Henry Rifle Forums

Id like to try cast bullets in both my 44mag and 30-30 Henry lever guns. Is there a mold that has done well for people in those?

Thanks, matt

Thought about casting but I am not ready yet. I have some 44 mag cast bullets from Berry's but I have not tried those yet either.

Lyman or Lee, they both make good affordable molds.
I cast a little, but also buy commercial bullets also.
I shoot a lot of cast in most of my lever guns.

RP

No help on .44, but, Missouri bullets has a 165gr coated cast rnfp for the 30-30 that works pretty good. I'll find my notes on that load and let you know.
Probably tomorrow or Mon.

Find a bullet your gun likes, then order the mould.

Matt's bullets lists the mould they use.

https://www.mattsbullets.com/

bpcrshooter wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:56 pm

Id like to try cast bullets in both my 44mag and 30-30 Henry lever guns. Is there a mold that has done well for people in those?

Thanks, matt

As for 30-30 and those 165 coated cast I mentioned, load is 9.0gr Unique and standard LR primer. OAL is:2.515".
At 50-80 yards, accuracy is pretty good. With a little tweaking, I'm sure I can improve on that. BTW, those 165's are from T & B bullets in Oregon with free shipping. I use 'em in a number of my firearms. Hope this helps.

Ijust stumbled on to a good practice load. I use 135grn Missouri Bullets over 6.0grns of Green Dot. This load will shoot 10 shot 1.5 inch groups @ 50yds out of my 94 Uberti. VEARY little recoil.

So I tried the Lee 170grRNFP with 23gr of RL7 and its pretty nice. just about touching at 50yd, so Im going to load up more and go to 100yd as this load will be for deer hunting.

Still searching for a good 44 bullet, I will look at the Matts bullets!!

http://arsenalmolds.com/index.php?route=common/home

or

http://www.accuratemolds.com/index.php

Very helpful people at both sites, and also very knowledgeable . Tell em what youre looking for or what youre wanting to load for and youll get it. Nicest mold in the biz if you ask me.

This is my first post here on the Henry forum, I hope this helps someone out.

By the by, I just placed an order with Matts a few days ago, I think theyre coming today. Im excited. I hope they are as good as they look. This is my first order. Ive been buying from Stateline in Pa and GTBullets. If you want to try some real nice HP cast bullets GT is the place, there or Rimrock . I think GT has a better price. At Matts though you can talk with him about different BHN and he will do his best to work with you.

I use NOE 432-265-RF GC, sized to .432 in my henry allweather.

and Lee 429-RF 200grain bullet sized to .431

rangereport: hhttps://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=11552&p=173547&hilit=noe#p173547
and: https://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic. ... oe#p157576

Been casting since 1972. I have a cast bullet for every center fire handgun and rifle I own. And they are FREE. My lead is free. WW's. I killed deer with my cast bullets. The only way to shoot alot or the big Boomers is to cast and reload. I mine the lead out my berm on my private range and recast it...........Some of that same lead has been down the barrel several times and in different calibers too.

About 1965, I bought 6000 pounds of lead for $27.
Still got some of it left.

I cast all my boolits for the .357 mag, .44 mag, and .45 Colt. I’ve used Lee, Lyman , and NOE, they’re all good molds. Just make sure you follow the direction that come with the mould to get it ready before you start casting. For the .44 mag, use a Lyman #2 alloy, that’s 9 lbs lead wheel weights and 1 lb 50/50 bare solder. Get your melt up to 700-720 degrees, warm your mould on a hot plate while your lead is melting. Make sure your boolits are sized 1-2 thousands over bore diameter, tumble lube them and your ready to load em up. Go to Cast boolits forum, there’s a wealth of knowledge on that forum, and some really nice guys that will gladly answer all your questions.
Paul

I also highly recommend you get the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, it’s the Bible. It will take you through every step in the casting process.
Paul

sounds like you have your casting well in hand .... I really like cowboy action loads, specially in our 45-70 .... looking forward to seeing some range reports showing their performance .... be sure to follow the link below to where you may add your Henry rifles to our forums total

http://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.p ... 08#p208908

I have had good results with the lee 200gr in 44 as a plinking load.
If you keep velocity low around 11-1200fps you should get away with using alox to tumble lube.
With my light plinking loads in .32 38/357 and 44 I dont even size just tumble lube and shoot unsized.

I would recommend you start with casting for the 44, lots of data for reduced loads and lower velocity will be more forgiving of any mistakes/imperfections in your casting. While not the same quality as a custom mold the Lee are very cheap and still turn out a quality bullet. The 2 cavity come with handles ready to go.
An old saucepan, gas burner and a ladle of some description to fill the mold is all that is needed to get started. A bottle of liquid alox to lube and you could be shooting your own cast for under $50.

Cattle driver,
Everything you told the OP is correct, only prob is it takes a while to learn the technique of laddeling

I’d recommend the OP get a Lee furnace, it holds 10 lbs of melt and is bottom pour, that’s easier and faster. But to those that laddle the lead into the mould, I take my hat off to.

Wabash kid wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 22, 2022 6:27 pm

I’d recommend the OP get a Lee furnace, it holds 10 lbs of melt and is bottom pour, that’s easier and faster. But to those that laddle the lead into the mould, I take my hat off to.

I have both, the ladle can be a little finicky at times.
My bottom pour is older and I bought used, the spout needs some attention.

I have a new lee 45 colt mold I need to try out.

RP

Lots of good casting information so far but I don't think that I would want less than a twenty pound capacity furnace. If you are pouring forty five caliber bullets or 45-70 slugs, you want more pours between having to add metal and refluxing. I have used everything from a bottom pour electric to a gas fired plumber's pot and they all do the job once you get rhythm going.On some moulds I had to open the sprue hole slightly to get a non wrinkled bullet, These are things that I have learned since I started making my own cast bullets in the late 1960's