Had the comment that this looks way overbuilt. (But they liked it).

This is a commercial mold. It will pretty quickly have 10,000 slugs thru it. That is a lot of opening and closing. This had tool steel alignment pins. The blocks are fixed - no sloppy klack klack as they slap back and try to find alignment. The front bearing aligns the arms to true flat. They are heavy so they don't warp. The blocks are cast iron so they hold heat better, and more evenly. The fittings are solid brass machined parts.

Takes way too long to make these. You might ask yourself how many custom makers make casting molds for their guns. I don't recall hearing of many. Probably because there is no money in it vs. time spent.

But - for the guys who have found the Barnes commercial 25 slugs to be the ticket for their guns - ya need a guy with a mold like this to make 'em.

Gary

VERY, VERY, VERY niiiice!

Timmy will soon be dropping hundreds of slugs from this tool at single sittings. He is SOOOO eager to get his hands on this! For very good reasons, most mold/handles have compromises. It may just take too long to wait on precision handles so commercial handles with slop and variation get used. Or, to save time and cost, a reconfigurable mold is used for multiple slug sizes. Particularly when closing in on a final design, these are not just reasonable but imperative compromises.

Well, those compromises come with costs. Reworking and adjusting commercial handles frequently or having to spend time on set-up changes are magnified when making huge quantities and usually when orders come in in batches.

This mold will probably drop far more than 20,000 slugs before it gets retired. Timmy has made something approaching 10,000 just since he came back to casting! It will be a huge advantage for him and the customers to have a rock solid tool to use when the big orders roll in.

The molds Gary made for my Nitro are beautiful. Each probably has about 750 casts so far and they are snug as can be. Very nice.

Hugh Hagan

nice

The mold is here and the lead is heating! The mold and handles look like a fine tuned watch and feel the same. A current order will be completed tonight. Nothing like putting a tool in service right away!

New 6 and 7 ring molds each have a couple thousand slugs produced. They seem to be doing alright but I should wait until after the break-in period to comment.

Yeah. Quarter million and they smooth right out. . Haha.

smooth right out OK, no ridges, no bands, no features at all, totally smooth