Casting bullets for cowboy and hunting?

[GoodOlBoy]

Ok this is aimed at TMR, but everybody PLEASE feel free to jump in. I have been looking at buying a set of custom cast molds, and there is alot of info I do not know.

Questions.

Got any websites devoted to this? (I am mainly interested in 45LC, but any info is helpful.)

What do you know about the following.

Bullet Design.
Crimp type.
Bullet diameter.
Front band top and bottom diameter (to taper or not to taper)
Front band Length.
Nose Length.
Weight.
Metplat (percentage)
Base (again to bevel or not to bevel)
Grove to band length ratio.
Grove angle.

Etc.

GoodOlBoy

[Mad Reloader]

Sorry it's taken me a while to get down here, between dental probs and some guys from a WW2 site trying to recruit me as Moderator and fun & games attempting to hook up with a nice SINGLE lady from Croatia...

haven't been here in a couple weeks!

Attempting to FINALLY start the ball rolling for you here:

1) Most of what I cast is stuff the sole remaining local outfit (Laredo Bullets of Tempe AZ) can't/won't do, and that National Bullet Co also refuses to make

(Hollowpoint cast bullets, also hollowbases, might get hooked up in the near future to run off 500 grain .458" projos for .45-70. )

Anybody in your part of TX doing commercial casting? I heard Meister moved to Okie-Land, so shipping from them guys shouldn't be too bad.

Unless you're in a situation like mine and need an oddball projo nobody commercial wants to start rolling off...

2) OH MY YES on bevel-base projos! The best thing for solids, IMHO! A problem with a lot of the base-poured projos is a weird flange of flashing, which you don't get on BB's.

3) I really really like roll crimps. Mind, almost everything I load is either a rimmed straightside case, or a bottleneck rifle round, so outside of the 9x18 Mak and .45 ACP, I don't taper crimp much. Projos with crimp grooves are the bee's knees to me.

4) Most of my casting so far is for .45 Colt, so I'm on top of this one!

One thing to keep in mind is the bearing surface of your projo. You've prolly seen 90% of the commercial cast .45 bullets...is it just me, or has the "Keith Style SWC" established overlordship of every calibre and weight? :confused: LOL!

Of the "typical" .45 cal bullets on the comm'l market, the vast majority DO NOT have sufficient bearing surface for revolver use once you get down to 180 grains or less. I noticed some performance issues with 180 grain RNFP's and with 160 grain RNFP's and 155 grain SWC's due to lack of bearing surface. Thankfully, Larry Cheatham at Laredo hapened to have the mold on hand to make something resembling the Lyman #452488 which is a SWC of style identical to the rounded 185 grain semiauto SWC one sees periodically. Had him run off a batch of 500 for me. Works OK for me in my "CAS grade Hunting load" for the Remmy 1858/69 I have.

IF you can get the mould for something resembling the old Lyman 45468 or 450229, you'll have a flatpoint projo in the 155-175 grain range with decent bearing surface.

Those were both hollowbases, BTW. Impossible to make a multicavity mould of that variety, which is why 95% of the commercial casters don't bother...and the 5% that do charge an arm & a leg for their product.

One I was considering in order to get a light projo of .45 calibre was to get hold of the mould for the 150 grain ".45-70 Collar Button" and size the suckers down to 0.452"

Have you seen the grease groove on that little guy? Wowsers! But the bearing surface is on a par with a standard 200 grain RNFP, so IMHO that would fit the bill.

5) Grease grooves. If you're doing it like I do, stuff with something resembling the "microgroove" style would be best. I'm a fan of Liquid Alox and tumble lube, so many shallow grooves is best for that. (And with the weirdo 240 grain HB SWC I scored on an online auction, the topmost grease groove makes a perfect crimp groove for when I load .455 Webley)

What exact sort of weight and/or style projo were you thinking of?

Most of your CAS ammo is loaded old-school with RNFP, and in many cases, you can't have too much projo protruding out in front of a .45 Colt round or it may not chamber properly. (230 grain RNL's such as are sold for use in .45 ACP are too long for my Remmy. Work okay when I load .45 Schofield rounds, though!
...mind, I fire the Schofield ammo in the Remmy, not in a S&W Schofield so I have a little extra room in the chambers.... ;) )

[GoodOlBoy]

TMR what I was looking into was a 45 caliber 255 grain RNFP with a bevel base and a few other tweaks. I was looking at the cutom molds at http://www.mountainmolds.com/

Anyway take a look at the site you will be amazed at what you can do with custom design on his molds, then let me know what you think. I want that 255 grainer, but I am a little in over my head on designing a mold.

BTW I am currently working on a Mad Scientist formula All natural lube! Been doing some research and looks like beeswax base with a few other ingrediants will give me the combo and consistancy I want for the hot humid weather out here, but I hafta get the mix ratios down on the super secret ingrediants etc, etc. Gonna hafta brak out the white lab coat and evil laugh and see what I can cook up.

GoodOlBoy

[Mad Reloader]

The example I saw looked pretty kewl for a 255 grainer, combining elements of the intergalactically prevalent* Keith SWC by way of the NSSA Skirmisher ML projo, with the de rigeur RN/FP necessitated for most loading of .45 Colt

*If we ever get a working spacedrive, and go off to Rigel 7, or Reticulon Prime or Jaglan Beta, and visit a gun & reloading store there, odds are there will be Keith SWC's for sale in at least one caliber! :eek: LOL! :D

Might want to ask Rocky or Terry Blauwkamp about the ideal profile for a projo for .45 Colt, truncated cone styles have had much popularity the last several years, but me being me if I were to have a TOTAL custom mould made, I'd want something as close as possible to the ideal bullet shape, a BT Spitzer

(Okay, we've got some constraints here with this being the 131 year old .45 Colt round and all....Ooooh! How about a "double ended" boat tail?? Severely bevelled base, front end would be of the Truncated Cone shape that's come to predominate for serious useage with those that actually load modern rounds. Ask The Rock if that would be worth bothering with, or just TMR's pain pills for the pulled tooth warping my tiny, rodent like brain)

Mold material--IF they can make it sturdy enough, go with aluminum. Rapidly warms up, if perchance your mold release compound thins out, lead alloys do NOT adhere. Not sure why anyone would want a brass/bronze alloy mould nowadays, if there's one thing tin-lead alloys like to stick to, it's cuprous alloys. VERY bad news if you do NOT de-flux your metal completely!

Since you're about to pull a Mad Reloader and delve into the wonderful world of Applied Science for Shootin' Fun, here's a suggestion for your Tropical grade all-natural bullet lube:

Time for TMR to also combine his love of Arcane Obscure Historical tidbits with his passion for "WEIRD SCIENCE" and shootin'!

The place was "Mother India" (check with UK Foxman & BBD, they would pronounce it EEEN-Jah!) the timeperiod a whisker before the Civil War.

The latest high-tech mil rifle was the 1853 Enfield, with disposeable paper cartridges that if used correctly gave one a cool .577 paper patched projo.

For use in blustery Merrie Old England, or the Cold White North of KANATA, lube was a mix of beef tallow & bacon drippins. A lot like the crumbly-sticky light gray stuff Hornady puts on their Great Plains projos.

NFG(!!) for places like the Great State of Texas, central/southern Arid-Zona and of course India {All hail the Gandhiji & the Netaji! Jai Hind!}

(I am having WAAY too much fun writing this! ;) )

What the Brits came up with for their Hot Weather lead bullet lube involved...Carnauba wax!

Something to keep in mind.

Will post more later as I come up with more demented ideas. :D LOL!

[GoodOlBoy]

Yeah well mine involves beeswax so there :p

GoodOlBoy

[Mad Reloader]

Beeswax can be good, though some mixes involving same just aren't cutting it by climactic standards of Arid-Zona. Had 2 batches of the INFAMOUS Keith style SWC's lubed with a primarily beeswax compound, one of them is now as sticky and tacky as a batch of Buffalo ball-ets, the others had the lube all come off to leave a waxed corrugated box and essentially unlubed projos. (I cleaned the projos and recycled them into other bullets via the casting setup)

Carnauba's VERY resistant to high ambient temperatures while still retaining its waxy properties.

Food for thought.

[GoodOlBoy]

Oh I have no doubt buddy, I have seen many other posts on other sites stating those same facts. But I have come up with a purely scientific method for finding the right consistancy.

Pure Beeswax left in the sun on a 103F day on my front porch does not melt.

There for I know that if the concentration of beeswax is high enough the lube won't melt (Of course if it is high enough it won't LUBE either :D ). The trick will be to find a recipe for the lube that both lubricates AND does not melt in August on MY front porch (119F in the shade in August is common here for those at home)

Oh btw never try to use KY jelly as a bullet lube :D

GoodOlBoy

[Mad Reloader]

I like your use of realtime real-world non-simulated ambient temperature range exposure testing.

Can't beat THAT for testing climactic melt resistance!

(Aint ASTM, but if it works, it works)

KY jelly for a bullet lube? :confused:

THAT is twisted and wrong! :eek: LOL!

[GoodOlBoy]

TMR it is that time of year for me again, cold rainy weather keeping me inside, and in the middle of trying to find my old sinker mold for my trot line weights I started thinking about casting my own again. What exactlly are the steps start to finish in casting your own?

Thanks

GoodOlBoy

[Mad Reloader]

Hmmm...

1) If you haven't done so already, melt down & skim the dross from the casting metal you're going to use--if needed.

2) blend the metals as needed in your melter/casting furnace

3) Hopefully you've whomped up a batch of your fave lube in advance.

4) Get the molds ready. A drop of regular Alox on the hinge(s), candle soot on the insides--especially on those bronze/brass molds (beware of flux getting in contact with that kind of mold, period!)

5) Have you got a pair of hot mill gloves? Hopefully you have a set on hand, especially B4 you started rendering down and alloying ;)

6) No food, no beverage, no smoking and no dipping snuff while casting. You want to ingest as little lead as practical.

7) Oh, and hopefully you remembered to wear some eye protection at the start of all this!

8) Warm up the molds by resting them on a portion of your melter that's gonna get hot--or be prepared to do a couple of practice casts that are going to be all wrinkled and/or with imperfect hollow points & bases, etc...

9) If your setup allows, watch for temperature while you're casting. Overheated mold/metal will give a grainy projo that might shatter upon mold release (big problem with hollowvbases such as Minies and shotgun slugs. Then you have to get the fragments out) Too cool and you get wrinkles and the like coming back

10) Periodically put your ingate/cutoffs back in the melter. Otherwise you are going to run out of metal, and will have to wait for all the globs to "get up to temp" before re-start.

11) Inspect all your finished projos once you're done. Those deemed too defective need to go back in the melter for the next round

12) If you're a fan of Lee Liquid Alox, remember that you'll need a SECOND alox-ing after you size the projos. Don't size them prior to any lubing at all, it's going to mess up yourt sizer-izer!

That's the 1st 12 things that came to mind about what to do, bud...

[GoodOlBoy]

I appreciate it good buddy. You know me I like the idea of getting a set of hand tools for loading black powder 45 colt, and casting my own on top of it would just be the icing on the cake for me.

GoodOlBoy