oversized lee moulds

[roarindan]

Hi folks, last nite a friend brought over her supply of w/w's,and we (I) smelted it down for her. later we did some casting,she had brought her "new" lee molds, she used her fresh smelt lead and i used some of my stock.I was using her 45 micro grove (tl452-230-2r),she cast 9mm and 40 s&w we talked about the micro grove and she said if you have a lubersizer, try and lube a few an see how they shoot. I COULDNT GET 'EM THRU!!! tried 2-3 and no go. mic'd em and they ran .454 her 40 casts were .403. dont recall the 9mm's size but it was big also. I checked my calipers on some commercial stuff and they were true. she had trouble getting her boolits to release every time but I had no trouble there. questions are why all three are over sized ??,,did she buy seconds? will the boolits shrink??

thank you for your support.

[Ricochet]

Are the moulds six-holers? With those you must be very careful to never squeeze the handle of the sprue cutter while you're holding the mould handles closed. if you squeeze the sprue cutter, the blocks will spring slightly apart, giving badly oversized and sometimes finned boolits. Drove me CRAZY till I figured out what I was doing wrong! Hands off that sprue cutter!

Otherwise, look for contamination on the faces of the blocks and locator pins, anything that might be holding them a bit further apart.

[Ricochet]

Hey, you do know you're supposed to lube the boolits before pushing them through a Lee push-through sizer, right?

[HeavyMetal]

Ricochet has you headed down the right track.

However I think your biggest "clue" was the "TL" part of the mold number and your discussion with your friend about Micro band boolits. I have had 3 or 4 of the tumble lube molds, and had a bit of "hands on" experience with 4 or 5 others. everyone of these molds cast on the large side, some more than others.

In several case's with the 45 auto molds they were "regulated" to doing casting for a 45 Colt pistol that liked .455 boolits!

Odds are you did nothing wrong with your casting, but it doesn't hurt to review "technique" once in a while, I think your simply going to have to get a sizer set up. What you get wil depend greatly on your budget.

[sqlbullet]

Both of my Lee Tumble Lube .401 molds drop bullets that are between .401 and .402. I shoot them as cast at this point, although I sized them early on to .401.

[zxcvbob]

I bought a .358 mold once that dropped boolits @ .362" I stupidly send it back to Lee and they fixed or replaced it, I'm not sure which. I should have kept it just like it was and bought a 2nd mold to get .358" (.362 would be really handy for loading .38 S&W's, and it might be big enough for 9x18mm, but I wasn't interested in those at the time)

[roarindan]

I knew i would forget something....the luber sizer i used is a Lyman 45. sorry i left that out.

[rbuck351]

.002 or .003 oversize should size down very easily. I have size down much further than that without problems.

[pdawg_shooter]

I reduce .458 bullets to .4515 for paper patching in a Lee push through die all the time. I push them through dry and then patch them up, lube them and push through a .459 die for final size.

[jdgabbard]

I have had 3 or 4 of the tumble lube molds, and had a bit of "hands on" experience with 4 or 5 others. everyone of these molds cast on the large side, some more than others.

Not true. I have had a few come across my hands that cast small. For example my 358-158-TL drops at about .3565, which is ok, because my barrel in my S&W sluggs at about the same, and I just simply opened up the mold a little with some fine lapping compound. Which did the job wonderfully.

But my point, my experience tells me otherwise. I think their using their cherries too long.

[Ricochet]

Supposedly they don't use cherries, it's a CNC process. I suppose the cutters still wear and shorten...

[tackstrp]

i sent a lee sizer back to be repaired, think I destroyed it trying to get a bullet out with a carbide drilll bit as a punch. Any way there was a 358 gas check stuck in the die when i sent it back and they sent back a new one, a sample of a 358 size micro band and a not that the bullet stuck in the die was not a Micro band.

Interesting, that makes me conclude that one teck does not consider the lee sizing dies suitable for OTHER than Micro band lee bullets.

[grages]

Supposedly they don't use cherries, it's a CNC process. I suppose the cutters still wear and shorten...

Mihec uses cherry cutters in a cnc machine to produce custom molds for us, I don't know how lee does it though.

http://www.mp-molds.com/index.php?pr=Custom_cherry_cutters