Expanding Soft Point Lead Attached to Hard Cast Base Bullet Source

[miked]

Was intrigued some years ago by an article written by Ross Seyfried regarding the casting of lead bullets that would expand, yet still remain intact and attached to a hard cast lead base after impact. Time constriction and city living space constraints keep me from becoming a bullet caster, however, this seemed like a pretty clever and usefull bullet making tool/technique. Amongst the several commercial bullet casting businesses, listed and written of on this forum, there must be one, or several, that make these types of bullets. Was hoping that someone here could direct me to one of these companies. Any info is appreciated. Thanks.

[Lloyd Smale]

i dont think theres a single commercial caster that makes soft nosed cast bullets. Its not an easy thing to do. reject rate is high and its a one at a time casting thing. they would have to charge big bucks for them. there fun to play with but in all reality dont do much that a conventional jacked soft point doesnt allready do.

[miked]

Thanks LLoyd. Certainly understand the impracticality of this type of bullet. Seemed like a good idea, though. Regards.

[jhalcott]

Soft point CAST bullets act a LOT like Nosler Partition bullets. Do a search for Bruce B's method. You will have to cast them your self. You only need a few for the deer season,as the regular cast bullets are going to shoot to the same spot as the soft nose ones. You can make them with linotype bases or much softer alloys. The nose can be as soft as pure lead or harder. Another trick is to cast the base from softer alloy than the nose for use in a muzzle loader where you WANT the base to "swell" up to fill the bore. Admittedly, they are better in .40 and larger calibers, but I HAVE used them in .30 caliber guns a few times. I do not go thru all the reheating steps that Bruce does. I simply cast the nose from one pot with a mini dipper then use a Lee bottom pour pot to fill the base of the mold with another alloy. I find this method to work for MY needs. I'm kinda lazy and do NOT need perfect bullets for my style of hunting( Shots less than 100 yards!)

[Lloyd Smale]

the way i allways did it was to run two pots. One with the hard and one with the soft alloy. Id make two dippers out of spent shell casings. You have to experiment with which cases to use to get the right ammount of lead for the base. For the most part a 32 s&w case worked for most of the noses. Id fill the mold first with the hard alloy count to five slow to let it set up a bit and then poor the soft alloy in. It takes a bit of time to get the rhythm just right to make them look good without a defined casting line between the two alloys. What id do is use the good ones to hunt and the crappier ones to sight in. Ive done bullets this way for everything from a 41 mag to a 12 guage slug. Kind of fun to play with. Another way it was done was veral from lbt molds made two part molds to casted the nose seperately. Youd cast it and place it in the mold and cast the base. One more way it was done was by taking a soft round ball and put it in the mold and then put your mold in the pot till it melted then pour the hard on top of it. If you want to see something impressive its my 50ak with cast soft noses at full power hitting gallon milk jugs full of water.

[Gun Runner]

It seems in my muddled mind (whats left of it) that many years ago Lyman made a set of molds for doing this. one was for the nose and the other for the base. Thad an epoxie(sp) you put between them to hold them to gather. Cant find the artical I had on it, think ex thru it out with a bunch of other papers when we splig.

Gun Runner

[Lloyd Smale]

yes they did

[calvon]

I forget now where I read it, but one guy noted that he stands his lubed and gas checked water dropped bullets on end in a flat bottomed pan, adds enough water to cover the grease grooves, then plays a propane torch over the bullets. He says it's a bit tricky, but you apply the flame and at the first subtle change of color, get off it as just a little bit more will cause the bullet to slump. I haven't tried it and thus have no experience of my own.