Been reloading for years but have never made my own bullets.

I got everything I need (except 9mm molds) in a trade years ago including 200+ pounds of lead (mostly wheel weights).  Ingot molds, furnace, and most everything else for casting.

What I need the hive's help on is selecting a 9mm hollow point multi cavity mold that gives me a hollow point that actually expands for defensive use if things go that bad.  I'll be powder coating if that affects mold style.  

If an expanding hollow point mold is a pipe dream then I'm open to input on that and/or flat point mold suggestions.

ETA - I've never heard of this company but it came up in a search.
MP-molds 147 grain 9mm 4 cavity mold

Wheel weights are pretty hard.  I don't think you're gonna get reliable expansion at 9mm velocities.

Might want to look at buying pure lead or a semi-wadcutter mold.

Try NOE, if it exists they have it. If not they can make it.

I've never heard of this company but it came up in a search.
MP-molds 147 grain 9mm 4 cavity mold

Dang. I was hoping they'd be soft enough.  I have two 5 gallon buckets full.

Wheelweights won't be soft enough to expand. I've seen 357 mag HPs cast in WW that wouldn't expand. Consider buying 20:1 or 40:1 lead/tin alloy for this application to get your alloy bhn down below 10. If you're going subsonic, the 40:1 is probably a better bet, especially if you powder coat. I do recommend powder coating if you plan to shoot these indoors, wax and tumble lube type lubricants are really smoky, especially if you plan on using Titegroup, which is plenty smoky without adding bullet lube smoke to the situation. NOE is really suffering with most HP design availability, but MP does have a few designs available in 9mm.

ETA- 20:1 & 40:1 alloys are available through Buffalo Arms, and Rotometals. If you can find a source for stick on WWs, the one that look like a strip of lead (and are), they should probably work okay. A lot of the "soft" lead ingots sold on ebay aren't really that soft at all, many appear to be range scrap instead of pure. With range scrap, you don't really know what you're getting unless you have a way to test it for hardness.

SAECO lead hardness tester available via Redding Reloading web site.

Thanks!

Right now I'm using VV N320.  Hopefully it won't smoke up too much.  All my ranges are outdoors at least.

I will definitely get one of those.

One little caveat about the SAECO hardness tester. You can only test cast bullets with them. I had one for a few years and got tired of only being able to test bullets that fit into the tester base itself. So I sold it and bought an LBT Hardness tester instead, and have lived happily ever after.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Testing ingots would definitely be useful.

There is a method for checking hardness with artists pencils. Basically you have a bunch of different hardness of pencils, if it writes on the ingot, the ingot is harder, if it scratches it, the ingot is softer. There’s a chart out there that correlates the pencils to brinell hardness.

MP molds is one of the most prestigious mold makers there is.

I have a bunch of his HP molds.

Buy with confidence. They make gorgeous bullets.

9mm, 130gr
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45, 230gr
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300blk supers
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300blk subs (haven't used yet)
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12ga slug
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