New to cast, am I headed the right way?

I would suggest that you settle on the two void mold being a new caster. For .38 Lee has a 105 gr coned semi wadcutter that seems to work fine form my 9mm and .38s.

You simply can not be set on just one brand as you have to buy for the calibre and sometimes another brand mold works better for a specific calibre.

shadow9 said:

Not to beat a dead horse, but more seek wisdom of those who have been there:
I'm looking at starting cast shooting soon, the commercial boolits I've picked up aren't sized right and lead up the barrel, so I'm going for 1 pistol mold, 1 rifle mold and the basic equipment.
I'd like to go mostly Lee, since their equipment is pretty inexpensive, and there is much less to it than the Lyman series (lyman being best-off with top-punches/bench-mounted sizer-press/wax stick lubes etc.). Also, even when following directions, novices make mistakes - so am I in a good way with going for a $20 Lee mold to start with (in case I mess it up, I'm not down $70+), or should I just go the distance to start with, as it's not easy to mess up a mold?

I'd be also getting the Lubrisizer/ALOX die kit, as opposed to the bench-mounted sizer/press...

Can the Lee Lubrisizer work on a Lee Hand Press? I mean easily, I know the threading on the Lubrisizer die goes with any normal reloading press thread pitch...

Thanks!

Click to expand...

There are many things to consider when starting to cast. You can certainly start with Lee moulds and that's fine, but remember they're inexpensive for a reason. Lee moulds are great to start with and even continue casting with as long as you don't plan on doing LOTS of casting, expect really high quality bullets or expect the moulds to last for casting tens of thousands of bullets.

Ditto with sizing. You don't have to size bullets, but the more consistent your bullets are, the more accurate they'll be. That's one of the Lee tools I really like; their push-through sizer. Those puppies will make for some very concentric bullets. When I used to compete with cast bullets in my rifle, I'd always run them through the appropriate Lee die prior to seating them.

Likewise, tumble lubing is an easy way to lube bullets without having to buy a lubrisizer and if you don't plan on casting, lubing and sizing hundreds of at a time it works fine. The down side is it's very messy and you wind up with bullets that look like they've been dipped in brown gravy and that crap accumulates in and gums up your seating die.

I've used a Lee pot off and on for years and have had no problems, but I primarily use an old SAECO pot with a 10 lb. capacity. I'll soon be buying a Lee 20 lb. pot because 10 lbs. of bullet doesn't last very long around this house!

My suggestion would be get good stuff from the start, but buy used. Unless you are seriously careless or rough on equipment, you just cannot wear out or tear up a good cast iron mould such as a Lyman or RCBS. Often I see used Lyman double cavity moulds on eBay go for $50 $60 with handles. thing is they don't depreciate and if a fellow is careful he can use them, then sell them for what he has in them. Same goes for lubrisizers.
Too, if you buy good used equipment and decide casting is not for you, you can easily resell it.

Ahhh...one last thing. I used to slug the barrel of every rifle and handgun that came into my possession. Over time I realized that it really wasn't necessary. Now the only time I'll bother slugging a barrel or cylinder is if I'm having accuracy problems. I just size at or .001" over groove or cyluinder diameter and go from there.

35W

No offense, but explain to me how an aluminum mold throws a lower quality boolit than steel or brass? I cast for upward of 30 calibers and use both steel and aluminum and can not see one ioda of difference between the boolits out of the two types of molds. My BS O Meter is pegged out on that one. I have some Lee molds that have upward of between 5k-6k through them and are no worse for wear.

If you take proper care of an aluminum mold, you'll have zero problems. If you take care of a steel mold, you'll also have zero problems. Now, let that steel mold rust and see what happens, just as not lubing the pins on an aluminum mold, and you'll end up with crap looking boolits that most likely will shoot fine anyway.

To the OP, it sounds like you're doing OK. Just keep any water out of that pot when you cast or you will see the silver fairy real quick. I had a wet ingot educate me on that about 20 yrs ago that I thought were dry and I was picking lead off the walls, floor, my pants, etc for like a week!

You'll find the biggest challenge will be getting lead once your up and running!

Duckdog said:

No offense, but explain to me how an aluminum mold throws a lower quality boolit than steel or brass? I cast for upward of 30 calibers and use both steel and aluminum and can not see one ioda of difference between the boolits out of the two types of molds. My BS O Meter is pegged out on that one. I have some Lee molds that have upward of between 5k-6k through them and are no worse for wear.

If you take proper care of an aluminum mold, you'll have zero problems. If you take care of a steel mold, you'll also have zero problems. Now, let that steel mold rust and see what happens, just as not lubing the pins on an aluminum mold, and you'll end up with crap looking boolits that most likely will shoot fine anyway.

To the OP, it sounds like you're doing OK. Just keep any water out of that pot when you cast or you will see the silver fairy real quick. I had a wet ingot educate me on that about 20 yrs ago that I thought were dry and I was picking lead off the walls, floor, my pants, etc for like a week!

You'll find the biggest challenge will be getting lead once your up and running!

Click to expand...

No offense taken at all!

I didn't say aluminum moulds throw lower quality bullets than steel or brass. I have about six particular aluminum moulds that out of the 50 or so moulds I own, are hands down of higher quality and cast consistent, superb quality bullets when compared to any of my cast iron moulds. I was talking about aluminum Lee moulds, not aluminum moulds in general. And by the way, I own a half-dozen Lee moulds. None of them have over 1000 or so bullets out of them and already the sprue plates are loose and the tops of the blocks are galled because the aluminum is so soft. And FWIW, I cut the sprues on ALL my moulds with a gloved hand, so I treat all of them very gently. On the other hand my NEI, NOE and Accurate aluminum moulds are none the worse for wear because the aluminum is of higher quality as is the construction of the moulds.

A lot of the quality of the bullets is relative. The CAS guys I shoot with from time to time just need some sort of piece of lead to exit the barrel and hit a relatively large target at relatively close range. Given that, I bought a 6-cavity Lee to cast bullets for my wife's .38's for use in CAS. For their use, bullet quality isn't nearly as important as speed of casting. I know the mould won't last as long as a good custom mould, but as soon as it wears out, I'll buy another. On the other hand, moulds I've purchased for casting bullets for my .44's I want to be of very high quality because I want consistent bullets with which to shoot out to 100 yds.

Like everything else in life, you get what you pay for, and there's a purpose for the expensive equipment and a purpose for the not-so-expensive equipment.

35W

And if you REALLY want a nice mould, you should try casting with one of these brass moulds - better than either aluminum or steel.

Don

USSR said:

And if you REALLY want a nice mould, you should try casting with one of these brass moulds - better than either aluminum or steel.

Don

Click to expand...

I recently bought a brass Miha mould in 429421 configuration. Amazing quality and it cast beautiful bullets. I am definitely sold on brass moulds now.

35W

35 Whelen said:

And by the way, I own a half-dozen Lee moulds. None of them have over 1000 or so bullets out of them and already the sprue plates are loose and the tops of the blocks are galled because the aluminum is so soft.

Click to expand...

I guess you could say that this is a quality control issue with Lee Precision not shipping an entirely finished product. Or you could as I do look at it as great price on an "almost finished" product which I can finish to my liking.

What I'm getting at here is that as you probably already know, you just don't pull a Lee mold out of the box and start casting. I found this out on my very first mold, it's beat up now and has thousands of rounds through it but it does still throw a nice boolit.

I own mostly Lee molds but I'm working on catching up with the Lyman molds. When I get a new Lee mold the first thing I do is pull that sprue plate and deck it with a piece of emery paper on a flat surface. Then I round off the leading edges of the sprue plate so it doesn't tear up the tops of the mold blocks. And I think that the most important part of owning a Lee mold is to make sure that you properly lube that sprue plate. Personally I use a synthetic 2-stroke oil and a friend recently have me a little bottle of Bull Plate which will probably last for thousands of boolits.

I don't use a release agent nor do I EVER smoke the cavities of a mold, why would I want smaller boolits?? What I will do is polish the cavities using a cast boolit that has a screw in it sprinkled with water and Comet attached to my cordless drill for about 30 seconds or so. I don't beat on Lee molds to get my boolits out, if they're properly prepped they actually will throw just as high a quality boolit as a Lyman or RCBS and will last a lifetime.

Foto Joe said:

I guess you could say that this is a quality control issue with Lee Precision not shipping an entirely finished product. Or you could as I do look at it as great price on an "almost finished" product which I can finish to my liking.

What I'm getting at here is that as you probably already know, you just don't pull a Lee mold out of the box and start casting. I found this out on my very first mold, it's beat up now and has thousands of rounds through it but it does still throw a nice boolit.

I own mostly Lee molds but I'm working on catching up with the Lyman molds. When I get a new Lee mold the first thing I do is pull that sprue plate and deck it with a piece of emery paper on a flat surface. Then I round off the leading edges of the sprue plate so it doesn't tear up the tops of the mold blocks. And I think that the most important part of owning a Lee mold is to make sure that you properly lube that sprue plate. Personally I use a synthetic 2-stroke oil and a friend recently have me a little bottle of Bull Plate which will probably last for thousands of boolits.

I don't use a release agent nor do I EVER smoke the cavities of a mold, why would I want smaller boolits?? What I will do is polish the cavities using a cast boolit that has a screw in it sprinkled with water and Comet attached to my cordless drill for about 30 seconds or so. I don't beat on Lee molds to get my boolits out, if they're properly prepped they actually will throw just as high a quality boolit as a Lyman or RCBS and will last a lifetime.

Click to expand...

I believe the process you described is referred to as "Lee-Menting" over on the Cast Boolit site.

I performed the same steps on a custom Lee mould I bought through a Group Buy. I found out pretty quick that the 6 cavities weren't consistent. I tried lapping them pretty much the way you described and things went downhill from there. That aluminum was SOFT!

35W

I left out the term "Lee Menting" simply because there's a lot of folks here who wouldn't be familiar with the term. I'd love to see Lee Precision actually provide a finished "precision" mold but I'm afraid that the price would be commiserate with Lyman or other high end mold makers by then. I do think though that most Lee molds die of owner abuse rather than poor design. I'm really amazed at the amount of new casters that will whack the mold blocks themselves to get boolits to drop out.

I will say that I've never had the inclination to try a Lee 6-Holer or any 6 cavity mold for that matter, I'm just not in that big of a hurry.

You are going to love casting, but be warned - it is extremely addicting! Extremely.
Get yourself the Lee six banger mold, knocks out 6 at a shot. You won't be sorry at all. Start out slow, any mistakes go right back into the pot, so nothing is lost. I can cast several hundred in an hours time on whatever pistol caliber I'm doing. Mostly WW which a little tin solder added in. I lube on the Lyman lubrisizer, which is the hardest part. I never tried tumble lube but some swear by it (others swear at it!)

Just remember, it's addicting.

Wear a mask, be safe and enjoy yourself....

mugsie said:

You are going to love casting, but be warned - it is extremely addicting! Extremely.
Get yourself the Lee six banger mold, knocks out 6 at a shot. You won't be sorry at all. Start out slow, any mistakes go right back into the pot, so nothing is lost. I can cast several hundred in an hours time on whatever pistol caliber I'm doing. Mostly WW which a little tin solder added in. I lube on the Lyman lubrisizer, which is the hardest part. I never tried tumble lube but some swear by it (others swear at it!)

Just remember, it's addicting.

Wear a mask, be safe and enjoy yourself....

Click to expand...

Get yourself a Star lubrisizer. I bought one and can now lube/size bullets in less time than it takes to cast them. Next to a quality mould, it's the best money I've ever spent on bullet casting equipment.
35W

Get yourself a Star lubrisizer. I bought one and can now lube/size bullets in less time than it takes to cast them.

Click to expand...

The only thing faster is tumble lubing unsized bullets. It takes only a few minutes per bucket and the only cost is the lube.

I tried tumble lubing years ago. I found it to be messy, at best, then I still had to size the bullets which made it a two-step operation. Plus the lube clogged up my deating die. But, to each his own!

35W

I also tumble lube most of the time, and it will eventually mean cleaning the seating die. I also have dummy rounds to reset my seating die, so no big deal. I rarely try to size, but if you need to seat a gas check, you need to if you are using Lee sizing dies. I personally like them, but like 35Whelen said, to each his own. That's one of the best thing I like about casting is the amount of customizing and preference that can apply while still getting excellent results.

I mostly use JPW on pistol bullets, including 7.62x25 TOK ammo @ near 1500 fps with no gas check and no leading.

While I have an audience... do any of you guys load the TOK and if so, have you used a Lee soupcan 113 gr in them? I've been scrounging for a load in that caliber for that bullet and really can't find much, so I may have to work something up.

When I first started casting last spring I tumble lubed everything. Using the straight Lee Liquid Alox I got educated REAL quick about how easy is was to over do it. After I switched over to the 45-45-10 formula things got a lot better. A few months ago I blew all my Cabela's points on a Lyman 4500 Lube Sizer and have gotten myself hooked on NRA 50/50. I still keep my 45-45-10 handy though.

Last week I did a swap with a guy at a tire shop for a Lyman mold, handles, Lee push through and a Lyman ten pound pot for 500 .401 boolits from the mold I got from him. Since I don't have an H&I die for the .401 I tumble lubed and used the push through. Originally I wasn't even going to size the boolits but that Lyman mold was dropping at .405 so I figured it would probably be a good idea. Tumble lubing is quick and easy but I've found that for my purposes the NRA 50/50 lube keeps my 1911's and SAA's a lot happier although it does smoke the muzzle of the 1911's pretty good.