BruceB
10-17-2009, 09:15 PM
Folks;
A sea change has taken place in the world of special-order moulds. I believe it's sufficiently important that I'm placing this thread here, rather than on the "Moulds" forum.
With all the interminable troubles reported about special-order moulds showing up VERY late or never, and often with wrong dimensions when they DO show up.....we finally have a winner.
The NOE special orders are placed to meet a set of dimensions agreed-upon by OUR members, on OUR site. Once everyone has had a say in the matter, Swede Nelson adopts a set of numbers which will satisfy the majority of respondents.
Today I cast my first bullets with the 4-cavity 311284 which came from NOE last week. I had to wait for set of Lee handles, which I must say performed well. But the MOULD....a random sample of twenty bullets from a run of over 1000 demonstrated nose diameters of .300, and band diameters of .312-.313, from ALL cavities. I tried these 20 bullets in muzzles of several .30-caliber rifles, and only about a third of the nose would enter the rifling, even on my Krag of 1898. Perfect, in other words. Weight obviously was equally consistent.
The mould operated very well. I cycled it in the oven as instructed, taking it up to 375 and back to room temp three times. I then gave it a quick scrub with carb cleaner and a toothbrush, and that was all. It releases the straight-ww bullets very easily, and the highly-polished top surface shows rounded bases or other base flaws very prominently. Contrary to some other experiences posted here, my bullets accept both Hornady and Gator gaschecks.
The test run used my normal speed-casting technique, and I had over a thousand bullets in about 1.5 hours.
I'm hoping that the tooling from the many group buys will be available for future orders by anyone who missed the initial group buys. It would be reasonable to expect a slightly-higher price, since a one-off order couldn't be made in a batch run like the group buys. My 4-cavity 311284 cost $95 including shipping. To get a mould made the way *I* want, with the number of cavities I want, that is an utter bargain. My NOE 314299 4-cav should be along in the near future, and I believe I can now safely say that my .303s will never have had it so good.
I'm not in any way associated with NOE, except in my admiration for the way they're doing business. I highly recommend the outfit, and I think they'll put to rest a great deal of the dis-satisfaction lately associated with custom orders and group buys. Future orders for my bench are a certainty.
A sea change has taken place in the world of special-order moulds. I believe it's sufficiently important that I'm placing this thread here, rather than on the "Moulds" forum.
With all the interminable troubles reported about special-order moulds showing up VERY late or never, and often with wrong dimensions when they DO show up.....we finally have a winner.
The NOE special orders are placed to meet a set of dimensions agreed-upon by OUR members, on OUR site. Once everyone has had a say in the matter, Swede Nelson adopts a set of numbers which will satisfy the majority of respondents.
Today I cast my first bullets with the 4-cavity 311284 which came from NOE last week. I had to wait for set of Lee handles, which I must say performed well. But the MOULD....a random sample of twenty bullets from a run of over 1000 demonstrated nose diameters of .300, and band diameters of .312-.313, from ALL cavities. I tried these 20 bullets in muzzles of several .30-caliber rifles, and only about a third of the nose would enter the rifling, even on my Krag of 1898. Perfect, in other words. Weight obviously was equally consistent.
The mould operated very well. I cycled it in the oven as instructed, taking it up to 375 and back to room temp three times. I then gave it a quick scrub with carb cleaner and a toothbrush, and that was all. It releases the straight-ww bullets very easily, and the highly-polished top surface shows rounded bases or other base flaws very prominently. Contrary to some other experiences posted here, my bullets accept both Hornady and Gator gaschecks.
The test run used my normal speed-casting technique, and I had over a thousand bullets in about 1.5 hours.
I'm hoping that the tooling from the many group buys will be available for future orders by anyone who missed the initial group buys. It would be reasonable to expect a slightly-higher price, since a one-off order couldn't be made in a batch run like the group buys. My 4-cavity 311284 cost $95 including shipping. To get a mould made the way *I* want, with the number of cavities I want, that is an utter bargain. My NOE 314299 4-cav should be along in the near future, and I believe I can now safely say that my .303s will never have had it so good.
I'm not in any way associated with NOE, except in my admiration for the way they're doing business. I highly recommend the outfit, and I think they'll put to rest a great deal of the dis-satisfaction lately associated with custom orders and group buys. Future orders for my bench are a certainty.