Tips & Tricks For Pouring HP's

What tips & tricks have worked for you pouring HP's and with which mold(s)?

generic:
mold temp.
pin needs to be hot, hotter than that.

it's all an educated guess,,,, till the trigger is pulled.

the more i find out about shootin boolits, the more it contradicts everything i ever learned about shooting jaxketed.

I have and Use both the MP Cramer style and the NOE RG-2. I have used the Lyman style in the past but will never do so again.
In general, the major thing is heat control. I find I must cast quickly and run my pot hotter when casting hollow points. If I don't, I end up with boolits that stick on the pins and that slows down the casting rate so that the mold gets cold, so I have boolits stuck on the pins and wrinkled. The MP molds are the best, but the NOE are also very good. I have not tried Hollow Point Mold Service, though I have an RCBS 44-250 KT that I was going to send until I bought an MP 432-640 4 banger. It's brass, and heavy, but boy does it make boolits.

The draw back of the Lyman is two-fold. First, it is only single cavity, and second, the separate pin system is clunky to use and the pin gets cold, resulting in poor fill out.

The problem with the NOE RG-2 and RG-4 molds is that the pin guide rails on the bottom catch on the mold guide if you use a Lee pot. However, these are good molds that produce HP boolits almost as fast as a conventional mold. I have 2, one aluminum 358-128 grain and a brass 452-200 grain that I just got last week. Though most often available as group buys, it is well worth your while to check the NOE web site to see what is on the shelf. Al Nelson usually runs a few extras to allow for exchanges in the unlikely event of a bad mold getting out, and there always seem to be a few folks who can't purchase what they ordered a year ago. NOE sells these over-runs and you can get an in stock item in 3-5 days.

The best HP molds are those made by Miha Previc at MP molds. I have 3, a 359-640, the afore mentioned 432-640, and a H&G 68 HP mold. They are all brass, and heavy. I seldom cast for more than an hour due to fatigue issues, but once up to temperature, I get about 3 casts a minute which in the case of the two 4 bangers means 12 boolits a minute give or take. The chief draw back here is simply availability. They are only available through group buy purchases, unless he has an over run. Also, he is in europe, so expect it to take a few weeks after it is shipped.

_________________________________________________It's not that I can't spell: it is that I can't type.

HOT. Some tin and lots of HOT.

Cheers from New Zealand

Jeff.

Doesn't matter so much which mold for casting HP's, your pin isn't hot enough, stop inspecting your boolits while casting, keep the pins out of the air, the blocks closed and full, cast faster. The pins don't have nearly the mass the mold blocks do and cool very quickly.

Ok, that's the normal advice to new casters trying HP's because that's what they do wrong most of the time. Bottom line . . . Heat. Doesn't take a higher pot temp but rather properly heated mold AND pins. A hot HP pin is a happy HP pin. If your boolits are filling out well and the nose and HP cavity isn't the pins are too cool. Besides a poorly filled out nose boolits will stick to a cool pin like they are welded on.

Rick

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Did anyone mention keeping the pin hot?
Like run said, get it hot then keep it even hotter.
Like Rick said, no stopping and playing around. Cast, cast, cast. Every second the pin is exposed to air it is cooling down. It cools quickly and gives voids.

It is all about rhythm. Get in a good rhythm and stay there. It best be a quick tempo too.

1. Mihec's penta pins: dress the pins to remove tooling marks
2. I like to use some graphite dry lube on HP pins

Boolit Master Join DateMar 2013Posts249

seems like with the HP pins if you open the mold too soon the HP tears and if you wait to long the boolit sticks to the pin and when you finally get it out it will also tear the HP...

Let me be the first to mention HOT. I run my Mihec molds at least at 750 to get perfect looking drops each time and drop them and run back to the HOT lead.

Boolit Master Join DateFeb 2011Posts443

I found out when casting some 58 caliber hollow points for a black powder rifle.

When my hollow point mold came in for the 41 mag,i just got the mold hot like everyone else said.

After cycling it for 3 or 4 times,just heating it up and cooling it down,i had a fun time getting the speed of casting down.

But after some trial and error i made a rather large pile of those beautiful suckers.

Even with the different types of pins in the mold it made some pretty ones.

My single cavity mould hollowpointed by Buckshot works fine when I do my part and keep the rhythm consistent.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading
Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt"

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