Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Thoughts on “best” 44mag hunting mold

As the title says, I’m thinking something in the 240+ weight range with a nice wide flat point. I’ve never hunted with cast, but I’d like to start.

These will be powder coated, and shot in a 6.5” 629, and a 7.5” super red hawk. Hoping to run 296 as I have 4lbs of it on hand.

Also, gas check or no? I do plan to run full power loads, but nothing crazy hot.

Thanks!

Steve

Lots of good mould makers and designs out there. A good start would be some version of a gas-checked 429421, or the RCBS 44KT which is a slightly different design with a shorter nose, and has a gas check shank. I think you'll want a gas check when pushing them fast with 296. I know NOE makes a version of the 429421, as does Accurate Moulds.

My thoughts are Id want to know the throat diameters of both and proceed from there.

NOE makes the H&G503, which has a bit better meplat than the Lyman Keiths. Its only available in .431-2.
You shouldnt need a gas check at all and your probably not going to enjoy the extra work.
They also make a 280 Keith in 432 and 434 diameters.
The meplat is on par with the LBT WFN.
Those two are what I use as standards, and Ive owned more than a couple 44 moulds!

Well I did a bunch of research yesterday and settled on the Lyman 429640 250gr HP “devastator”

It looks really aggressive, but after finding some great penetration/weight retention testing with different alloys at different velocities, and several testaments to its accuracy and performance on game I’m sold.

I’ll post some pictures when I get some made up!

I hope it works out for you. A few drawbacks with the "Devastator." Single cavity mould for one. Heat the HP pin and mould separately initially, to get the pin good and hot, then cast hot. Use a softer alloy, hardened with tin, if you want the HP to actually expand, as opposed to just breaking petals off. If you want petals to break off, run an antimony-bearing alloy.

I opted to get the NOE version of the 429640 that casts about .433" with my alloy and comes with flat nose, cup point, and hollow point pins. The hollow points are 285 grains with check. I found better accuracy shooting the powder-coated version out of both a 44 Marlin and a 444 Marlin, sized at .4325" at 1700 fps and 2100 fps, respectively. The alloy contains enough antimony that the front end fragments on game, and creates 3-4 secondary wound channels that have quite a bit of power on their own. Have tried to use them on elk, but the elk haven't cooperated. Have shot a couple deer that have been "lights out" with huge wound channels. Like a damn grenade. I'm guessing I lose about 1/3 the bullet weight in fragmentation. Funny, I didn't see either deer drop. They were down before I came out of recoil, and didn't twitch.

Thanks for the tips, I did read that it likes to be good and hot, and I’ll be powder coating them. Saw some very detailed tests done on cast boolits forum with a few different alloys at 4 different speeds ranging from 950-1400~FPS

It seemed to perform well with Straight WW And a bit softer. I’ll play around shooting through water jugs until I find something I like performance wise.

Also, I have a machine shop at home, and if I’m not happy with the factory hollow point profile I plan to make some different pins to play around with.

A single cavity, mass produced hollow point gas checked mould that will have a baked on jacket.

That's either dedication to the craft or the absolutely the quickest way to quiting before the start.

Please dont tell me you have a LEE bottom pour pot....

I don’t mind doing things the hard way, and I don’t plan on casting thousands of bullets with this one.

A little background in myself. I decided I wanted to “build” a precision rifle, so I started looking into the savage prefit barrels (before they made them for everything) long story short I now own a full sized lathe and mill, and all the tooling to go with them, because I wanted it done right. I like to tinker and figure things out, and a little challenging cast hollow point won’t scare me off! Haha

That's good.

A lot of people quit going your route!

Best of luck to you.

Never, ever saw the need for or advantage with a hollow point in a revolver but, that is me. Some folks like 'em. Good luck!! Given we sound a bit alike when it comes to doing things I think you'll be fine casting them. As others have mentioned, it won't go fast but you'll get what you want and that's a good enough reason.

Thanks! I wasn’t planning on a hollow point, but the testaments to accuracy and on-game performance over on castboolits forum led me to give it a try. I might end up making a flat nose or shallower cup nose pin for it if I don’t like the way it works.

I have used both the Lyman 429421 and the RCBS 44-250 in my hunting handguns with good success. Both are Keith style bullets, plainbase without a gas check or hollowpoint. For full power loads I mostly use H110 (W296) with no problems. However, I mostly use either of the two loaded over Unique or Universal as a reduced load at about 950 to 1000 fps. Those reduced loads with either bullet will kill white tails just fine.

Check out Arsenal molds. They will make the mold diameter to your spec/request to match your throat.

One Arsenal mold example:
http://arsenalmolds.com/products?product_id=89&limit=75

Gas check or plain base is your option, but for pistol applications, I would stick with plain base.

Don't worry. You helped me through a lot of things like this.

Sounds like you've answered your own question.

I would have recommended an LBT WLN 300 grain gas check sized appropriately for your gun's cylinder throats. My "luck" with them on deer shows they kill as well as 240 grain JHPs without the meat destruction. If you wanted less weight, I'd have said WFN ... I believe 300 grains is the lights you can get in the long nose version. I would go ahead and spend the extra $50 or so for a 4-cavity over 2-cavity mold.

Tom

one of these will be your huckleberry...



all of them will penetrate a deer well enough to kill it. just pick the one you like best and develop a load for it.

For my 1894 Marlin I purchased the 265 gr NOE Ranch Dog design several years ago. I havn't done much testing with this bullet yet, but I have shot plenty of cans and etc. with it. I have no doubt it will do fine on deer, and piggies.

@blammer Great comparison pic.

When I got my first .44 mag pistol back in the mid '70s, I bought both a Lyman 429244 and 429426 molds. Both have shot well in my pistols, but I prefer the gas checks on the -244 bullets with my full power loads with 296 powder.

Adding a gas check is easy with my Lyman 450 lube/sized, but would be an extra step with powder coating.

I would not hesitate to hunt anything in the lower 48 with my 429244 bullets.

HELL YEAH !

I still want to find someone that can mill one of my Lee 310g molds down to where the stub for the gas check is removed. Make it about a 280g without a gas check. I like the front end of that bullet but would like it a bit lighter and without a check.

I've been loading the 270g speer gold dot fn or whatever they call them this year down to about 1100 fps and still think that's enough power. And 11.5 g of be86 vs about twice that weight of h110 or pp300mp is way more pleasant to shoot without giving up more than about 100 fps.

I'm thinking a 270-280g cast flat nose at 1100fps is about all I need in my 329 pd anymore. Shooting my old 310g Lazer cast wfn bullets over 1200fps from the 329 pd has put my wrist and elbow in to spondylitis flare ups. Just not as much fun as it was when I was younger.

I think a 280 or so flat nose at 1100 is enough to put a hole through most things.

Bb

This guy does mold modifications:

http://www.hollowpointmold.com/

From the website:



Seems like he could mill off the amount of the gas check.