 2 shots.nerves)
18.0 1.5 1176 fps ( 2 three shot clusters. 1 called flyer)

i pulled severl shots to the left...called flyers..very obvious on the target.

i just shoot steel...so water dropped and no gas check works for me.
any of the 4 lower loads will work for me.

next is to try in the lever gun with similar loads, but probably with a gc and mag primers as this has what has worked in the past.

boy this mold sucks....lol

mike in co

[Lloyd Smale]

casted some myself today. I dont have any softer alloys right now and no time to make them up so i casted it as a lfn without the hp and they came out 300 grain on the nose with my alloy. Mold sure casts nice!

[mike in co]

since i'm new to hp's molds, i listen to a couple of suggestions.
i just cast 100 more but at a lower temp...used 675 to 710 ......

i dont think ,my hp's are much better, and the weight variation was bigger(287 to 289)...still acceptable for my needs. from what i got when i shot the 288/750+ degree boolits, in the future i will cast hot.
gonna size these and shoot in a match in place of my 293 lfn group buy.

mike in co

[Leadforbrains]

My wife called to tell me mine came in last week. I haven't seen it yet as I am out on the road.
I have two of Lyman Devastator HP molds and I crank up the heat and add tin to the alloy. I also run the mold hot and pressure pour to cut down on the bothersome voids that sometimes form at the bottom of the hollowpoint cavity. I know every mold can be different, so your results may vary.

[69daytona]

I got my mold in yesterday. I got the best results with the mold very hot and the lead at 650-700. had great looking HPs in no time that weigh in at 293gr after sizing with lube and GC.
naked weight is 281. Im still using a melt I use for my 500s so there is more tin in it.
Cant wait to shoot some of these.
By the way Thanks Miha, they come out of the mold with just a little tap to seperate the halves then the bullets fall right off the pins. took me about an hour and a half to cast about 300.
Thanks to all that designed it and have posted load data for it.

[S.R.Custom]

I have the same problem but it is most of mine with oh a 90% rejection rate since it gets pockets in the HP or there is a pin hole in the bottom of the HP which makes them light.

Any Help here?

These molds, like any other as far as I'm concerned, need a little out-of-the-box prep... Take the mould completely apart and take your Dremel tool with the plastic end-brush and Flitz or GunBrite to it . Knock the sharp edge off of everything --especially the tops of the HP pins. (Sharp edges cool quickly.) Make everything that touches hot lead shine. Then thoroughly clean with a toothbrush and brake cleaner... several times. Doing all of this right will take you a couple of hours. And when you're done, don't forget to spray the hinge and bottom of the sprue plate with 100% silicone spray.

That done, I preheat the mould on the stove --medium-low-- all the while the pot is heating up. The melt itself (100% WW) I let get hot enough to start turning the tin that floats to the top a golden color. When you're casting, your mould or melt are not hot enough until you're tempted to twiddle your thumbs waiting for the sprue to cool.

After getting the mould cleaned & polished and the melt up to temperature, my flat point rejects drop to virtually zero, and my HP rejects are less than 10%. The boolits themselves just fall out of the moulds; the only assistance needed from me is a slight push to open up the pins. The pins do start to get kind of grubby and sticky after a while, so don't plan on casting more than 500 or so at a time. (Out of 500 HPs cast, I had about 40-50 rejects, and mostly due to the bubble in the bottom of the HP cavity.) The HPs weigh 297 grs checked & lubed.

[mike in co]

thanks for the prep tip. i'll go back and do that. again at short range the minor flaws in the hp shot well at 1050 to 1170.
thanks
mike in co

[Wayne Smith]

I'm finding mine to be temp sensitive like most molds. Under about 750 degrees they cast well but tend to stick. Between 750 - 820 they tend to cast well and drop independently.

My best friend loaded some with 8.5gr Unique and shot 1" groups (yes, plural!) @ 50 yds with his 4" Smith.

[cohutt]

Mine cast great with hot 25:1 alloy after things got warmed up.

I do have an issue though when sizig- there is a lot of play in the punch shipped with the mold in my RCBS sizer before I tighten the allen nut. The RCBS punches don't have nearly this amount of play and I belive this is causing an aligment issue, tilting the punch slightly away from me when tightened in.

When sized the bullets look as if they canted a bit as they were being pushed through. One side has considerably more "sizing" considerably further up the side into the nose.
I marked some to see if it always occurred on the same size and it does.

An ideas on getting this worked out?

I have a Star but don't have .430 dies at this point and have been using the RCBS for 44, the only GC boolits I mess with.

[Dale53]

cohutt;
I use grease on the sizer nose punch to hold it in place instead of the set screw. This allows it to "self center" and avoids sizing off center (that can be seriously damaging to accuracy). Few nose punches fit well enough to size concentric. However, my experience with the grease is all positive.

Dale53