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

hatman1793

hatman1793

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I once had the LEE mold # 90328, which is described as a 124 grain truncated cone 9mm bullet of the famous tumble lube design. Supposed to come out of the mold at .356 and just tumble lubed before loading.

I tried everything to try to make this bullet work, but 70% tumbled through the targets & seriously leaded the barrel. Turns out the mold casted bullets that were .353/.354. Way too small, probably a worn out cherry mold cutter.

My friend wanted to try the bullet after seeing the fabulous success of LEE's #90279 6 cavity 148 grain TL wad cutter. So we casted up a bunch of 9mm bullets from a new 90328 mold. I then powder coated them with the truly outstanding Emerald Coatings "Tool blue." Running them through my .357 sizer easily, they mic'd out at .3565.

Next comes reloading them.

Anybody use this mold? (90328)
 
SOME 9mm barrels are oversize and will lead badly/go sideways with .356. I use .3575 to .3585 in my ruger P85 for good results. There are cowboy .38 bullets about 125 gn in .358 if u don't cast.
If your brass bulges and is tight to chamber, don't use!
 
My 92Inox tumbles the Lee TC grease groove bullets in some loads too. 1/16 inch deeper seating depth made it worse.
I haven't taken the time to sort out the issue exactly but intend to slug the barrel and try powder coating some bullets.
Switched to plated bullets in the meantime so it hasn't been a pressing project.
 
I have 2 of the Lee 120 molds and 2 of my shooting buddies have 2 of the Lee 124 molds each and we all get the promised 356 diameter. We powder coat them and then resize to 357. No tumbling in our CZs and very accurate. I have heard stories that some people end up with bad molds from Lee that either have some or all of the cavities the wrong size.

What are you using to smoke your mold before casting?
 
Smoking your molds before casting used to be a standard practice. It was de regur....
I no longer smoke my molds and scrubbed all the smoke from them this casting season. Smoke is just not necessary anymore.
FortuneCookie45LC demonstrated that employing smoke to add some kind of benefit is not required.

Somewhat leery of the true-ness of LEE molds, especially for 9mm bullets, I now cast, then powder coat, then use my .357 sizer.
 
LEE 90328 bullet mold preliminary results:

So just to keep interested persons up to speed, the 124TL bullets were cast, then powder coated & sized to .357......
The bullet was seated to the first lube groove behind 3.6 grains of PROMO powder with a very mild crimp.
Fired in my CZ SP01 Shadow @ 25 yards, the rounds landed above the X ring on a B27 target face with no discernable group.
A six o'clock hold moved the group down to the halfway mark, but again, no discernable group.
 
I used the barricade to steady each shot. The barricade provides a shooting platform.

Standard B27 face target with X, 10, 9, 8 & 7 rings. The breakdown is 0 X's, two 10's, seven 9's, eight 8's, two 7's, one off the target. All shots were high above the center using a X ring hold. No two rounds together.
 
hatman1793 said:
I used the barricade to steady each shot. The barricade provides a shooting platform.

Standard B27 face target with X, 10, 9, 8 & 7 rings. The breakdown is 0 X's, two 10's, seven 9's, eight 8's, two 7's, one off the target. All shots were high above the center using a X ring hold. No two rounds together.
Click to expand...

My CZ shoots high at 25, and 50M.

I got a 120grn TC mold, I haven't casted yet.
 
Have you weighed the bullets to see if some of them are quite a bit heavier or lighter than others? I shoot the 115 grain lead powder coated bullet from an RCBS 2 cavity mould in my Shadow 2 and they work quite well. as accurate as the copper coat bullets I used before. I have some Lee moulds that cast a very nice bullet and a couple that are....crap! I always check the mould alignment pins to see if they need to be adjusted and most times have had to adjust them to get a decent bullet.
Rodney
 
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.
 
hatman1793 said:
I once had the LEE mold # 90328, which is described as a 124 grain truncated cone 9mm bullet of the famous tumble lube design. Supposed to come out of the mold at .356 and just tumble lubed before loading.

I tried everything to try to make this bullet work, but 70% tumbled through the targets & seriously leaded the barrel. Turns out the mold casted bullets that were .353/.354. Way too small, probably a worn out cherry mold cutter.

My friend wanted to try the bullet after seeing the fabulous success of LEE's #90279 6 cavity 148 grain TL wad cutter. So we casted up a bunch of 9mm bullets from a new 90328 mold. I then powder coated them with the truly outstanding Emerald Coatings "Tool blue." Running them through my .357 sizer easily, they mic'd out at .3565.

Next comes reloading them.

Anybody use this mold? (90328)
Click to expand...

What powder were you using? I had the same problem until I switched from Bullseye to Accurate #7.
 
I have a Lee 6-cavity mould for a couple of calibres and I find that nearly always, the 6 bullets drop with different sizes. Out of the 6, only two or three are good. I sort them and re-melt the ones that are over or under.

Also, it may not apply in this case, but the lead-tin ratio of the alloy does have an effect on the size of the bullets.

Pure lead expands/contracts more than the alloy, and so it results in smaller bullets.

From my Lyman Cat Bullet handbook, 3 ed.,

9mm Lyman mould #359242 ( ~90-ish grains )
As cast:
Lead - .3558"
WW - .3564"
#2 alloy - .3570"
Linotype - .3574"
 
I love Lee molds I have 14 of them an the only one's that ever gave me any issues were the 9 mm molds, they dropped bullets that were undersized and tumbled about 50% of the time. This was pre powder coating days for me but I like to cast bullets that are slightly over sized to begin with PC or not and them size down to the desired dia.

I ended up selling the molds an buying a custom mold from NOE that drops bullets at .358" with my alloy, it's basically a copy of the RCBS 9mm 124 gr. CN but my 4 cavity cast both plain base as well as gas check version which comes in handy in my Ruger BH in 357/9mm and I use that load data from the Lyman Cast Bullet Manual.

The TC design also eliminate issues that you can sometimes have when you PC a RN bullet in certain 9mm handguns that have little to no freebore an you have to seat the bullet deeper to get it to chamber properly which in some instance can cause high pressure issues.

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