Mark Conner
Cast hollow points and partitions.
Monday, February 22, 2021, 15:38

I had always thought this would be something neat to try, even though expansion can be pretty well controlled with alloy, depth and width of the hp pin and velocity.

Yesterday it was mentioned again so I thought, I have a nice LBT mould I wanted to give this a try with. It casts a hp between 280 and 305 grs. depending on alloy and which pin I use.

This whole process on my part was not very well thought out. I was thinking just drill a hole in the gas check, set it in the drive band of the mould, bring everything back up to temp and cast away. So I drilled a 9/64 hole in the check, got it put in the drive band, some what lined up, reheated it and cast. Easy, looks great too.
Now the part that was not thought out very well... lead will not adhere to the copper gas check very well if at all so there is only 9/64 of an inch of lead holding the halves together. The light is still not coming on in my head until after checking, sizing and lubing I dropped a bullet on the concrete floor, wanting to use it even with the dent in it (I only cast 7 of them) I wiped off the old lube and was going to reapply when the bullet twisted in half.

The light is starting to flicker a bit now. With only the small hole joining the halves together there was no strength to the bullet. When drilling a larger hole I mangled the check trying to hold it.

I think if I was able to get a big enough hole in the check to make the bullet strong enough to take everything that is going to be asked of it, there would not be enough left to act as a partition.

Sometimes ya just have to do it before the light shines.