Fifty Caliber Hollow Base Molds

For off the shelve "deer rifles" the common fare is pretty much .50 bore, 48" twist and rifling grooves of medium depth. In other words, minie ball guns.
Yet there's darn little in the way of good hollow base bullet molds designed for them.
Is there a good mold being offered these days, something besides the Lee "improved" minie?

1 in 48" is a fairly fast twist for a mini, they usually like a slower twist. "Medium depth" rifling also is usually on the upper limits of depth for a mini. Most OTC deer rifles are configured to work with slugs that engage the rifling on loading or have plastic around them. There are mold makers out there that will custom make a mini mold to your specs (slug the bore) for a price that is quite reasonable.

I miss the old CVA Deerslayer bullets. They provided great accuracy out of my 1-48" TCs.

What you describe would not be a Minie ball rifle. Think Civil War rifled muskets for that. What you want is either round ball and patch or a belted type maxi ball which come in many styles. Some with a partial hollow base and some with solid base. Here is a TC maxi with lube applied.

Try a Hornady Great Plains bullet, they fly great out of a 1-48" too.

Lee makes a mold for the REAL (rifling engraved at loading) conical bullet. The 250 grain works well in most rifles. Really, the 50 caliber round ball is more than adequate for deer hunting.

I would also recommend trying the Hornady Great Plains bullets. My 1-48 shoots them well too.

Lee makes the REAL in most calibers in 2 weights, a lighter one for faster twist, heavier for slow twist.
I've had good luck using the REAL bullets with an over powder wad.

Isn't that kinda backwards? Lighter should be for the slower twists.

@mooman76,
That's what I though too.

48" twist isn't fast at all for a fifty.
In .58 caliber it's fast enough to provide exceptional accuracy for minies.

Might be a typo, but if it works for @Eterry in his guns, great. Have found many of the so-called rules to be little more than guidelines at times. Multiple conical weights, along with roundballs can work in the same barrel. In addition to twist rate, depth of rifling plays a role in what it will shoot well.

Pretty much all in the charge. Fast twist with too heavy a charge runs risk of skipping. Can happen in slower twist especially if the projectile fit is too loose.

bang said:

Pretty much all in the charge. Fast twist with too heavy a charge runs risk of skipping. Can happen in slower twist especially if the projectile fit is too loose.

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I wonder about that skipping thing. It seems very unlikely.

I've never heard it called skipping but I have heard it called stripping. That's where the lead projectile is pushed too hard and the projectile can't hold the rifling so it strips off some of the lead instead. Because of this it doesn't follow the twist and doesn't stabilize properly. Because it doesn't stabilize in flight, you get and inaccurate sometime tumbling bullet.

Lyman makes a 50 cal maxie mold. There happens to be one on that auction site e##y

mooman76 said:

I've never heard it called skipping but I have heard it called stripping. That's where the lead projectile is pushed too hard and the projectile can't hold the rifling so it strips off some of the lead instead. Because of this it doesn't follow the twist and doesn't stabilize properly. Because it doesn't stabilize in flight, you get and inaccurate sometime tumbling bullet.

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I have never thought that is a real thing. I shoot 30:1 bullets at 1600 fps out of a rifle with .002 to .003 grooves and 1:20 twist. No stripping. That's a modern rifle . You will have a hard time getting a conical bullet to that speed in an ML. I an cite other examples but I've already crossed the forum line.

Eterry said:

Lee makes the REAL in most calibers in 2 weights, a lighter one for faster twist, heavier for slow twist.
I've had good luck using the REAL bullets with an over powder wad.

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Oops, my fingers were moving faster than my noggin.

Yes, the Heavier one should be for Fast Twist, and Vice Versa.
Guess I was having a not so senior senior moment.

longcruise said:

I wonder about that skipping thing. It seems very unlikely.

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It's a real thing, especially with very shallow rifling. I had that issue with a 45/XX shooting soft lead and big charges of black powder. After recovering several bullets from the berm it was obvious what was happening. I slowed them down enough for the issue to go away.

I respect your opinion but I'll remain a skeptic.