lube grooves, someone point in a direction

[mac1911]

I have only been casting handgun bullets for a short time
I have 2 molds which have 2 lube groves.
Recently I was given a NIB LEE TL452-230-2R which appears to have 4 small groves. Where can I read up on the differences between the styles of lube grooves

[DLCTEX]

I don't know where you can read about it but the TL indicates a Tumble Lube design which is a Lee exclusive (I think) design to be lubed with liquid Alox by swirling the boolits in a container with some Alox to coat the boolits with lube.

[Maven]

mac1911, You've got a tumble lube mold and will find lots of information on the design, its pros & cons by using our search function. Try "Lee tumble lube mold" for starters. Also look at this thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=67654

[mac1911]

Thank you, I did a seach on lube grooves and micro grooves, I just couldnt think of other terms for it.

[Maven]

Glad to be of assisance!

[XWrench3]

It would be interesting to know how much difference (if any) of how much lubricant each hold.

[44man]

No problem at all. Just use regular lube, I use Felix lube.
I hate Alox. There is no need to TL the boolits.

[mac1911]

how about accuracy ? not that I can shoot well enough for that to matter ?

[MBTcustom]

How can you hate a wonderful invention like LLA? Especialy when you turn it into 45/45/10? My guns all love it and it cuts down on the hasels of pan lubing or lubrisizing. as long as I keep it under 2000 FPS it works great for me.

[Maven]

Had a TL semi-wadcutter (SWC) Lee mold for my .44mag. and didn't find it to be inaccurate compared to Keith and wadcutter designs. However, lubed normally or tumbled in Lee Liq. Alox, I found I had to hold velocity to 1,000fps if I wished to maintain accuracy. Keith SWC's, on the other hand, were accurate to 1,200fps, which is all I needed for paper punching.

[mac1911]

well the mold was not new after all, but I did get a chance to play a little tonight,
Theres a few wrinkles here and there but for the short time I had to play im happy.

[geargnasher]

Not bad. Clean the mould cavities with hot water, dish soap, and a toothbrush, and try getting the mould hotter by casting faster next time. Faint traces of oil/grease/wax in the cavities and the mould not being hot enough are the main causes of wrinkled boolits.

Gear

[44man]

Had a TL semi-wadcutter (SWC) Lee mold for my .44mag. and didn't find it to be inaccurate compared to Keith and wadcutter designs. However, lubed normally or tumbled in Lee Liq. Alox, I found I had to hold velocity to 1,000fps if I wished to maintain accuracy. Keith SWC's, on the other hand, were accurate to 1,200fps, which is all I needed for paper punching.
Not lube grooves but boolit profile. You know I do not like any Keith except the original 429421! :coffee: It was OK and shot great. In the .357, the 358156 HP was great.
Mold makers fiddled until Rome fell! :veryconfu
The RD, 265 gr, Lee, TL boolit from the .44 SBH will hold 3/4" at 50 yards lubed with Felix and 1-1/4" at 100. I use 22 gr of 296 but I never ran them over the chrono, they are fast though.

[cajun shooter]

If you go to the sticky section book by Glen Fryxell, you will find some great information. Most casters buy a mold for the bullet design first without thinking about the lube grooves. I am a 100% black powder shooter and must give the lube grooves a test first. I weigh a bullet and then after weighing I lube it with my BP lube and weigh it again. This gives me the amount of lube that bullet will carry. I have found that a bullet that will carry at least one grain of lube will work fine for my use of BP. One of the papers that I read many years ago dealt with this very thing and smokeless powder. It stated that if a bullet has three lube grooves then we assume that we have to fill each and every one to the top. Well, As a end result to the testing that was found to be false. In fact, the bullets that had the most lube were the most inaccurate fired. Now let me say first that was one test that was done at least 20 or more years ago with about 6-8 powders. It would be very hard to conduct a test to cover all possible loads but it made me open my eyes and not worry when a single lube groove was not quite full. If you receive the accuracy you are looking for and the gun shows no adverse effects such as leading or 6 inch groups at 15 yards; then I would say that you have the correct amount in the load. The proper lube, amount of that lube, plays a big factor in your results.

[mac1911]

I been all over the glen fryxell articles and many others. I really did not find wjat I was after.
I called the source of the mold I got and he ended up haveing some more stuff, includeing a lee sizer and a bottle of alox tumble lube. I loaded up a test batch

5gn bullseye
LEE TL 230gn LRN
assorted cases
CCI LP
gun-off the shelf S&W 1911 base model
End use plinking