New .44 caliber Brooks mold.

[Distant Thunder]

I have been so busy with other things since the end of August that I haven't had time to do much shooting and the shooting I've done has been more oriented toward leverguns and our up coming deer season in Wisconsin. That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about my single shots and my .44-77 in particular.

When I started my .44-77 project I wanted to work with 3 bullet designs, the elliptical, the Medford and the original Sharps style long range all in paper patch of course. Having worked with the first 2 of the 3 designs I started thinking toward the Sharps design as my shooting season came to an end a bit early this year.

I had actually early on hoped to go with a nose pour adjustable mold from KAL Tool and Die and I contacted Rick last year before I had my rifle back from Shiloh with the new Krieger 17-twist barrel on it, but when my rebarrel job was delayed for Covid and a bunch of other reasons I decided it was best to wait until I had a better idea what I needed diameter wise for the new barrel.

Mid summer this year I again contacted Rick and let him know that I was ready to move forward with the mold. He was on vacation at the time and said we could pick it up again when he return to his shop. I was never able to get a reply from him again for some reason. After months and no word I decided to contact Steve Brooks and he immediately replied and said he could make a mold like I wanted. It took a few emails to get the details worked out and I ordered the mold. That was mid October.

Today the mold arrived and it is just like my other Brooks molds, a very good quality mold. I plan to use the Staedtler tracing paper that I’ve had success with in one of my BACO molds. That paper is very similar to the Seth Cole 55W in thickness, about .0015” and adds .005” when wrapped. So I ordered the mold to cast at .434” and Steve hit that size dead on. This puts the bullet at about .439” after dry patching and then I’ll run it through my size die to be the perfect fit in the bore of my Krieger barrel.

The mold will cast up to a 1.450” long bullet and the sample that was in the mold was 1.250” so if it looks a bit short in the picture that’s in part because it is. The rest is my cellphone lens!

The one thing that I’m not sure about is that while I thought I told Steve I wanted a flat base the mold came with a cupped base. In the past cupped bases have been difficult to cast with for me. On the other hand since the original bullets often had cupped bases I’ve decided to cast some like that for testing.

Which brings me to one of the things I’d like to hear about from the rest of the paper patchers on here. What has been your experience with cupped base vs. flat base bullets?

The cup on this new mold seems to be very well done, not too thin around the edge and not too deep. I wrapped the sample with my paper using a patch that was made for a much longer bullet and the excess patch folded over and into the cup beautifully. It’s not a tail but just a patch much longer than I would use for this short of a bullet. It’s only a 440 grain bullet cast this short. Maybe a good chicken bullet!

I did ask Steve if he would make another base screw for a flat base, I’m sure he will. That would give me the option going forward.

I’ll post some results after I cast some and do some testing. There’s nothing like a new mold to get a guy thinking about shooting!

[Kurt]

Jim,

I sent Steve a original Sharps profiled bullet for a adjustable mould several years ago and I forgot to tell him to make it a flat based but it came with a cup base and that mould is what I sent for him to clone.
It is a very good performing bullet for all of my .44's.
I since made a flat based plug for mine. I was going to just turn the plug but I thought I might ant it later on.

With the cup based I found it performed the best with a twisted tail trimmed off with a toe nail triller. It helps protect the thin skirts from damage when the charge goes off and pushes the wad into the cup and this also has a tendency for the gas blowing by the wad cutting the patch. The twisted tail fills the cup holding the wad full diameter.
I think I gave you a bunch from this mould.

[Kurt]

I might add;
That bullet killed three bisons in fine shape.

[Don McDowell]

Jim with Brooks hollow base I try to jus get the bottom of the paper turned just over the edge of the lip

[J.B.]

Oh goodie...more bullet moulds & more experimentation. Great stuff ! I must have been checking this thread only a few hours before you posted Jim. Weird..almost. I have a Brooks mould of a similar design as I asked Steve to copy
Kurts effort from a few years before. So I've re-invented the wheel more than a few times already. Mines an adjustable nose pour also but casts at .432 no matter what mix I tried. From memory the error was mine saying 432/433 when ..in hindsight
( dont you love hindsight) .. 433/ 434 would have been a better choice. That said though, it has never failed to deliver. I'm not recovered any fired bullets that could tell the story of the cup base but I've twisted the tail & virtually cut off right at the
twist and not experienced any 'flyers' that werent down to my own error in the 'touch off'. The brass accurate mould that only arrived this week has a very similar ogive but with a stepped base. I dont believe you'll have any issues with the cup base
as they are fairly solid in the wall & not overly deep.
rgds.. Gavin.

[Kurt]

Gavin,

Good to see your still looking down at the green grass or maybe at the brown sand at your location.

I chose that bullet for hunting more than long range shooting, so I went with the .432" diameter so I could patch it with paper under bore for shooting dirty for hunting and use a .002" thick paper for target. And it works great for both applications.

I found I got better accuracy with the twisted tail tugged under the wad to keep the wad from getting pushed down into the cup shrinking it away from the bore wall letting the gas blow by keeping the vertical down that I found just folding the patch like I would for a flat based bullet.
I found to many bullets with gas cuts just folding the paper and also the thin skirts with damage.

I also opened the garage doors and shot from deep in my garage to keep the patch remnants from the winds blowing them away checking what the difference was between the twisted and folded tails and both were close to the muzzle blast on the floor but the folded patch showed signs of gas cuts. Using the HDPE wads solved that problem because that polly is harder and it holds it's form.

[Distant Thunder]

I knew I could count on you guys to give me good input on the cupped base design. My only experience with that design was 30 years ago with an old Lyman .40 caliber mold that had a long tapered forward section and I never really got it to work. The base was uneven on about half the bullets no matter what I did. The skirt was much thinner on that mold than it is on my new Brooks mold. This one from Steve looks really good on the sample.

Kurt and Don I know both of you sent a variety of bullets 2 years ago while I waiting for my rifle and I still have a few of each left and I very much appreciate you doing that. I keep any bullets I can get my hands on just for future reference and I have quite a collection. The problem with that is I tend to lose track of what’s what, who I got it from and who made the mold. When I ordered this new mold I sent Steve several pictures of the bullets I got from each of you that were similar to what I wanted.

Steve seemed to have trouble understanding what I wanted and I may have given him way too much information. My bad. I do like what he made. If I had any complaint, and I don’t, I would say it is a little more slender at the tip, but I think that is a good thing. I can lay the bullet on a picture of an original Sharps .45 caliber long range paper patch bullet and it is damn close. I have no complaints about that. In the end I told Steve that the nose wasn’t dimensionally that important that it just had to look like the original Sharps design and that the nose should NOT be over a certain length. The old bullets tended to have noses much shorter than the ones being made today, about 37 to 43% on the Medford and the Sharps respectively. With this mold being an adjustable I did some math, which always get me in trouble, and figured out a nose length that would give me the nose length % over the range of length I am most likely to be using for long range shooting. Anything shorter would be used for shorter distances and the nose length % would probably be less important.

If the bullets I cast look as good as the sample Steve sent I will be a happy man. I really like the looks of the old designs. The ODG put a lot of time and effort into designing their bullets and shooting them, I figure the ones that were in use had to be pretty good and they look right in the old cases.

I’m going to start with the cupped base and see how that shoots. That will answer the question for me that has been in my head for some time. Why did the old designs have a cupped base? 30 years ago I didn’t know anything about getting these rifles to shoot with black powder and even less about paper patch bullets, but I’ve learned a few things since then. I hope that’s enough to make a difference.

Gavin, It’s good to know there are others who are afflicted with the compulsion to “acquire” a new or two now and then, it gives me comfort to know I’m not the only one. Every time I start to think I don’t need another mold a thought hatches in my mind that leads to another mold! It seems to feed on itself with no way out of the cycle. I would stop buying molds if I didn’t enjoy trying something different every so often. I do have it under control however, I’m only buying a new mold about every two month so I’m not really addicted. Right?

Hi, my name is Jim and I am a moldoholic.

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

That is good info on the HDPE vs. the LDPE and mirors what I found in my Sholoh .45-90. That rifle wanted the HDPE wad to shoot without patch problems for some reason. Maybe it was the 100 to 105 grains of 1 1/2 Swiss? I'm not sure.

[Don McDowell]

The only real problem I have with the cupped base bullets from the Brooks moulds is in the casting the things, that base plug acts as somewhat of a heat sink, and weighing the bullets I get more rejects than a base pour.

It's been so long ago, but I believe the bullets I gave you were the dual diameters from the Brooks moulds...

Looking forward to seeing your shooting reports with that bullet.

[Distant Thunder]

Brooks has already contacted me this morning after I emailed late yesterday and said I did indeed specify a flat base and he said he would try to get the flat base screw out in the mail today. You probably pay a bit more for a Brooks mold but he stands behind them and you can count on the quality when you order.

I would make a screw myself but I’m still in transition between my old shop 10 miles away and my new shop here at home. Right now I don’t have power for my machines at either place and I have no idea when I will have power to the new building. This has been a painfully slow project and is months behind schedule and losing ground. It took a month just to get the overhead door put in and then it’s not the door I ordered! That’s the way it’s been with this. The good thing is that it will be one hell of nice workshop when it’s finished, a lot smaller than my old one but much closer (right outside my door). I can only hope I can make use of it for a long time. I should have done it 2 or 3 years ago. That’s that hindsight thing Gavin noted. Another month and things should be looking pretty good.

Don, yes you are correct about the 2-D bullets and I have some of those left yet and that is one that I sent Steve a picture of for reference. Also I am transitioning to the thinner paper with this mold as you (and others) have suggested and I believe that will be a good thing.

I will post results but probably not until December. Our deer season is only 2 weeks away and I’m busy as can be with this workshop and I need to get out there now and get more done today. Later