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Hensley & Gibbs #16 - 45AR Bullet

Picked up this mould on eBay and it was cheap, it was missing the sprue plate. When I received it, I was happy to see that other than missing the sprue plate, it was in excellent condition. Digging around in my box of spare parts, I found a lonely sprue plate and was in business with this mould. The bullets pictured were cast this week with my big old casting pot. I ended up with about 150 projectiles, sized them .452, and started to load them in 45LC for use in my 625 Mountain Gun.

And then I stopped. While setting up the dies in my old rockchucker, it dawned on me that there was an awful lot of case space left under that short 230gr. bullet, and 7.0 to 8.0 grains of Winchester 231 was going to look lonely in that case.

So I stopped and thought about it and realized that this bullet was made for 1917 revolvers, in .45ACP, not .45LC, and that in a short fat .45ACP case, it would work well. Since I don't have a 1917, or 45AR brass, this mould is a curiosity to me.

I would be interested if any of you have used a lead bullet like this one in 1917's using 45AR brass and if so, what your results were.

Any other ideas what to do with a short 230gr. 452" bullet that has a crimp groove?

This is another mould that may well end up being sent to Erik Ohlen at Hollow Point Bullet Moulds for conversion to a cramer style hollow point mould.

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