RCBS 358-148-BBWC vs lee 358-148-WC

[lead Foot]

I bought a RCBS 358-148-BBSWC at a gun show for $30. It is now the most accuarte target boolit in my new S&W 686 6". I shoot a hell of a lot of them and my two cavity RCBS just can't keep up. So a six banger would make live a bit easer. Any of you target nuts have any luck with the Lee six banger~ or even better if you can compere the two. :drinks:
Lead foot;

[mooman76]

I don't have the two different ones to campare with but WC bullets are pretty basic from one to another and they do tend to shoot better than other slugs a good lot of the time at least for me they do. I had a stubby 357 that wouldn't shoot as good as I liked but WCs shot far better than anything else. I think you would be plenty happy with a Lee 6x mould.

[Shiloh]

Like mooman76 said, for a boolit shaped like Campbell's soup can, They shoot extremely well. I have a six banger LEE 148 gr. TLWC mold, and a Lyman 35891. Both are more accurate than I can shoot them.

A six banger mold make a mountain of boolits in a hurry. The Tumble Lube feature allows you to cast and lube many hundreds in a hurry.

Shiloh

[Le Loup Solitaire]

An RCBS 2 cav, if you are just ambling along at the rate of one pour and cast every minute would give you around 125 an hour. Thats pretty good, but if it isn't enough to keep up with the demand then you're right in considering a 6 cav for increased production. I've never used a Lee 6 cav, but I have several H&G 6 holers and I can honestly tell you that one of those can pour out a huge pile of castings between breakfast and lunchtime. Six at the rate of one pour a minute will give you 360 an hour and in three hours later you should have around a thou. That is a respectable amount of shooting. If more is needed then you could consider using the RCBS in tandem with whatever 6 cav you decide to use; when one is cooling you are pouring the other. It is however a pretty frantic pace to keep up with. And then there is the keeping the pot loaded with what you need to meet the pouring demands; you don't want to have to add ingots so fast that the melt temp is lowered or the spout freezes up. 6 holers with a bullet weighing 150 grains take without counting the sprue around 900-1000 grains a pour...thats roughly 7 pours per pound. You didn't mention the capacity of your pot, but you can easily do the rest of the math to see how quickly the pot will go down and or how often you will have to add ingots and keep the pot temp ok. I don't mean to bug you with a lot of numbers, but its good to put an eye toward the planning so that things go well when the pot gets hot. LLS

[lead Foot]

Thanks guys, food for thought. We are getting close to summer here now and a little hot for casting but I have too to keep up with demand. I have a 10 & 20 pound pot. The 20 is new and pretty?. I get around 300+ out of the 10 pound and they go in a flash. So looks like I might bite the boolit and order one. I see the world price for lead went up 6.6% today. :(
:drinks:
Lead foot;

[Le Loup Solitaire]

I neglected to discuss in my previous post the 4 cavity mold. Neither RCBS nor Lee make one, but Lyman and Saeco do. Both are iron molds. A lot of folks have been complaining about Lyman quality control lately, mainly that a lot of Lyman molds are turning up undersize and are being returned to Lyman for replacement-which sometimes works and sometimes not. Saeco on the other hand seems to get it right, but they are a little on the pricey side. Balisticast which took over Hensley & Gibbs is the best mold qualitywise one can get (they have a website) but man do they want to be paid!!! Anyway, numbers-wise a 4 holer will double your 2 cav production to around 250 an hour so a four hour casting session should get you a thou"s worth of shooting. My own experience with 4 holers has been good and I have been able to meet my needs. I tend to favor iron molds as they seem to hold up well. My efforts with aluminum molds have not been too good. They require a number of considerations such as generally requiring higher running temperatures because aluminum loses heat faster and they often need "prep work" to get them to run smoothly. Lubing alignment pins, and smoking the cavities (both recommended by Lee) are necessary. There is a lot of controversy on this forum concerning what has to be done or not done to get Lee molds to run right. There is a broad range of opinions to be sure. If you are on a limited budget (and who isn't these days) and you have to have a 6 cav then Lee is the only way to go, but you would do better in my opinion to consider a 4 cav in iron which costs somewhat more while having a reputation for less hassle. Unfortunately RCBS doesn't make 4 cavs. As to the pot issue, a 20 pounder is better for high volume--no question there. Some casters needing continuous high volume sometimes rig one pot over the other to allow ready-temp melt to easily be added to the lower pot. As an alternative to having a "tower of molten lead" you could run two pots and ladle the melt as needed from one to the other. On the price of lead and a few other items on the world market; we can probably attribute that to our Chinese neighbors who seem to need large amounts of various materials and have lots of (US) money to influence the markets. No help there! Any way good luck with your casting plans and good shooting. LLS

[Buckshot]

...............Several years ago 4-5 us here did a test of various WC boolits. We all had K-38 S&W pistols and we all used the same 2.7grs of Bullseye powder. We all sent each other the various designs to try out. It was as scientific as we could make it, but in the end I doubt it would stand up in court :-) but it WAS interesting nontheless. I had the Lee 358-148 WC cast up of 2 different alloys. There were Lyman, RCBS, and Saeco designs also.

After we all shot them the results were tabulated and it was about as you would expect. A couple of the designs were accurate in most the revolvers, but each one was was most accurate in at least one revolver. There was no out and out stinker, just as there was no definative absolute best. Germain to this thread however the Lee 358-148 ended up showing as one of the best overall, tied with one or 2 others.

Shot as a target boolit, the WC's accuracy can be affected by lube, and how much lube. I disremember now who did it but there was an article on just this thing. I don't recall if the WC had 3 or 4 lube grooves, but it was found to be the most accurate with ONE lube groove filled. It was also tested with the lube groove up top and at the bottom end. It was best with the bottom groove filled. Shooting sprue up or down didn't seem to make any difference.

...............Buckshot

[rugerman1]

...............Several years ago 4-5 us here did a test of various WC boolits. We all had K-38 S&W pistols and we all used the same 2.7grs of Bullseye powder. We all sent each other the various designs to try out. It was as scientific as we could make it, but in the end I doubt it would stand up in court :-) but it WAS interesting nontheless. I had the Lee 358-148 WC cast up of 2 different alloys. There were Lyman, RCBS, and Saeco designs also.

After we all shot them the results were tabulated and it was about as you would expect. A couple of the designs were accurate in most the revolvers, but each one was was most accurate in at least one revolver. There was no out and out stinker, just as there was no definative absolute best. Germain to this thread however the Lee 358-148 ended up showing as one of the best overall, tied with one or 2 others.

Shot as a target boolit, the WC's accuracy can be affected by lube, and how much lube. I disremember now who did it but there was an article on just this thing. I don't recall if the WC had 3 or 4 lube grooves, but it was found to be the most accurate with ONE lube groove filled. It was also tested with the lube groove up top and at the bottom end. It was best with the bottom groove filled. Shooting sprue up or down didn't seem to make any difference.

...............Buckshot

Castpics Article,WADCUTTER TESTS (http://www.castpics.net/memberarticles/.38%20Caliber%20Wadcutter%20Tests.htm)

[SCIBUL]

Hello all !
I agree with LE LOUP SOLITAIRE. I've had the same experiment, starting with 2 cavities moulds and experimenting LYMAN 4 cavities in 44 and 45 caliber. The only LEE six cavities mould I have is the 7mm soupcan... So I'm gonna buy other 6 cavities mould for 357 plinking (still have the Lyman KEITH and RCBS 357-150-SWC) :cbpour:

[BruceB]

" Anyway, numbers-wise a 4 holer will double your 2 cav production to around 250 an hour so a four hour casting session should get you a thou"s worth of shooting. "

Good grief, guys, these "production figures" are abysmal.

Using ONE two-cavity mould, 400 bullets per hour is not difficult and I did that with my RCBS 32-170 mould last week. With one 4-cavity mould, I cast well over a thousand NOE 311284 (215-grain) bullets in about 1.5 hours, also just last week. The quality of the bullets is excellent, and I am not doing anything in a frantic manner. Still, the mould gets filled at least four times per minute. LeLoup quotes a time amounting to FOUR MINUTES for a single filling of a 4-cavity mould!?! (250 bullets in 240 minutes= 62 fillings=4 minutes per filling...is something wrong with the arithmetic?)

If you're interested in making LOTS of good bullets in short order, go to "Homepage" in the toolbar, then click on "Members' articles" over on the left side of the page. The article is titled
"Speed Casting", and the process works well, as attested by many members.

I enjoy making good bullets as much as anyone, but I see no reason to take vast amounts of time in the creation of relatively-few bullets.

[rugerman1]

" Anyway, numbers-wise a 4 holer will double your 2 cav production to around 250 an hour so a four hour casting session should get you a thou"s worth of shooting. "

Good grief, guys, these "production figures" are abysmal.

Using ONE two-cavity mould, 400 bullets per hour is not difficult and I did that with my RCBS 32-170 mould last week. With one 4-cavity mould, I cast well over a thousand NOE 311284 (215-grain) bullets in about 1.5 hours, also just last week. The quality of the bullets is excellent, and I am not doing anything in a frantic manner. Still, the mould gets filled at least four times per minute. LeLoup quotes a time amounting to FOUR MINUTES for a single filling of a 4-cavity mould!?! (250 bullets in 240 minutes= 62 fillings=4 minutes per filling...is something wrong with the arithmetic?)

If you're interested in making LOTS of good bullets in short order, go to "Homepage" in the toolbar, then click on "Members' articles" over on the left side of the page. The article is titled
"Speed Casting", and the process works well, as attested by many members.

I enjoy making good bullets as much as anyone, but I see no reason to take vast amounts of time in the creation of relatively-few bullets.

~Speed Casting...By Bruce B. (http://ktsammo.250x.com/castboolits/cst1.html)

[Shiloh]

Thanks guys, food for thought. We are getting close to summer here now and a little hot for casting but I have too to keep up with demand. I have a 10 & 20 pound pot. The 20 is new and pretty?. I get around 300+ out of the 10 pound and they go in a flash. So looks like I might bite the boolit and order one. I see the world price for lead went up 6.6% today. :(
:drinks:
Lead foot;

It doesn't take long!!!

SHiloh