Hello,

I'm looking for a hollowpoint mould for the .45acp, one that casts about 230gn.

The closest I can find is the Lyman Devastator, but that's only rated at 180gn (casts closer to 190 depending upon alloy).

It looks like Lee made the one I'm looking for years back, but it's out of production.

Can anyone help me find what I'm looking for?

Thanks,

Josh <><

I have one of the Lee molds in 240 grain .430" diameter. I can't say they were ever very accurate. Apparently getting a repeatable true dead-centered hollow point from a mold is not a trivial thing.

Probably the easiest thing to do is set up a jig on a drill press. You'll have complete control over the size and depth of the hollow point.

Expansion is going to be problematic with a 230 grain bullet at ACP velocity.

Casting hollow points is a good deal more difficult than casing solid point bullets.
The 'drill it' approach might work more easily. Forster makes, or used to, a device for just that purpose. The called it a 'hollow pointer' Clever, eh?
I do have to agree with the others, too, that a 230 grain HP probably won't expand- it's going too slowly.

Since commercial hollow points, like the Hornady XTP, are available in 230 grain, I don't the weight is prohibitive; you just need the right shape and alloy hardness for the expected velocity, though you may need to do some experimentation there.

It takes very little by way of off-center mass to make a bullet go unstable and tumble, ruining all accuracy (and expansion, since the tumbling bullet is unlikely to strike point-first). If you don't have a jig that forces precise concentric alignment or else use a collet lathe, the chances of making bad bullets are even better than with the mold. The successful jig is going to have to achieve a good concentric hold on the bullet, so if it is not a collet, it will probably be snug like a sizing die. If you are going to drill directly into a bullet from a press, you will need to own a center finder and you will want very stubby, rigid drilling tool that won't walk significantly. A small end-cutting end mill is probably a better choice than a twist drill bit in that regard.

A friend of mine owns one of the old Dan Wesson kit guns that came with 2, 4, and 6 inch barrels. The four inch would always keyhole, while the other two barrels were fine. On inspection I discovered the rifling in that barrel was off-center, being only 0.002" deep on one side of the muzzle, and 0.006" on the other. That 0.004" difference in rifling engraving marks was all it took to ruin stability. So you want your hollow points or any other alteration of a bullet to be truly symmetrical around the axis.

As a side note, truncated cone and semi-wadcutter shapes in the .45 ACP have a good reputation for performance. You might consider the .45 as a pre-expanded .38, and just use one of the flat nose shapes rather than complicate your life with fighting to make good hollow points.

Lee will do custom moulds. You might contact them about one of their hollow point moulds.

G'day from downunder . :>)

G'day , I have just gotten one from this provider on cast boolits from a group buy mp-molds.com and it is the ducks guts .
If you go to his sight you can see it for yourself , it is the .45 cramer mold and Mihec is taking orders for another re run right now .

regards Paul . :>)

Pauly,

Welcome to the forum. Rules are to join in and have fun and play nicely with the rest of us kids.

My first question was going to be about how a fellow from your neck of the woods found a mould maker from Slovenia, but I see he's been a sponsor and member at castboolits.com, so I'm guessing you got on to him from there? I know the old Eastern Block countries have a lot of skilled tool makers who maybe work by slightly old-school methods, but who don't charge an arm and a leg for the privilege. You can sometimes get things from that part of the world that are very reasonably priced for the quality of work you are buying. I've got a couple of hand-scraped precision machine levels that were made in Poland that have turned out to be very stable and reliable.

Can you post or link to any groups shot with hollow points cast with Mihec's moulds?