New LEE 6 cavity 9mm mold results....

hatman1793 said:
Update on range report from today.

Fired my powder coated LEE 124 TL bullet at 25 meters, 15 meters, & 7 meters. Again, no discernable groups, no two bullets near each other even at 7 meters. None tumbled though. Unsatisfactory!
My friend using the same bullet but tumble lubed & run through the LEE .356 sizer, produced wild shots, some off the B27 target, and 60% tumbled sideways through the target at the same distances. Some never even hit the target.

Powder coating the bullet ensured that none tumbled, but no real groups. Tumble lubed bullets mostly tumbled through the target, incredibly poor accuracy, even though the mold was new.
Click to expand...

Could very easily be your powder and how much of it you are using. If the bullet is not stablizing you are not going to get conistent shots and groupings. What are you using?
 
Its not the powder. The very same powder charge i use for all the other 9mm cast bullets works fine.
It the bullets.
Either they come out of the mold too small, and they tumble, or the PC I use still does not improve this casting.

Cast & sized to .356 & tumble-lube, 50% tumble.
Cast, PC'd & sized, no tumbling but no discernable groups.
 
IMO 9mm is the hardest rounds to cast for... to the point I said the hell with it and gave up. My glock 17 with aftermarket barrel loves .358 but my smith and wesson M&P Pro wont chamber it (very tight chamber). Size it down to .357 and it feeds fine but leads like a bastard (pc'd too). I cast and shoot PC'd rounds in 7 different calibers and only have issues with 9mm.
 
I shoot all my 9mm lee cast bullets as cast with no resizing. Even the powder coated ones. My Dillon has a carbide factory crimp die at the last stage so every round chambers. Sounds like the bullets are to small of a diameter. Sandpaper/nail and a drill and increase the size of your bullet resizer. Or shoot them as cast and see if it makes a difference.
Oh and I have over 30 Lee bullet molds.
 
I gave up on my Lee 124 grain TC mold. It throws .356-.357 diameter bullets but only in the thickest part. The micro groove diameter is less than .355. IMO, there isn't enough lead to grab the rifling. Hence the keyholing in my Ruger P89 and FNS9.

What's hard to understand is this: I loaded the same TC bullets in .38spl cases and fired them in my 686 and GP100. Very accurate.

Anyways, frustrated, I ordered the Lee 124 grain RN 6 cavity single groove, and used Alox tumble lube. No problems with keyholing. Accuracy is acceptable, standing 2-hand hold, gives 3-4 inch 5 shot groups at 15 meters. With me shooting, that can be considered excellent.
 
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Rolled the dice today and ordered a Lee 6 cavity 124 2R mould for my powder coating purposes. Hope it turns out well. Struggled between the TL RN and TL TC but my RRA 1911 seems to be very fussy. Time will tell.
 
one of my 9mm slugs at 0.357"
therefore slugging the bore is a must in 9mm before shooting cast
also the pressure must be matched with the lead hardness
blame the mold only after you've done the above
 
It helps by keeping the melt just hot enough to drip and fill the molds completely.
Too hot a melt and the finished bullets shrink more.

Also more antimony, like 5% antimony, will give bigger diameter bullets than pure lead or wheel weights.

I believe Lee molds are designed to drop the correct diameter as specified, with 5% antimony lead alloy.

Anyways, my single groove 9mm and 40 cal molds drop proper diameter bullets with correct lead alloy. I size 9mm to .357 and 40 cal to .401, then tumble lube in lee Alox or generic XLox.
 
definitely a good idea to slug all of your barrels to find the true bore size.

I have the LEE 124gn TC mold, and size my bullets to .356, working well in my CZs, SIGs, M&P
 
I powder coat all of my cast bullets with a gun so I'm able build up the powder thickness. After sizing, the lube grooves on my 9mm’s are almost completely filled so I’m able to size to .356 or .357. Accuracy is very good, if I do my part.
 
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