First Molds...

[keeber]

Ordered my first two molds...

Lee TL358-158-SWC
and lee 452-228-1R

I'm excited and should be casting the first boolits on Thursday !!

[jdgabbard]

I have the 358-158-SWC-TL, and have personally been casting good boolits right out of the box with it. I don't know if I like the design yet. But it does cast good boolits.

[opentop]

Congrats on your new molds. I see you bought the lee molds and I just want to share some things I went through today with new Lee molds.

I have been hanging around in here a while and should have known better, but you know how it goes, you fire up the pot and want to start pouring led. But there are a few things you should do before you start.

I started with a 2 cavity mold and was trying ladle pouring with it. I had a new 6 cavity mold in the basement and decided to try that one, so I went and fetched it. I didn’t clean it figuring that I’d run a few cast through it and throw the boolits back in the pot hopping they would burn out any contamination.

Well, I started pouring two cavities at a time and couldn't get the mould to warm up, (at least that’s what I was thinking). The boolits were full of wrinkles. I tried for what seamed like for ever filling all six holes and couldn’t get the wrinkles out.

I took the mold in the house and gave the cavities a goods scrubbing, then placed the mold on the pot to warm up and dry out any water from washing. I then went and ate lunch to give it a chance to warm up.

After I went back out, I tried to cast the first two cavities again and still had wrinkled boolits. So I reached in my pocket to get my lighter and smoked the first cavity real heavy until it was almost black. Cast that first cavity and wha la!!!! It filled out perfectly! So I then smoked all the cavities and started throwing perfect boolits the rest of the afternoon.

I did find that my mold was getting to hot, so I slowed down by pouring the 6 cavity full, cut the spur, sit it down, cast twice with the two cavity, pick up the 6 cavity and dump the boolits. This worked out great and had better control over my mold getting to hot.

So I wish you the best of luck when your molds come in and welcome to the addiction.

[kir_kenix]

I have both of these molds, and they are both solid designs and shooters. I shoot the 358 unsized over a light charge of bulseye (im thinking right around 3 grs, but don't have my notes upstairs) in short barreled .38 specials and I have found it to be about perfect in that application.

You started with 2 good designs, and thats pretty important in getting your guns to shoot well. There are some pretty radical molds out there that really only have 1 certain aplication...I try to avoid those designs. Have fun and good luck casting and shooting!