Lee 1R vs 2R mold's

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G_Alan

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Thinking about buying a 230 grain mold for 45 acp. Presently using a NOE mold , it casts nicely but Id like a 230 mold as well.
LEE PRECISION – MOLD 6 CAV TL452-230-2R – LP-90350 Vs the Lee 1R profile. Has anyone ran both types in a Modern 1911 profile? Thinking about feeding and if one nose profile is bigger than the other. My barrel has a tight chamber and I have to load shorter OAL. I will be powder coating so not worried about the lube grooves . I'm leaning towards the TL 2R profile but ifs a longer nose than the 1R I'd go with that
I might be overthinking this , but I only want to buy 1 mold.

Thanks in advance
 
The two I have are the same. I bought a truncated nose one for my 40 sw which worked extremely well. I was thinking of getting one for the 45. I bought the tumble lube one as I was shooting 45 a lot and wanted to cut the size/ lube time down. For 25 m gongs it worked well. The grease groove worked better at the 50 m gongs.
 
h ttps://support.leeprecision.net/en/knowledgebase/article/cast-bullet-length-dimensions

This table has lengths and measurements for Lee bullets.
I believe castpics.net also has this information but it's down at the moment.
 
pretty hard to predict how a particular bullet will feed in a gun when 2 identical guns can have considerably different characteristics. 22 rimfire rifle accuracy test are a good example of this, you may not have the same results as others have had even though your rifle is the the same make and model. in your particular situation, you might offer to buy a small quantity of cast unsized bullets of each profile to test for accuracy and function before buying a set of blocks.
 
I have the 1R mold in six cavity (90352) which I bought to use in pin shoots (for target shooting I typically use the Lee 200 gr. SWC - #90310).
While it is not a bad mould per se the very round profile means you have to seat them deeper than usual, especially in a tight chamber gun. At my first match using these bullets (I hadn't tried them before - yeah, stupid I know) the very first round I attempted to chamber jammed tight because I hadn't seated the bullets deep enough. In the end I just bought the 230 gr. truncated cone mould (#90286) which pretty much eliminated the nose profile issue.

Going by the pictures the 2R profile looks to be less 'stubby' so seating depth should be less of a problem. That being said I encountered a similar situation with the Lee 9mm bullets. My go to was the Lee 356-125 2R bullet (#90457) but it also has a fairly round profile that requires more seating depth in my tight chamber CZ Tactical Sport pistol. I bought the Lee TL356-124-2R mold since the nose seemed to have a more pointed profile. In fact those bullets did feed great and I could seat them longer but the problem was the accuracy. It was total CRAP. Tumbling bullets and shotgun size groups were the norm. Changing seating depths and powder charges did little to alleviate the lousy accuracy so I just sold it.

This may not happen with the 45 bullets but just a heads up as to my experience.
 
Remember that powder coating will also increase the diameter of the olgive and often require round nose bullets to be seated deeper.
The semi-wadcutter shape lessens this problem but can have other feeding issues .
 
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