I am looking to have a new bullet mold made. I need a nose pour mold for a 32-40. Now that Hoch is out of business (I loved their molds) is anyone making nose pour molds???
I have a 32-40 that is 1:14 twist, .316 bore and .325 grove. Looking for a bullet about 215 grs. in 1:20 alloy.

Thanks,
A. J. Palik

I have a Hoch nose pour mold that leaves the base PERFECT. The base corners are 100% filled out and the base shines like a mirror. I have about 50 other molds that cast well but nothing like the nose pour mold. I cast 1:20 at 760 deg. and use a dipper. As I understand the base is the steering.

A. J. Palik

JLouis wrote on Oct 31^st, 2019 at 8:50pm:

I agree 100%.I've shot matches on and off for as many years and own nose and base pour molds.mold dimensions and design are more important than what end it pours from

Oldman1950
For a cast bullet to be accurate, it needs a square base with clean sharp edges. BUT just for grins & giggles, take a lubed bullet, breech seat the bullet. Now, CAREFULLY push it through and out the muzzle so as to not bang up the base. Examine that bullet's base. Not so square with sharp edges is it? Now think about how much more force is applied to that bullet base when about 16,000 PSI of hot powder gas and still burning powder particles slam into it.
Bullet shown below was .001 over groove diameter. Breech seated, then pushed through barrel and out muzzle. By the way, this bullet shoots quite accurately at 200 yards. While I have not shot a 250 with this particular bullet, I have shot lots of 247s, 248s and 249s.

Schuetzenmiester
Point well taken about those little fins standing proud of the base. Got any ideas for a fix? That bullet is only .001 over grove diameter and cast 1:20. I have a batch of that same bullet cast 1:16, I'll try one of those and see what if the base is any cleaner.
You also might notice that the overall bullet base is very slightly concave. Maybe a bullet that is exactly groove diameter?
If my bullets have the little fins drawn off the base, I'll bet just about everyone else has the same issue.
So we don't highjack Oldman1950's thread, perhaps we should start a new thread?

Flatlander - I sometimes muzzle load with straight black and duplex but after much testing, ML is no more accurate than breech seating. You can read the results of my testing in my book The Golden Age of the American Schuetzenfest.

John
I have not tried bore diameter bullets although Dr. Mann was a big proponent of using them. He does state in his findings that overall, pure lead bullets of bore diameter were the most accurate. One issue with soft lead bullets of bore diameter was that when the bases upset to fill the bore with black or duplex loads was that they get distorted out of square (oblique) to the bullet body. Dr. Mann captured hundreds of bullets in soft snow and oiled sawdust and found that nearly all recovered bullets had bases that were oblique to the bullet body. That's not an accuracy enhancement for any bullet.

Bill
You would have to read those parts of Dr. Mann’s book dealing with shooting bore diameter bullets to get a good understanding of why he declared them the most accurate. He tested groove diameter, bore diameter, tapered, grooved and slick sided bullets of various compositions such as 1:30, 1:20 and pure lead. Overall, he found bore diameter most accurate. His good results were 5-shot groups of only about 1.5 minutes of angle at 100 yards shooting mostly with duplex but he experimented with numerous combinations. That’s why you need to read his book to get a grasp of his testing methodology and understand the results.
You are correct about Pope endorsing muzzle loading because the bullets had less base distortion during loading. BUT the biggest practical reason for muzzle loading was it permitted shooting dirty while maintaining top accuracy. This worked especially well with duplex loads of DuPont No.1 smokeless with either black or semi-smokeless main charges. That was no small consideration during a tournament where a King match, for instance, might me 100 or even 200 shots.