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cast lead penta point HP's

Posted By: gunslingerdad

cast lead penta point HP's - 02/16/2022 9:30 PM

i recently purchased a MP brass 4 cavity mold .432 250grain keith SWC. i cast some bullets today. i had about a 10% failure rate with bullets that had some sort of minor flaw- either a wrinkle or slightly not filled out tip on one side of the penta.
has anyone done any tests on the accuracy of slightly flawed cast bullets? I know it is no big deal to recycle them thru the lead pot and just make perfect bullets, just curious if anyone has tested blems for accuracy. These are being powder coated.
I know Dick casts thousands of HP bullets so will be interested to see if he knows.
thanks in advance
Posted By: KRal

Re: cast lead penta point HP's - 02/17/2022 3:22 PM

Originally Posted by gunslingerdad
i recently purchased a MP brass 4 cavity mold .432 250grain keith SWC. i cast some bullets today. i had about a 10% failure rate with bullets that had some sort of minor flaw- either a wrinkle or slightly not filled out tip on one side of the penta.
has anyone done any tests on the accuracy of slightly flawed cast bullets? I know it is no big deal to recycle them thru the lead pot and just make perfect bullets, just curious if anyone has tested blems for accuracy. These are being powder coated.
I know Dick casts thousands of HP bullets so will be interested to see if he knows.
thanks in advance


Unless you’re shooting long range (200+ yards) you probably won’t see much difference - especially less than 100 yards.
Posted By: KRal

Re: cast lead penta point HP's - 02/17/2022 3:25 PM

P.S…..but if you don’t have confidence in the flawed bullet, you can always set them to the side for hunting rocks and such.
Posted By: gunslingerdad

Re: cast lead penta point HP's - 02/18/2022 12:16 AM

Kim,
I fully agree, back when i was shooting a lot of long range rifle and this was before ballistic tips, i shot with a guy who said that if you werent shooting over 500 yards a flawed lead tip didnt matter. He had done extensive testing on hornady SP bullets. I used to shoot all sorts of plated pistol blems for LE combat competitions and out to 50 yards I couldnt see a significant difference. I am new to Lead HP bullets so just figured I would ask here for some feed back.
I actually saved some of the blemmed tipped HP's and am going to load them and shoot them for group size, I am betting that it will just about the same.
Posted By: Duke3026

Re: cast lead penta point HP's - 02/19/2022 4:43 PM


Originally Posted by gunslingerdad
i recently purchased a MP brass 4 cavity mold .432 250grain keith SWC. i cast some bullets today. i had about a 10% failure rate with bullets that had some sort of minor flaw- either a wrinkle or slightly not filled out tip on one side of the penta.
has anyone done any tests on the accuracy of slightly flawed cast bullets? I know it is no big deal to recycle them thru the lead pot and just make perfect bullets, just curious if anyone has tested blems for accuracy. These are being powder coated.
I know Dick casts thousands of HP bullets so will be interested to see if he knows.
thanks in advance


Tips not filling out is a heat issue, you may, need to run that new mold a little bit before they flow with a even fill.
Posted By: gunslingerdad

Re: cast lead penta point HP's - 02/20/2022 10:17 PM

thanks for the tip, pun intended. i noticed the tips filled out better the longer i cast. the last 150 bullets bullets had no flaws.
Posted By: gunslingerdad

Re: cast lead penta point HP's - 03/13/2022 11:40 PM

range report on the blemished tip 44 mags and 44 specials. these were WW/lead cast at 50/50 and 70/30, 44 mags were running 1117 fps and the 44 specials were running 948 fps
the blem tip bullets stayed in the group - the 50/50 on both guns were running about 3 inch groups, the 70/30 on both guns are running 2" groups. I think both are running plenty fast for the Penta style points to expand. I now know to just run 70/30 on all my bullets and just be done with it.
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