Finally tried out my Lee pot that I purchased at a local show a couple of years ago. Used some of the ww ingots I had done about the same time. The mold is a 200 gr 44 mag casts a 210 gr boolit. Slugged the Rossi Ranch hand and it seems it's good to go. Gonna be a fun plinker once I get the butt stock. Any advantage to running them through a sizing die ? The boolits seem to come out of the mold pretty nice.
Practice casting
- Thread starter metalbender
- Start date
Loaded up some Cactus plains 200's, use the Lee dies and they worked out good. The crimp is a must in a lever gun. Did some 300 Hornady XTP a while ago for my Marlin 94, tried them in the RH, no problem. Looking forward to using the turret press for the 44 and 9mm.
I size all my cast bullets. I had a bad experience with 9mm cast bullets where they expanded the case neck so much that some of the rounds wouldn't chamber. Sizing doesn't take that long & you avoid any issues down the road. JMHO.
A lot of people think that the less sizing you do to a bullet the more accurate it will shoot, assuming there is nothing weird about your mold. Cast bullets work best when they are .001"-.002" oversize from the groove diameter of your barrel, so if they are within that range then you shouldn't need to size them. If you don't size bullets you still need to lubricate them - you can "tumble lube" with liquid alox, which is easier and faster than usimng a lubri-sizer.
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These measure .001 over and fit in the case with a min of bell. Have the Alox lube. Shooting conditions are far from ideal here. Has to warm up a bit before I go to the outside range. Too much bang for indoor. Over Xmas I'll get a 6 hole Lee 9 mm 124 gr mold and an extra turret plate.
The bell shape doesn't matter as long as they chamber properly in your gun. Those LEE bullets will probably be fine as-cast.
If you do need to size, the LEE push through sizer dies are a really good alternative and actually seem to do a better job maintaining concentricity than the Lyman/RCBS style Lubrisizer. The LEE push through die doesn't lube so you still have to tumble lube the bullets after but it's still faster than the lubrisizer. And the lee sizing die costs $15-$20, as opposed to $200 or more for the RCBS/Lyman lube-sizers.
Jethunter: Good to hear you say that. Any time someone posts about using Lee moulds or sizer dies, there is usually a flaming of epic proportions takes place. I use Lee molds almost exclusively, as in 99.9% of the time. Especially in pistol and revolver loading, some attention certainly needs to be paid to whether they will chamber reliably, etc.
If I'm not sizing, I find pan lubing is the fastest. A thousand an hour isn't hard, plus most of that time is just waiting around for things to cool or inserting bullets into the trays. I do LLA too, but I find it messy and not as good as filling lube bands with the lube of my making.
Oh, also I should also mention that all our 9mm guns can chamber a bullet up to .358 without any issues. Most of the problems I've ever had related to OAL instead of diameter.
Oh, also I should also mention that all our 9mm guns can chamber a bullet up to .358 without any issues. Most of the problems I've ever had related to OAL instead of diameter.
Jethunter: Good to hear you say that. Any time someone posts about using Lee moulds or sizer dies, there is usually a flaming of epic proportions takes place. I use Lee molds almost exclusively, as in 99.9% of the time. Especially in pistol and revolver loading, some attention certainly needs to be paid to whether they will chamber reliably, etc.
Nothing wrong with the LEE gear for the most part. I wasn't a big fan of the 2 cavity molds because they seemed to naturally misalign but now the new 2-cavity LEE molds use the same alignment system as the 6-cavity and they work great. I really like some of their mold designs.
I bought handles from Natchez Shooter Supply for $11 plus $5 shipping.
blaser.306
CGN Regular
- Location
- Saskatoon , Sask
Wss only seems to bring in Lee handles a couple of pair at a time! Alot of the custom and group buy moulds that are coming off of the Cast Boolits site use them , So stocking up when they are available is almost manditory. You would think they would catch on as their 6 cavity moulds arent moving out near as fast as the handles to go with them.
