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?
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....
)