Maillemaker
03-31-2019, 04:44 PM
So about the time I had signed up to buy a Noe 4-cavity copy of the RCBS Hodgdon bullet, I had discovered the Moose Wilkinson bullet, which is a compression-style bullet instead of an expanding ball bullet. I have discovered that the only way to get consistent weights and no voids with hollow-cavity bullets is to ladle pour, which is harder to do than bottom pour. The Wilkinson and other flat-bottomed bullets pour beautifully with a bottom pour, so I have switched over to them in competition.
However, I needed to loan out my Richmond carbine at a skirmish next month, and it likes to eat the Hodgdon bullet, so I decided to finally give the Noe mold a whirl.
First, it casts very nicely. Not quite as crisp a drop as the RCBS steel mold, but very good. The bullets drop from the core pins wonderfully from the very first cast. I'm casting pure lead at 800F. Sprue puddle takes a few seconds to solidify as normal, so I feel like I've got a hot enough lead/mold to get as crisp as they are going to get. I pour each hole one at a time, moving on after the sprue solidifies.
My only real disappointment is that with the same sized core pin as on the RCBS Hodgdon, (the NOE short one), the bullet comes out at 461 grains instead of the RCBS Hodgdon at 425. The reason is probably because the base of the nose of the Noe bullet is bigger than the RCBS. I think this is probably my fault because on the drawing I provided early on in the conversation I never dimensioned the base of the ogive:
http://noebulletmolds.com/smf/index.php/topic,951.0.html
And I didn't pay attention on the final drawings about the weights.
So, I'll either have to do a new load workup with the 466 grain version with the same depth cavity, or try the deeper depth cavity that ends up with about the same weight as before.
So, sadly, it's not an exact copy of the RCBS Hodgdon as I had hoped. But, it seems to be a very good mold and man is it fantastic to be able to drop 4 of these at a time!
I'll have to do some load workups and see how it does.
Noe on the left, RCBS on the right.
https://i.imgur.com/vY97d2nl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/icXI67pl.jpg
Noe with short pin:
https://i.imgur.com/KSafkO2l.jpg
RCBS:
https://i.imgur.com/mhnnGE3l.jpg
However, I needed to loan out my Richmond carbine at a skirmish next month, and it likes to eat the Hodgdon bullet, so I decided to finally give the Noe mold a whirl.
First, it casts very nicely. Not quite as crisp a drop as the RCBS steel mold, but very good. The bullets drop from the core pins wonderfully from the very first cast. I'm casting pure lead at 800F. Sprue puddle takes a few seconds to solidify as normal, so I feel like I've got a hot enough lead/mold to get as crisp as they are going to get. I pour each hole one at a time, moving on after the sprue solidifies.
My only real disappointment is that with the same sized core pin as on the RCBS Hodgdon, (the NOE short one), the bullet comes out at 461 grains instead of the RCBS Hodgdon at 425. The reason is probably because the base of the nose of the Noe bullet is bigger than the RCBS. I think this is probably my fault because on the drawing I provided early on in the conversation I never dimensioned the base of the ogive:
http://noebulletmolds.com/smf/index.php/topic,951.0.html
And I didn't pay attention on the final drawings about the weights.
So, I'll either have to do a new load workup with the 466 grain version with the same depth cavity, or try the deeper depth cavity that ends up with about the same weight as before.
So, sadly, it's not an exact copy of the RCBS Hodgdon as I had hoped. But, it seems to be a very good mold and man is it fantastic to be able to drop 4 of these at a time!
I'll have to do some load workups and see how it does.
Noe on the left, RCBS on the right.
https://i.imgur.com/vY97d2nl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/icXI67pl.jpg
Noe with short pin:
https://i.imgur.com/KSafkO2l.jpg
RCBS:
https://i.imgur.com/mhnnGE3l.jpg