Oops! Wrong end in the melt pot.

[Land_Owner]

I purchased a new Lyman #452374 by 45 Caliber (452 Diameter) 180 Grain Devastator Hollow Point mould with the wooden handle and steel insert that creates the hollow point.  Never held one before, never moulded with one, and the Learning Curve turned out to be fairly shallow. 

However, this mould is not like the other ones, where you can indiscriminately turn it over above the liquid lead while heating the mould.  Danged if I didn't flip it and dip the brand new wooden handle in the hot lead - scalding off the urethane finish.  "Personalized" it on its "Maiden Voyage". 

After a little coaxing, and some candling inside, it threw some fairly decent HP's to boot.

[greenrivers]

I bought one for my .44mag a while back and played with differant alloys to see what I could get for performance. It turned out to be a very productive venture. Because of it, I recently bought one to use for the .45-70. Hope that yours turns out to provide you with the same results. (They are testing fireproof handles now.)

[hornady]

I have used paint stir sticks for fluxing, never thought about using the mold handle, might get a little expensive.

[mechanic]

You could probably get a volume discound on mold handles!  Don't feel  too bad.  I prop my molds on my pot and let them heat up with the lead.  I bumped one one day and  the entire rig fell into the lead pot.  Fishing it out was no big deal, but trying to clean it up got a little involved.

Ben

[Lloyd Smale]

thats actually a real good bullet. Ive had great luck with accuracy with it in a number of 44s and have taken game as big as a 1100 lb cow bison with it.