bullet mold

[frenchman]

Just received  my bullet mold  . A Lee .440 round ball and they are coming out at .437  . I am using pure lead
Is it normal.
 trying to reach Lee trough there e-mail system but it is not working .Or would this be a reason why everybody would seems to be going to .445 mold
thanks guy's

[BJH]

That's not real supriseing. My Lee .440 mold runs a bit shy also. Ball dia is sort of relative as you also factor in patch thickness too. Instead of .015 patching use .018. and gain a trifle tighter fit. .003 is less than the diameter of one of your hairs. BJH

[frenchman]

thanks BJH

[frenchman]

today i decided to pull my old TC .54 mould out of the moth balls . This mold gives me .535 balls on the botton .I think this Lee mold is off by .003 so i will be calling to make sure if it is there standard.
Curious about your molds guy's are they off by that much in the + or- give me a idea .
just curious

[Kermit]

Of the five Lee molds I have, the variance is almost never more than .001 and once in a while .002. That's just the balls I've bothered to check. Maybe I'm not fussy, maybe just fortunate. Be interesting to hear others.

[Standing Bear]

Been a long time and just starting to cast again but, as I recall, same mold can cast slightly different size balls depending on how pure the lead is.  Different materials shrink at different rates/amount and with some mixture like wheel weights believe it possible to get .003 smaller.
TC

[northmn]

Add just a touch of tin to your mix. That sometimes makes them fill out better.  Also check both directions when you measure.  I have had molds that much out of round.  My Lee 600 is actually at 600 but is .002 out of round.  I had one that was almost .005.  On a rifle I doubt if it matters.  <ost use a 445 because they seem to shoot better.

DP

[frenchman]

the bullets are less than .0005 round for both molds so for that it's great, i am really not that fussy but curious about molds we buy these things for a certain amount of precision and they don't seems to pan out the companies could give out a little more info about there molds and how they react to lead and what is acceptable.

[Kermit]

Tin works. I add about 3/4" of 50/50 bar solder to 5lbs of lead. That's not much tin, but it seems to be enough to do the trick. Since learning to do this with new batches of lead, I've had far better results.

[frenchman]

then i am to believe that lead can shrink that much, and  tin harden's the lead could this be hard for loading and loose it's efficiency has a hunting bullet

[JB2]

Is that .440 mold made from aluminum?  My last Lee mold was, and the conicals from it would grow slightly when I was on a good (Hot) pouring run.  About .002"-.003", iIrc.

[frenchman]

yes  it is. Maybe i should get myself a .445 and would get closer to the.440 number

[Daryl]

Both my DC .445" and .440" moulds cast within .001" to size and diameter trueness - pure lead.  My brother's .600" Lee mould casts .605" X .608" in pure lead.  M Lee .562" mould casts .560" X .565", which is not very good, however my Musketoon likes them for 3" at 100 meters- 24" bl. and sights very close together - go figure.  My .575" SC Lyman mould casts .573" X .574" -which is OK by me. Taylor's .570" Lyman mould casts .570"X .570". My Lyman DC .400" mould casts .400" X .400" in one cavity, .395" X .400" for the other.  With this small a ball diameter, the accuracy group size is tripled over the accurate mould - what's good enough for you? is the question.  My .395" lyman SC mould, casts .397" X .398"- very accurate ball that's easy to load in a .398" bore as-is the .400" ball, which is .002" oversize to start with. Much depends on the crown.

The larger the ball's diameter, the less the differences in roundness and size makes.  Adjust patch thickness accordingly.
Some moulds cast round and correctly to the mould's printed size, while some don't.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Denis, with all respect to the other contributors, I would not add tin to my beautiful pure lead.  It will make an enormous difference in loading your rifle if you are using a tight combination, and I do.  It doesn't make any difference if the balls are .003" under .440" as long as they are all the same, which should be the case.  You will enjoy decent accuracy if you do your part, and if you miss, it won't be because the balls are .003" undersized.  You should acquire a .445" mold as well, just to see if your rifle prefers the tighter combination that the larger ball would provide.  The most important thing about shooting small groups on target, and hitting all the clangers on the trail walk, is CONSISTENCY.  Your loads and the way you load them must be as consistent from shot to shot as you can manage.  

[greybeard]

VERY INTERESTING!!.  I used to have a dozen or so old scissor? type RB molds and one was perfect for my .50 Sharon Hawken . My lymon mold was .490 for this gun . I cast a dozen balls in the old original mold and they came out 50 thou out of round. At the range one day I had 5 shots in 2 1/2 incges at  100 yds so just for a test I put 5 more of the out of round balls down range on the same target. Still the group was 2 1/2 inches. That was with coarse open sights so needless to say I was pleased. That was from a rest of course with 70 grs of GOI  FFG. That barrel wasn't  fussy with what you put down it , it would still shoot good.
Cheers   Bob

[northmn]

One trick taken from cartridge shooters if an out of round kind of bothers one is to use a punch and slightly dimple the mold.  You can chave off the dimple easily with a knofe but it guarantees that the ball can be loaded the same every time, as dimple up (dimple on the sprue side)  The out of round thing is maybe more touchy for a smoothbore than a rifle?

DP

[frenchman]

i won't put tin in the lead and yes i have ordered .445 this will give me a better chance to find what this gun wants . Experimenting with bullet and thickness of patches and some lubes starting with water should be fun. The point was only to see the variance from mold to mold and most gun's have there little quarks .This make's it fun

[frenchman]

just to let you know, i received my .445 double mould today and moulded a bunch they both came out at .4445 . Now if the weather wants to warm up a bit .