Why has no one made a mold like this (two row, 12 cav.)?

[Whistler]

I sat looking at pictures of the old H&G molds and lo! Behold the inspiration!
I'm no CAD artist, so please excuse my crude MSPaint drawing...

Why do we not have molds like this?
With aluminum blocks and cavities for .35 cal or such it would not be overly heavy.

[MiHec]

How much are you prepared to pay for this mold?


I think I answer your question

[Whistler]

Just the man I wanted to see in this thread!

I guess it'd have to be a group buy to see it below astronomical sums?

[CWME]

I can drain a 20# pot with a 6 cav pretty quickly. I ordered a 10 cav NOE 22 mold but that uses 40 gr per boolet and should take a while to drain the pot. IMO you would need a big pot to make something like that pay off.

[MiHec]

A GB would be only option, I think.

But still price (acceptable) would be under question mark

There is not only mold, but you need " built in" handles

I have some ideas, but need some additional thinking

[wiljen]

what would force the upper end of the mold (away from the handles) to close and align properly?

With a pivot pin on the handle connection, you don't have the leverage on the upper end of the mold to make it close tight enough to work well is my suspicion.

[cbrick]

Well, can't speak for others but if Miha made this I would buy it just because of how unique it would be and because Miha made it.

A great bullet for this concept would be the RCBS 55 gr FPGC. This bullet shoots great in my Hornet, the only downside is that pesky RCBS 2 cavity thing.

Another bullet that I would jump on is the RCBS 35 caliber 180 gr silhouette. This is the bullet that I cast the most of and there's that RCBS 2 cav thing again.

Rick

[cbrick]

what would force the upper end of the mold (away from the handles) to close and align properly?

Dunno, not only have I never used one of these, I've never even seen one except pictures but H&G seems to have worked out such problems or one could assume they wouldn't have made them.

It would be an interesting project to say the least.

Rick

[mold maker]

I would think cutting that many sprues would be as big a problem as any. Even in aluminum, its weight would be border line heavy, just because of the needed cubic inches of metal and the added mechanics of the handles.
Pouring that many small weight boolits would make it hard to maintain mold heat in aluminum.
I would think an 8 cav mold of larger cal. would be more workable.

[357 Voodoo]

I'm not to sure but how about if it was like the cramer 10 cav. molds. Cramer molds scroll to page 4&5 really neat design.

I think cost would be a factor but with the right boolit design it would be nice to have.

[chboats]

I would think it would be a lot easier to do like NOE did on their 10 cav 22 cal molds. 2 sprue plates, one on the top and one on the bottom with a rows of cavities on both sides. It would make a very tall mold even with a 357 boolit.
Carl

[GLL]

I run two matching 6-cavity moulds of a couple bullet designs and find it to be very efficient. It is also easy to regulate mould temperature with two separate identical moulds. I am not sure the ten or twelve cavity would offer any extra advantage.

Cost would probably be prohibitive since there would not be great demand for such a group buy.

Jerry

[cbrick]

I am not sure the ten or twelve cavity would offer any extra advantage. Jerry

I kinda agree with mold maker about an 8 cav but your forgetting one very important thing Jerry . . .

A man simply has to have his toys.

Rick

[MtGun44]

Weight and clumsiness would be disadvantages. For a commercial caster, it may well
be something of value, but they move up to the casting machines. My guess is that
a good 6 cavity run by an experienced user can really turn out enough for just about
any shooter. 8 and 10 were used to support police departments, and a 12 cav would
turn out an amazing amount of projectiles, but would you be better off to use the 6 cav
for a bit longer and save a whole BUNCH of money on this complex mold?

Choices, choices, choices. But if Miha could work it out - and enough folks want to give
it a try - - - - - COOL!

Bill

[Suo Gan]

The sprue plate would have to be incredibly sturdy as well as the block itself to take the torque and force necessary for this. So it would have to be cast iron, and the sprue plate cutoff would have to be a high grade steel. These would be too heavy, too expensive, too exhausting to use, and probably not worth the added expense because six or even four holes make plenty of boolits and you could buy several for the cost of one of those.

If you want mass production without getting involved with an automatic casting machine, your best bet would be to run two identical 6 or 4 cavity mold blocks simultaneously. Unless you work extremely fast, and can keep the pace up for the entire pot, the variation in boolit weights due to the expansion and contraction of the cavities as they cool and get hot would probably make this system defunct in practice as well. You will need a larger pot to be efficient.

This is just not something that is practical IMHO.

[captaint]

Imagine the pile of boolits..... I'd have to retire, just to have the time to shoot em all. Talk about needing more primers??? It'd be fun to try for a while. Mike

[9.3X62AL]

I hate to throw cold water on someone else's idea, but for me the sprue-cutting question and the tool weight would argue against the concept. I differ from a lot of casters in that a two-cavity design seems to be the most efficient for a longer casting session, as follows--

MANY fewer rejects with 1- or 2-banger moulds. Maybe alloy temp or pour rate could improve this, but not so far--and I've used The Big Blocks for a lotta years.

Much less fatigue--running two x 2-cavs, I can run the 22-lb RCBS pot from full to empty with only one or two rest stops. 4-cav Lymans and 6-hole Lees wear my a-- out, requiring more frequent breaks, so the production advantage is minimal with the mega-moulds.

Flame away--I already live in California.

[nooneimportant]

Or you could,
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=116861

[btroj]

I don't know that I want to learn the technique that would be required. And that sucker would be heavy and akward and heavy to move around when casting.
A nice 6 cav is plenty fast for me.

Brad

[warf73]

The biggest issue I can see is the limits of the casting pot itself, and the center block on the mold.

Unless your casting pots don't have support legs, like the Lee how are you going to fill both sides?

The design in the original post wouldn't work to my thinking.
That center block would be boiling HOT before the outside blocks got to proper casting temp.
If anything that center block would have to be bigger than the outside blocks since it would have both sides heating it at once verse just a single side at a time.

I could be off base with my thoughts.

Still a cool design tho.