By Tank Hoover

Bullet molds, the caster’s-contraption to convert lead alloy into lead ammunition, are addictive, to say the least. To say casters like bullets is an understatement. It’s why we cast! Having different molds is having the means to bring birth to a new style, weight, diameter and purpose to the many different calibers we make bullets for. Molds multiply faster than any calculator when one is bit with the casting bug.

While cruising the Internet the other day, I stumbled across a fairly new mold maker I’d never heard of. Arsenal Molds is a machine shop making bullet molds for the past six years. While wandering around their website, a .32 caliber 98-grain Keith style slug caught my eye. Being a fan of multi-cavity bullet breeders, I ordered Arsenal’s aluminum 5-cavity mold. I was in luck, as they had one in stock.

Arsenal Mold’s are lathe-bored beauties featuring perfectly polished cavities,
stylish vent lines, steel reinforced alignment-pin holes and are stamped with their
bullet style on them.

Getting It Hot

During my first casting session with the Arsenal Mold, there was no loosening of the sprue-plate bolt — the demon for deformed cast bullet bases — which is not uncommon with lesser-made molds. In fact, as the mold heated up, the sprue-plate started to bind a bit, due to expansion from the heat. A little dab of wax from a birthday candle lubed the moving part and the sprue-plate swung as fun and freely as a chimp in the Congo River belt. I also dabbed the alignment pins to prevent any future binding during the separation of the mold halves.

Casting with an Arsenal Mold is a breeze. Full, well-filled out bullets are the norm.

First Casting Session

The outside temperature was in the low teens and my garage was holding steady at 20 degrees during my first session. The energy-sapping cold sucked the heat right from my RCBS casting furnace, causing a delay in proper temperature to both mold and alloy to drop decent slugs. Being anxious and impatient, I started casting anyway. The mold behaved beautifully and dropped bunches of bullets as fast as shucking peas. It didn’t take long for my pile of peas to grow, as they were dropped five at a time.

I had a few more culls than usual due to my unwillingness to wait, and the below freezing conditions of my casting cranny in my garage. This is of no fault of the mold itself, but rather the operator.

As every caster stricken by the shimmery stream of scorching lead alloy knows, options from a new mold supplier enables us to try new bullet styles and molds. The great thing about Arsenal Molds is their ability to lathe-bore a mold from cast bullet samples from other molds. There is no set-up fee.

With a few twist and turns of a couple dials, you can turn a favored style bullet from a one or two cavity mold from another maker into a multi cavity shell-shucker from Arsenal Molds. That is a great advantage not offered by many mold makers. Simply send half dozen samples of the bullet style you want to Arsenal and they will have your mold ready to go in 2-3 weeks. For brass you can pick from 1-4 cavities, and aluminum from 1-5 cavities.

After my casting session, I quickly powder coated (PC) my Arsenal .32 98 grain Keith slugs and loaded them over six grains of Hodgdon Longshot in Starline .32 H&R brass, sparked by a Winchester SPP. This load runs better than 1,200 fps. I sized my slugs .314″ and shot them at 25 yards. This is a very well designed bullet, one Elmer would be proud to bear his name. It’s accurate, too! My Ruger 6.5″ Single-Six had no problem keeping groups around 1″ for 5-shot strings at 25 yards from a sandbag rest. I will definitely order more molds from Arsenal, for my arsenal, get it? You should too!

Arsenal Molds are to be used with LEE commercial mold handles. They can usually be bought for under $20 from various Internet sites.

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