Lee tl356-95 rf accuracy?

[jcren]

I recently acquired this mold after purchasing the wife and I a pair of 380 pistols. After experimenting with several powders and load variations I just haven't gotten the level of accuracy from This little bullet I expected. My best load has been 2.4 grains of WST, bullet powder coated, sized to .357 (one gun slugs .355, one at .356) and seated to just "plunk" in the shortest chambered gun. Anyone having better luck with this bullet? Any special technique? I have about decided that the short bearing surface is the culprit.

[tazman]

I use that boolit in my 9mm with excellent accuracy.
I am not doing anything special. My barrel slugs at .357 and I size to .358(usually just .0005 smaller than as cast). I lube with White Label Xlox.
I load with a fast powder and go for light to medium loads.
It shoots just as well as all but one of my other boolits.

[rking22]

I have the group buy 105 gr version and it shoots very well in a Beretta 84 and even better in the Beretta 86. Both Berettas are .356 and I size it .358. Groups into 1.5 at 50ft rested, from the 86 at 950fps with 3.1 gr of 231. Boolit metal is approx 50 50 #2 and plain lead, with Bens liquid lube. When the boolits are recovered the bearing surface shows longer that it looks, my mold is anyway. Worst thing is they seat deep, I'm at .920 from memory, and some cases will get a belly swell. I run those thru a Lee factory crimp and shoot them where I can't find the brass again, they do not group near as well as the ones without the "sqeezing".
It did not shoot well for me in a CZ75 clone 9mm , so bad I didn't bother to work with it at all in the 9mm. It is my primary load in the 380.

[fecmech]

I have the Ranch Dog version of that bullet and it is very accurate in the .380, probably more accurate than the pistols themselves. I shot it in my .38 spl where it averaged in the 2" range at 50 yds and ragged holes at 50'.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?139563-Ranch-Dog-380-bullet-38-spl

[rintinglen]

The only difference I see between your loads and mine are the powder coating, the size, the powder choice, and the results. I use WW-231, 3.2 grains, I size .358, and I tumble lube with either Recluse formula 45/45/10 or, more recently, Ben's Liquid Lube. I load to an OAL of .901 inches. I get factory equivalent results from My Beretta 84f, Walther PPK/s, Colt Mustang, and Ruger LCP, sometimes better. I have no experience with powder coating--and no room for doing it, either, so I can't help there--but all I have read leads me to believe that should not be a problem in and of itself.
I would look at three things:
Size as loaded. If the boolits are in fact .357, try .358.
OAL--check the length and see how close you are to.901
Try a slightly slower powder--Maybe WW-231, Unique, Accurate No.2, or Zip, perhaps even Power Pistol.
Good luck!

[jcren]

Thanks for the responses guys, looks like I just have to keep trying.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Try a couple sized at .358. If they will chamber, see how they shoot.

[Cherokee]

With that bullet, I use 3.1 231, sized 358 and Lee's lube @ .925 OAL. Stays in 10-ring size group at 7 yds from 3 different 380's.

[pcmacd]

I bought this mold w/o realizing it was a tumble lube. Duh.me.

It looks like it has lube grooves, yes?

TL is fine but I prefer conventional lubes.

[sigep1764]

I still lube it through the Star conventionally with Lars Carnuba Blue over 1.8 to 2 grains of Red Dot. Accurate enough to 10 yards t make a fist sized hole in the target from an LCP Custom. 231 is next to see if its any better.

[pcmacd]

I still lube it through the Star conventionally with Lars Carnuba Blue over 1.8 to 2 grains of Red Dot. Accurate enough to 10 yards t make a fist sized hole in the target from an LCP Custom. 231 is next to see if its any better.

So that's a YES?

The grooves are sufficient to hold conventional lube?

tanks

[Hanzy4200]

Well that's a bummer. I have a big batch of these PC'ed collecting dust. Gunbroker seller mislabeled a .32 as a .380. Geared up for nothing. Good excuse to buy a new pistol......

[sigep1764]

So that's a YES?

The grooves are sufficient to hold conventional lube?

tanks

That is a yes to conventional lube. It holds at least enough to get through the barrel of an LCP without leading the barrel.

[kmw1954]

I tried a bunch of those that were powder coated that another member sent to me to try. They shot well with AA#2 but I found the Lee 345-102-R1 shot much better in both my Witness Pavona and the S&W 380EZ.

[FergusonTO35]

Well, I pulled the trigger on a six hole TL356-95-RF. I'm planning to dip 'em in alox and shoot as cast over 3 grains Bullseye out of my Kimber Micro and Bersa Thunder, both in .380.

[mnewcomb59]

It is very easy to seat that short bullet with bad runout - a.k.a. crooked.

Also I found that my locked breech 9mm pistols shot it great, but the blowback 9mm rifle would not. The heavy blowback action combined with the very shallow seating depth would cause the bullet to hammer into the angled feed ramp then the bullet would get cockeyed bad enough to not chamber. When I single loaded them in the rifle they shot 2-3" at 50, but when they fed semi-auto the group would open up to 12" plus frequent jams.

[FergusonTO35]

I had this mold in a two hole form awhile back and don't remember any special tricks to it as long is the base of the boolit filled out properly. The thing that irritates me about Lee's TL designs is that the lube grooves go all the way down to the bottom and you get more rejects due to the base not filled out. Still, I've been wanting to give another go and the six cavity molds nearly always produce better results for me. I wish Lee would offer all their designs in six cavity.

[crandall crank]

I use this bullet in a couple of LCP's. I PC the bullet and seat till they "plunk" over a mild load of 231 powder. I had a terrible time getting a consistant AOL due to a poorly made seating die. Replaced the die set and all problems went away.

[FergusonTO35]

I poured a couple hundred of them last night with no problems. Like pretty much every other large mold with small cavities I have, you really need to make the spout of the ladle kiss the sprue plate hole for best consistency. That done, they all fill out quite nicely. The boolits also dropped free from the get go with no tricks other than just cleaning the cavities with alcohol prior to use. Lee seems to be really stepping up their game on molds. Dipped 'em all in alox, hope to try some out later this week.

[WRideout]

I have been using this boolit in my, new to me, Hungarian PA63. Initially had leading when using 2.1 gr promo. I thought it might be a lube problem, since I gave them one coat of Ben's Liquid Lube. Next I attempted to lube them in my Lyman lubrisizer. The short, slippery bolits were hard to get out, and the lube was all over them. So then I had a brilliant idea (I get these all the time,) to pan lube them. Getting the right level of liquified lube was extremely difficult, and most of them ended up with lube going halfway up the ogive. After I cut them out, they still had blobs of lube in places where they should not. Just to be sure, I gave them another coating of BLL.

I loaded up a box and went to the range yesterday. After shooting all fifty, the bore of my PA63 required only a light mopping out, and it was mirror bright, no leading. So now comes the big question; how do I get conventional lube into those tiny grooves without all the mess? Still thinking about that one.

Wayne

[yeahbub]

WRideout, I would cut a short length of 1/4" stock or similar to bush up the bottom of the ejector pin on your lube-sizer, so they are fully ejected and easy to remove, say .25 long, nothing fancy. If the edges are dressed off parallel, it should stay there. As for keeping lube from creeping up the sides and onto the ogive, I had to play with precisely adjustiong the depth setting and lube pressure to minimize the leakage. not perfect, but definitely better.

Have you though to PC them?

[FergusonTO35]

I'm not familiar with BLL, but I would advise to try dipping them in LLA next. I've never met a boolit that wouldn't work with a coat or two of LLA, including higher pressure 9mm and .30-30 rounds. Tumble lube, as described by Lee, works on some boolits and not well on others. Biggest problem is you get lube in places where its not needed and not so much where it is needed. I thin my LLA with mineral spirits and then dip each boolit up to the beginning of the ogive. I set them upright in a metal pan to let the excess run off for a few hours, then move them to another pan where they will dry. I scrape up the residual lube in the pans and add it back to my bottle of LLA. At this point you could run the boolits through a push through sizer if you wanted, however I bet they will work just fine as cast since this boolit is designed to be used without sizing.