Out of Round...

[BCB]

Nearly a dozen years ago I purchased a Lyman 311041 mold—new…

I have cast many boolits with it and I have only sized the gas check to 0.311” to seat it; I then used Lee Alox and shot the boolit “as cast”…

Recently, I have been using my Lube-O-Matic and fully sizing these boolits and using Carnauba stick lube…

I have discovered by using the full-sizing that one side of the boolit is very shiny and the lube grooves are forced smaller than the lube groove on other places of the boolit. It is only with some of them so I suspect only 1 cavity of the mold might be bad…

My question: After sizing them, do they get “good enough” to use in a 30-30 for shooting at ranges up to 100 yards in a Contender…

I don’t expect bench rest accuracy, but I would like to stay at the 1.5” at 100 yards…

I never did get very good accuracy with these boolits and maybe that is the reason why?

I want to “start” over again with the Contender/311041 combination, but this time trying Trail Boss…

Any thoughts?...

Thanks…BCB

[Bret4207]

Mark one cavity with a small dimple near the nose with a prick punch. Just lightly. That will give you a way to tell which cavity it might be. Actually, before that check you sizer- alignment issues between TP and sizer die or a worn ram can cause this, so can a TP that doesn't really fit the nose well.

[BCB]

Bret4207

I checked the alignment of the TP and the sizing die and all “looks” O.K…

I am using the correct TP, #8 as indicated…

I have heard of marking the one cavity as you mentioned…

I have bunches of them cast already and I am going to try them in the Contender first. If I see extreme accuracy problems, I will need to pursue which cavity might be the culprit…

I do believe that when I first started using this mold I separated the front for the rear and did weigh them and average them. I don’t know if the spreads would be far enough to segregate front from rear or not and then size each that way and see if the problem is evident with a particular cavity…

Thanks…BCB

[44man]

My lube sizer does that to some boolits but a Lee push through does not. Some lube sizers have nasty alignment issues as do the dies.
To find out if it is the mold or the sizer, just measure cast boolits to see if they are round to start with. A small amount out does not hurt.
I sure don't want to work on my lube sizer when Lee dies work so well.

[Thumbcocker]

I think it was Frank Marshall who advised to take the set screw that holds the nose punch out of the ram and use a dollap of boolit lube to hold the top punch in. The theory is that the punch will float and self center. I don't know how much it helps but it is one of those things that is easy to do and doesn't cost any thing. FWIW.