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@aasbra, you ever compete down at ARPC or Izaak Walton? Nice 929! I'm still on the fence between the 929 and a Super gp100... The gp is unobtanium of a fairly pure grade, right now, though.

I had a pretty productive weekend, loading. Had a huge pile of wheel weights to melt down, made a lot of bullets and ingots. Got more .45ACP brass to feed the 625 from another forum member, and ran all that through the wash.

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@aasbra, you ever compete down at ARPC or Izaak Walton? Nice 929! I'm still on the fence between the 929 and a Super gp100... The gp is unobtanium of a fairly pure grade, right now, though.

No competitions for me; I'm lucky to get out and shoot only occasionally given other life responsibilities. I enjoy the wheel guns though, and picked up the 929 and a 625 within the last year. With the BMT mooner tools, loading and unloading the moon clips is a breeze, and I like not having to pick up the brass from the gravel as with my semi autos.
 
With the BMT mooner tools, loading and unloading the moon clips is a breeze, and I like not having to pick up the brass from the gravel as with my semi autos.
I'll second that. Saving up my piggy bank over winter, and thinking I'm probably going to get and start prepping a Super GP for the 2022 season, assuming there's still competitions then. It's still possible to lose moonclips full of empties, but harder than losing onesies of brass. Maybe one day, I'll be able to reload a couple of seconds slower than Jerry. :D
 
@aasbra , Wolverton Mountain Gun Club has an informal ICORE match any month with a fifth Saturday. They are low key, beginner friendly affairs that are perfect for that 929.

When my son and I started shooting there we did not have holsters or speed loader pouches so we started at low ready and fished our speed loaders out of a leather nail pouch hung from our belts. It worked well to get us started and the club welcomed us with open arms.

@Lesliet , I too am searching for the GP100 race gun. If I find a source I'll let you know!
 
Got initial results on stability and Velocity with decent 25 yrd group so....
Loaded 10 more at 11.4 gr 1680 and will run them thru suppressed and see how we look. Expensive round to be working up. Hoping to get it done in less than 50..

200 grain Maker Subsonic solid copper expanding..
 

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To try and fight the availability of ammo (and the correlated price) I started trying to figure out at home casting of .458 socom subsonic projectiles.

So last night I powdercoated 10x 500gr pills, sized them, then built up a ladder test. My powdercoating technique needs some work, but in general, I feel they turned out great.

18.1 to 18.9 gr of IMR 4198. This ladder is mainly to make sure my rifles action still cycles as normal.

Also cranked out a small batch of 350gr over 27gr of lil' gun

(learning to cast projectiles on a 500gr monster was a bit ambitious. I should have started with something easier)

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With a big bullet like that make sure your melt and your mold are up to temp. I lay my mold across the top of the pot while the lead is melting, then when ready to start I dip the corner of the mold in the melt for another 30 seconds or so to make sure it's hot.

Then pour slightly off center of the sprue hole. You want a swirling motion as the melt flows into the cavity, this give better fill out on the edges. Dumping straight into the sprue hole will allow more voids to form.

Be generous with the puddle on top of the sprue hole ... the added weight helps to force more metal into the cavity and ensures you have enough "surplus" to draw from as the bullet solidifies and shrinks a bit. This helps to avoid the small cavity in the bullets base that forms if there is not enough of a puddle.

I hope this helps. From the pictures it looks like they turned out well.
 
With a big bullet like that make sure your melt and your mold are up to temp. I lay my mold across the top of the pot while the lead is melting, then when ready to start I dip the corner of the mold in the melt for another 30 seconds or so to make sure it's hot.

Then pour slightly off center of the sprue hole. You want a swirling motion as the melt flows into the cavity, this give better fill out on the edges. Dumping straight into the sprue hole will allow more voids to form.

Be generous with the puddle on top of the sprue hole ... the added weight helps to force more metal into the cavity and ensures you have enough "surplus" to draw from as the bullet solidifies and shrinks a bit. This helps to avoid the small cavity in the bullets base that forms if there is not enough of a puddle.

I hope this helps. From the pictures it looks like they turned out well.
Thank you very much for this. It's basically what I found to work.

I'll try dipping the corner on my next run.

What I found to help was to run dummy runs. Fill the mold, let it set and harden. Dump the lead back into the pot. repeat. I did this 10 cycles then found the mold was up to temp. Then cycle cycle cycle.

Thank you!
 
I wouldn't dump the "warming bullets" back into the pot, but off to the side. You will cool down your melt by dumping them back in and you risk the chance of a lead splash that could be rather nasty.

I'd add those bullets back to the melt when you replenish the pot.

While waiting the melt to return to temperature after adding more material, fill the mold, throw a rubber band on the handles to keep it closed and set the mold back on top of the pot. This will help to keep the mold at casting temperature.

I hope this helps!
 
I wouldn't dump the "warming bullets" back into the pot, but off to the side. You will cool down your melt by dumping them back in and you risk the chance of a lead splash that could be rather nasty.

I'd add those bullets back to the melt when you replenish the pot.

While waiting the melt to return to temperature after adding more material, fill the mold, throw a rubber band on the handles to keep it closed and set the mold back on top of the pot. This will help to keep the mold at casting temperature.

I hope this helps!
Adding bad rounds back to the pot right after casting is no big deal. My dad casts about 60,000 bullets a year as a subcontractor and taught me how to cast. I helped him out in the past and have maybe 10,000 bullets under my belt. We use two 10lb pots at a time and run two molds with two different bullet designs as well to maximize production. We average around 200 bullets an hour using two 2-bullet molds.

We do use the trick of laying the molds on the edge of the pot to help warm them up, however.
 
What I found to help was to run dummy runs. Fill the mold, let it set and harden. Dump the lead back into the pot. repeat.

Before I cast, I go through the molds and check everything for tightness. I then lube the moving parts, like the bolts for the spruecutter and the release lever, using a lube that came with my MP molds. I have heard you can also use 2-stroke oil. Anyway, once my 8 quart pot of lead is melted, I use the weedburner torch to warm up the molds just until the lube smokes a little. Sometimes they cast unwrinkled bullets right away, sometimes it takes a cast or two of "wrinklies". Reason I mentioned the size of the pot, is that with a nice, large pot, re-adding bad bullets makes so little difference in temperature, it doesn't matter. I cut my sprues back into the pot, as they come off, as well. Yes, you have to be careful of the splash. ( I'm wearing full gear- leather apron, lots of eye pro, long sleeves, welding gloves, as should you.) Some folks use an electric hotplate to preheat the mold. Not saying anyone is wrong, just throwing out some different ways people get the same job done. :)
 
Soooo yesterday was pretty sweet! I found a new S&W 69 44mag and brought it home. I also found a box of 180 grain XTPs at BiMart. I loaded up 20 of them using IMR4227 last night. Today I ran them through the 69 and love em!!!! Stout but easy to manage! Similar to warm .357 ammo. The gun is a sweetheart with my 44specials of a 240 grain SWC over Unique too! That will probably be the load this gun sees the most of.
 
I wanted to get the 550 setup for small primer work again after running some 45 rounds a week back.
Ran a small batch with the remaining Montana Gold 115g pills I had to get it ready for a larger run later in the week.
Everything ran great - hope to get 500 Precision Delta 9mm cranked out later in the week.

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I didn't load anything, but I did wet tumble a bunch of brass, and I learned a very valuable lesson:

Don't tumble different calibers together that can fit inside each other. What a colossal pain in the azz getting all the steel pins out of all that brass. I also learned from my last batch of tumbled brass that too much Lemi-Shine makes the brass dull.
 

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