i came across a couple products that allow for drilling out rounds to hollow points, i was pretty suprised, i personally didn't think it would have the same effect to just put an 1/8" hole in the top, but i have no idea what i'm talkin about. has anyone used these products? has anyone dug up a round after using this product? although i'm casting now, so i would rather just cast with a penta pin, i could see the value of having this if it actually works. thanks!!
hollow point drilling??!??
- Thread starter skizzums
- Start date
serf 'rett
New member
Could you give a listing showing what particular products?
g.willikers
New member
There's probably more to it than just drilling out some material to make an effective hollow point expand.
Like the change of the center of mass of the bullet.
The composition of the bullet.
What's in the bottom of the hole, that might help the expansion - or not.
But it would be interesting to see.
Like the change of the center of mass of the bullet.
The composition of the bullet.
What's in the bottom of the hole, that might help the expansion - or not.
But it would be interesting to see.
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/371968/forster-universal-hollow-pointer-1-8
here is the product, watched a youtube vid on the process, its pretty simple, just lock in and drill or your the forster trimming tool, but that apparently takes too long. seems to have decent reviews on midway, but apparentky difficult to center the hole.
here is the product, watched a youtube vid on the process, its pretty simple, just lock in and drill or your the forster trimming tool, but that apparently takes too long. seems to have decent reviews on midway, but apparentky difficult to center the hole.
Hammerhead
New member
Handloader magazine had an article recently on hollowpointing cast bullets. They used center drills and taper drills to make the hollowpoints. I have also read about drilling holes then screwing in a wood screw (and removing it) to pre-stress the hole.
Skizzums, strange, and then there is the timing, the forum THR just started making top punches that double as a bullet seating seater punch, they call it a seating die??? Everyone was uhhhing and awwwwing, I suggested there was a better way to make a top punch and suggested punching the top of the bullet while seating could result in powder compression because of the amount of effort required to punch, I did not OOOOOOH and AWWWW.
No one thought it was important to prevent bullet upset, even if the bullet did upset it would not matter, according to them.
Anyhow, it would be easy to make the tools with the minimum amount of tools, and remember, when drilling there are collars designed to control drilling depth. And, there are tapered reamers for tapering holes, I have 2 sets, they were used to repair cracks in case iron.
F. Guffey
No one thought it was important to prevent bullet upset, even if the bullet did upset it would not matter, according to them.
Anyhow, it would be easy to make the tools with the minimum amount of tools, and remember, when drilling there are collars designed to control drilling depth. And, there are tapered reamers for tapering holes, I have 2 sets, they were used to repair cracks in case iron.
F. Guffey
I read Charlie Askins saying how he made hollow point bullets way back then,nothing new. However it seems to me buying a mold for a hollowpoint bullet would be less work in the long run. How much expansion would you get from a hardcast bullet? Also don't the sides of the bullet need to be scored or serrated (?) to ensure reliable expansion?
I had some old FMJ bullets I played with using the HP tools. My main goal was to use them on coyotes or hogs. I used the meplat trimmer first and once I got the tips cut down to just inside of the nose, I then switched over to the HP drill and ran it in. To be honest, if I was sitting around somewhere frozen in my house and couldn't leave, I would probably pursue it to simply curtail the boredom. However doubtful that will ever be the case so I won't be doing any more. I never even shot the half dozen or so that I did up.
Like you mentioned it is much easier to pour them into a mold or even if I DID want to build them with a jacket I would probably simply save up and get the tools to swadge them into annealed cases instead, and be done with it.
Like you mentioned it is much easier to pour them into a mold or even if I DID want to build them with a jacket I would probably simply save up and get the tools to swadge them into annealed cases instead, and be done with it.
a little off topic here, but i have a hollow point mold on the way, and i was looking at the hollow points with the timy shaft in the middle(gold dot maybe??), couldn't i just drill a tiny hole into the middle of my hollow point pin(penta pin in my case) and achieve the same result? has anyone tried this? would it help/hurt/anything?
If you have a HP mold coming, then your about to embark on a fun little journey.
The key to cast HP's is matching the alloy to the velocity. I HIGHLY suggest you head over to Castboolits, and look under the Lead and LEad Alloys forum for the Alloy Calculators sticky.
This will help you work out your alloy so that it is just right and also keep track of what you made so you can easily make it again. I also use a little freeware program called Convert to get my weights from decimal portioned pounds into ounces when I weigh them out. The calculator spreadsheet works off of pound increments, so when you divide it up, you have to use decimal equivalents of the percentages of a pound. That sounded good coming through my head, but if it don't make sense, say for 1/2# you would input .5 and so forth.
You will find many who use 30-1, 25-1, 20-1, and even 10-1 ratios of pure to tin and have great results. What makes the calculator good is that you can use what you have the most of on hand, and blend it into what you need. In my case I had the most of a 1/3/96 alloy. While it works awesome for pouring up both solids and HP's, the latter are simply way too brittle, and the noses blow right off. Take the same alloy and add in a little bit of pure lead, and tin to bring the antimony content down and the tin content up to even amounts, and it gets MUCH more better at holding together.
That said, you can do the same with WW's as well. The tinkering starts after you get your first batch worked up. If you try for a BHN to fall somewhere in the 9-12 area, and keep your tin and antimony levels even and at or less than 2% you should be good. The two alloys I am using for mine now are a 1.5/1.5/97 for the lower velocity stuff under 1000 fps, and a 1.75/1.75/96.5 for up to around 1200'ish fps. Keeping the tin and antimony levels even will give you ductility but without loosing strength. You however DO have to have some antimony for the strength however, but too much and you get brittle. Too much tin and you not only waste valuable metal but it will not blend in as well with the antimony, and will make up some weird weights when you cast.
Like I said it is a fun trip through the art of blending and loading as well. Once you have your alloy you have to keep in mind that you will have to verify how it actually shoots. If you look at some of my previous post I have pictures of some of mine. Trust me I have plenty of others which are not in pictures I'm not nearly as proud of. Some leaded terribly even with the first loads due to being simply too soft, and others still were too brittle. Some I simply put back into the pot and never shot due to how they came out.
Do the search for the calculator, spend some time with it playing around with the known listings it has. Then if you have clip on wheel weights, simply use it as a standard and go from there. Try to get it down to a 2/2/96 to start with and go form there. Don't sweat the arsenic content as it really isn't going to effect much with that much antimony to thin down. If it's too soft try a 2.5/2.5/95 and see where that gets you. I wouldn't think you need to go much more than that however as your getting into a pretty high tin area.
So I hope this helps. I was completely in the dark when I started out with a couple of fine MP molds and I have gotten things down now so that I can easily hit my mark with a stable and easily repeatable alloy. That is where you want to end up. Keep it as simple as possible, and easily repeatable. Start with say 5 or 10# to start off with and then work it up from there into 25 and 50# batches. Oh and you always want to at least run the numbers through the spreadsheet as it isn't always as easy as adding in 3 pound of this and 8 pounds of that, especially as you increase the amount your blending up. Also if you have access to a digital postal scale, that makes weighing out the decimal equivalents SO much easier.
Good luck
The key to cast HP's is matching the alloy to the velocity. I HIGHLY suggest you head over to Castboolits, and look under the Lead and LEad Alloys forum for the Alloy Calculators sticky.
This will help you work out your alloy so that it is just right and also keep track of what you made so you can easily make it again. I also use a little freeware program called Convert to get my weights from decimal portioned pounds into ounces when I weigh them out. The calculator spreadsheet works off of pound increments, so when you divide it up, you have to use decimal equivalents of the percentages of a pound. That sounded good coming through my head, but if it don't make sense, say for 1/2# you would input .5 and so forth.
You will find many who use 30-1, 25-1, 20-1, and even 10-1 ratios of pure to tin and have great results. What makes the calculator good is that you can use what you have the most of on hand, and blend it into what you need. In my case I had the most of a 1/3/96 alloy. While it works awesome for pouring up both solids and HP's, the latter are simply way too brittle, and the noses blow right off. Take the same alloy and add in a little bit of pure lead, and tin to bring the antimony content down and the tin content up to even amounts, and it gets MUCH more better at holding together.
That said, you can do the same with WW's as well. The tinkering starts after you get your first batch worked up. If you try for a BHN to fall somewhere in the 9-12 area, and keep your tin and antimony levels even and at or less than 2% you should be good. The two alloys I am using for mine now are a 1.5/1.5/97 for the lower velocity stuff under 1000 fps, and a 1.75/1.75/96.5 for up to around 1200'ish fps. Keeping the tin and antimony levels even will give you ductility but without loosing strength. You however DO have to have some antimony for the strength however, but too much and you get brittle. Too much tin and you not only waste valuable metal but it will not blend in as well with the antimony, and will make up some weird weights when you cast.
Like I said it is a fun trip through the art of blending and loading as well. Once you have your alloy you have to keep in mind that you will have to verify how it actually shoots. If you look at some of my previous post I have pictures of some of mine. Trust me I have plenty of others which are not in pictures I'm not nearly as proud of. Some leaded terribly even with the first loads due to being simply too soft, and others still were too brittle. Some I simply put back into the pot and never shot due to how they came out.
Do the search for the calculator, spend some time with it playing around with the known listings it has. Then if you have clip on wheel weights, simply use it as a standard and go from there. Try to get it down to a 2/2/96 to start with and go form there. Don't sweat the arsenic content as it really isn't going to effect much with that much antimony to thin down. If it's too soft try a 2.5/2.5/95 and see where that gets you. I wouldn't think you need to go much more than that however as your getting into a pretty high tin area.
So I hope this helps. I was completely in the dark when I started out with a couple of fine MP molds and I have gotten things down now so that I can easily hit my mark with a stable and easily repeatable alloy. That is where you want to end up. Keep it as simple as possible, and easily repeatable. Start with say 5 or 10# to start off with and then work it up from there into 25 and 50# batches. Oh and you always want to at least run the numbers through the spreadsheet as it isn't always as easy as adding in 3 pound of this and 8 pounds of that, especially as you increase the amount your blending up. Also if you have access to a digital postal scale, that makes weighing out the decimal equivalents SO much easier.
Good luck
wncchester
New member
"How much expansion would you get from a hardcast bullet? "
You've put your finger on the weak point of handgun hollow pointed lead bullets. Soft cast, low speed HPs don't open reliably. Make them hard enough to shoot fast and they still won't open reliably. That's why HP molds have fallen out of use except for a few hopefulls who haven't yet learned.
You've put your finger on the weak point of handgun hollow pointed lead bullets. Soft cast, low speed HPs don't open reliably. Make them hard enough to shoot fast and they still won't open reliably. That's why HP molds have fallen out of use except for a few hopefulls who haven't yet learned.
okay, thats alot of stuff i dont quite understand yet, tin and antimony being the main. i understand i can buy solder 95/5 for adding tin, but how do i figure how much to use? when pouring ingots i kept and labels y sticker weights and my clip ons because the stickers seems to be a harder alloy cuase theyt take forever to cook. does that mean they already have more tin? and antimony.....don't know that one. how do i test hardness, i know its on a brinell scale, but what do i use to figure that out?
and on a side note, am i hearing that hollows are impossible to make using a round as small as a 9mm when using lead?
also, what is the consequence of too hard when not using hollow points? these will never be used as SD rounds so expansion is less important than accuracy. i really just wanted a hp mould so i could get profecient with shooting hp's.
and on a side note, am i hearing that hollows are impossible to make using a round as small as a 9mm when using lead?
also, what is the consequence of too hard when not using hollow points? these will never be used as SD rounds so expansion is less important than accuracy. i really just wanted a hp mould so i could get profecient with shooting hp's.
Rangefinder
New member
Really?
I could have a few others chime in who were obviously never told their HP's weren't reliable either, but I'd hate for them to find out and their HP's suddenly stop working.
rangefinder, i figured they would shroom pretty good in a mag load, but do you have any experience with 9mm hp's???
doesn't matter, ima make em anyhow, i'll let you know how they work out, i'll pour a few different densities and shoot into a bucket of dirt with some denim over it, ill give some pics of my exp. thanks
one more question.....what's "annealed cases"?
doesn't matter, ima make em anyhow, i'll let you know how they work out, i'll pour a few different densities and shoot into a bucket of dirt with some denim over it, ill give some pics of my exp. thanks
one more question.....what's "annealed cases"?
I can't speak for cast HP's, but the swaged ones seem to work just fine.
What were the cast HP's pictured above fired into?
I wouldn't drill a cup and core FMJ to make a HP out of it. When you do this there is a real risk of shooting the core out of the bullet and leaving the jacket in the bore to bulge things (or worse) the next time you pull the trigger. For jacketed bullets (not necessarily plated ones) the jacket should be closed on one end or the other.
What were the cast HP's pictured above fired into?
I wouldn't drill a cup and core FMJ to make a HP out of it. When you do this there is a real risk of shooting the core out of the bullet and leaving the jacket in the bore to bulge things (or worse) the next time you pull the trigger. For jacketed bullets (not necessarily plated ones) the jacket should be closed on one end or the other.
Rangefinder
New member
There are several things that work well for expansion testing; wet magazine stacks, jugs packed with wet newsprint or sawdust are a couple I use regularly.
Sure Shot Mc Gee
New member
Your pretty much correct. Straight wall cartridge cases unless their heavy crimped time after time hardly ever require annealing.
There is no benefit in trying to anneal nickel plated brass. And their trimming can be hard on the trimmers cutter.
As far as HP I do mine on a drill press. That way I can control the depth time after time and drill size of the opening. Some of my hunting round have two different size drills used to create their cavity with. Doing so helps reduces the amount of total lead removal and slows their expansion. Being my bullets molds are g/checked I've even made my own version of the infamious 44 Hydra-Shok and some other uniquely different I'm reluctant to comment on._
S/S
reloader28
New member
I have the Forster hollow pointers in 1/8" and 1/16" and they work very good as long as you test out your bullets, (which your supposed to do anyway).
Home cast hollow points have excellent performance with this tool. You can fine tune your alloy, HP depth and size.
For hunting and self defense, 50/50/2% WW/pure/tin and softer works good. Excellent expansion and usually 100% weight retention.
For my 243 varmint loads, I use an RCBS 100gr straight WW bullet and use the 1/16" bit drilled 3/8" deep. At 1800fps these things work comparable to an expensive V-max.
I do think the HP molds which are so popular would be handy at times, but I see no need to shoot very many HP cast bullets. Just a few special ones occasionally.
Home cast hollow points have excellent performance with this tool. You can fine tune your alloy, HP depth and size.
For hunting and self defense, 50/50/2% WW/pure/tin and softer works good. Excellent expansion and usually 100% weight retention.
For my 243 varmint loads, I use an RCBS 100gr straight WW bullet and use the 1/16" bit drilled 3/8" deep. At 1800fps these things work comparable to an expensive V-max.
I do think the HP molds which are so popular would be handy at times, but I see no need to shoot very many HP cast bullets. Just a few special ones occasionally.