A couple noob questions about my lee 457-450 mold

[BowHunter252]

I just casted a few of these bullets the other day. Water dropped some and air cooled some. I was using plain stick on ww. The air cooled boolits were right at .455, which was too small. The would just slide right into my new starline cases. The water dropped were .457 and a much tighter fit. I fired about 20 of the .457 and didn't notice any problems.

Is it normal for water dropped bullets to be larger than air cooled? I would really like to be shooting a .459 bullet. Would the diameter increase if I added tin? Should I just get a different mold?

[44man]

I just casted a few of these bullets the other day. Water dropped some and air cooled some. I was using plain stick on ww. The air cooled boolits were right at .455, which was too small. The would just slide right into my new starline cases. The water dropped were .457 and a much tighter fit. I fired about 20 of the .457 and didn't notice any problems.

Is it normal for water dropped bullets to be larger than air cooled? I would really like to be shooting a .459 bullet. Would the diameter increase if I added tin? Should I just get a different mold?
Stick on's are considered pure lead. Pure will not expand or harden in water so you must have had a few with tin and antimony in them.
The only way to increase size is to go to clip on WW's or add more tin and antimony to WW metal and water drop. Water dropping just speeds up the hardening and expansion so you can shoot them in a few days to a week or more.
Tin will not expand the boolits.
Molds are still made too small and I never even look at one marked .457". I do not think I have ever seen a bore that small or a single one that would use a .457" boolit.
You MUST know your groove to groove size to choose a boolit diameter. There is a good chance your bore is .458" to .460" so even a .459" will be wrong sometimes. It will do OK in the .458" though. You need to slug your barrel.
Get hold of Lee and tell them the boolit is too small, they should make you a new one.

[BowHunter252]

Stick on's are considered pure lead. Pure will not expand or harden in water so you must have had a few with tin and antimony in them.
The only way to increase size is to go to clip on WW's or add more tin and antimony to WW metal and water drop. Water dropping just speeds up the hardening and expansion so you can shoot them in a few days to a week or more.
Tin will not expand the boolits.
Molds are still made too small and I never even look at one marked .457". I do not think I have ever seen a bore that small or a single one that would use a .457" boolit.
You MUST know your groove to groove size to choose a boolit diameter. There is a good chance your bore is .458" to .460" so even a .459" will be wrong sometimes. It will do OK in the .458" though. You need to slug your barrel.
Get hold of Lee and tell them the boolit is too small, they should make you a new one.


Well, my alloy did have some of these type stick on's in it:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c366/viper252/wheelweight.jpg

I casted about 20 air cooled and 20 water dropped from the same pot of alloy. All of the air cooled were .455 and all the water dropped were .457.

I do need to slug my bore. I will do that asap.

[Trey45]

I hate to be a stickler here, but you did size your new cases prior to loading right? My new starline 45 colt cases were way too big for my .452 boolits, they too slid right in, after sizing, that problem mysteriously resovled itself.

[fredj338]

Like Trey said, stick on ww are almost pure lead. Go 50/50 w/ clip ons for a bump up in size or add some lino. Tin hleps a bit too, but kind of pricey.