Lee 22 Bator mold caution

[badbob454]

What a wast!!! I can get 4 lovely little 22's from the same lead.
I do love to see the feathers fly though. 22's dont put on much of a feather show.
On the other hand when I shoot them in a sabot from an 06 at 4000+ fps the feathers do fly.

bullshop... what is the trick to loading sabots mine keyhole and dont shoot straight. i tried them in a 308 and ss109 is it the heavier bullet ? would a bator work better? they (ss109) seemed to load straight and seated fully , maybe the bevel base of the ss109 tipped when the sabot released ? i dont know

[Bullshop]

badbob
A couple trick we learned about shooting boolits in sabot.
#1 pre size the boolits in a nose first push through at .224" That is so they correctly fit the sabot and seat squarely in it.
#2 seat boolits squarely and firmly to the bottom of the sabot. We do this with a lube sizer press using a .308" die installed and a top punch that fits the boolit nose.
#3 use a boolit design that has enough bearing surface that the petals of the sabot lye flat on the bearing surface, not on any portion of ogive.
No lube or gas checks needed for this even if the boolit is a GC design.
We get about 1.5 MOA for 10 shots at 100 yards from a 30/06 at 4100 fps. They will go quite a bit faster but that is where we get best accuracy.

[Doc Highwall]

Bullshop, who's sabots do you use.

[6.5 mike]

basher, I just figured them to be really good targets

[Bullshop]

I would have to check to find out. They are at my shop and I am here chatting which makes me realize I am not getting any work done.
Anyway the ones we use are flat gray color and have 5 petals. We didn't have as good results with the red colored ones or the opaque ones.

[Faret]

Just received a mold with the different shank is everybody sending there's back?

[johnly]

Does it cast bullets that look like this?






The new style mold drops bullets .2250" x .2255", while the old mold drops bullets .2245 x .2250"

The real problem is the fit of gas check in the base area. The gap you see the second picture is due the belted shank, and the belt diameter that is ~.007" smaller than the old mold. Gas checks on to old style mold snap into place, while the smaller diameter shank area on the new mold lets the gas check slide sisde to side a considerable amount.

I just don't think this is going to work out well at the range...

John

[stubshaft]

Just received a mold with the different shank is everybody sending there's back?

I had the older style tapered shank but it was too large. I called Lee Precision and sopke to one of the techs there. He was at a loss to explain who/when the shank was redesigned. He did tell me that there were alot of them there?

Anyhoo, mine went back last week...

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Bump to top, since there is recent activity on this subject.

Has anyone bought one of these from Midsouth in the last week ?
2 cav. or 6 cav. ?
what style of GC shank does you r mold have ?
Jon

PS: See photo of both types in post #28 if you are unfamiliar with what I am asking

[Hamish]

Jon, just got done buying 6.5 CM, Bator, and .323 Max from MS. Had not read threads on Bator yet and just knew that if I did'nt grab one,,,,,. I had planned to shoot this boolit in Contender rifle and sabot'ed in 10" 30-30 pistol. Folks, am I gathering that saboted it will likely make no dif if goofy version? The .284 Lee I own is a dream, but have had trouble with a .44 mold, (am planning on sending bbl to Mike Bellm to see if it is the throat as it is throwing gc and j@(k=t=d all over, and a .45 that is so out of round that loaded rounds wont chamber. Off thread topic, should I have waited till the karabiner mold was back in stock instead of buying the Max.? To All: I have enough experience that I can mold a good bullet, but man, some of the raw noggin' horsepower being slung on this site just amazes me. I have been coveting a 6.5x55 for a couple of years, but between .223,30-30,7TCU,.44,.303 Brit, 7.62x43R,and the carry rounds,(38 & 45), I've been waiting for the right rifle. After reading some of the Cruise Missile thread(s) I bebopped to Mid South for a mold for a round I don't even have! Gentlemen, if I had only been able to learn about making boolit lube and tumbling non TL boolits I would consider myself very lucky!! Will be very interested to see some kind of concensus reached over this batch of molds. BTW, does MSSS know any of this, do they care, does Lee really give a patootie? Changing the specs on a mold, let alone a .224???

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I just got my second Bator mold today from Midsouth.
I'll try to cast with in in the next couple of days.

At first glance, It looks like the tapered gas check shank.
But when I put a boolit cast from my first mold (a stepped GC shank).
it fits perfectly, except the stepped portion extends up beyond the top of the mold. I am worried that the GC shank will be too small.
the lube grooves are the same ??? Others here have posted photos
where the lube grooves were wider ?
I tried to take a few photos, I could focus as close up as I'd like, but here they are.
Jon

[Moonie]

One thing I have noticed that is the reason I'm having so much trouble in my AR with this boolit is that the nose is larger in diameter than the old design. The old design the nose appeared to be more bore rider, now it is full diameter to almost the end...

Not good for a semi-auto

I'm thinking another mold would be easier than getting a nose sizer and sizing all of them twice.

[vernm]

My mould arrived this afternoon. Looking at it with a magnafiying glass, I can see no step. Looks like a tapered gas check shank.

The young lady in customer service at Mid South was not aware of any problem with the 22 Bator.

[stubshaft]

Hey JonB,
Mic the nose section righ tin front of the first lube groove. According to the original drawing it should be .219. The last mould that I got measures .224. I sent it to Felix to play with because it pushes the base into the case.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

stub,
both my molds are .224+
in fact, the stepped shank boolits I cast are arouns .227 to .228
then it gets sized down to .225 by my sizing die.
I had no problem loading them into 22 hornet
and they are plenty accurate in my Ruger #3

I'm not sure what you mean here,

"because it pushes the base into the case."

unless you are talking about a semi-auto ?
Jon

[stubshaft]

Both my K-hornet and 223 have short throats. The old design was a bore rider and would extend into the chamber. Now the nose hits the leade and I have to seat it deeper.

[JIMinPHX]

One of the board members that didn't want his new style 6-banger sold it to me. Now I have an old style & a new style to play with. The boolits certainly are different.

The old Bator has a driving band diameter around .226", a nose around .221" & a full length GC shank around .217", which is actually a little snug on my checks. I think that .215" would be better for the GC shank.

The new style Bator has a .227" driving band, .226" nose, & a .209" GC shank that is only about .03" long & runs into a lube groove.

The new style has wider & deeper lube grooves.

[JIMinPHX]

The new mold might present some opportunities though. The GC hole in the mold measures .201" which is exactly the same as a #7 reamer. If someone wanted a GC shank of a particular depth, they could just plunge a reamer in an extra .02" or so & get a perfect length GC shank that still has a little lube groove in front of it. That might be worth playing with. A #6 reamer is .204" & since a .201 hole now gives a .209 shank, the .204 reamer should give a .212" shank that should work nicely.

I'm also thinking about reaming the GC shank out of a few cavities completely, since I have 6 cavities to work with. A .2188" (7/32") reamer should give me about .227" on the base. I've always wondered how the Bator would work as a plain base. Now I may have a chance to find out.

That part about the nose being a little bigger is causing me some trouble though. It is just big enough to rub in my seating die. I may have to swage the nose back into a bore rider. I'll wait & see about that.

[JIMinPHX]

I've been fooling around with reaming out the short GC shank on the new style mold. I've come up with a few workable options for different applications. Results look good. I'll try to get pictures posted in a day or two.

[JIMinPHX]

The story is basically this: another board member sold me his new style 6-cav Bator mold & I’ve been fooling around with it, trying to find some better base shank options. Below is what I have so far.

The first picture shows the results of the following modifications:

(left) a .2188” reamer plunged to .12” deep. This leaves a shank of around .220” diameter. I think that this would be good for use with a GC that was punched out of a .004” thick beer or soda can.

(center) a .201” reamer was plunged .05” deep. Basically, there was no change as this reamer just grazed the grease groove & did not extend the shank at all.

(right) a .209 reamer was plunged .05” deep. The gave me a little bigger GC shank. The Hornady GC knocked around a little on the shank because it was slightly undersized, but once I ran it through a .228” size die, it grabbed on firm & did not jiggle around at all. I think that this is probably about the minimum that is needed for good results.

The second picture shows my second round of attempts.

(left) is the results of a .213” reamer being plunged .06” deep. This shank was just big enough to hold a GC that was pressed on by hand. It did not knock around at all, even before being crimped.

(center) shows an equivalent boolit that had the GC crimped on with a .228 size die. It is on there SOLID. I think that this is how I'm going to set up 4 of my 6 cavities, at least for now.

(right) shows the results of a .228” reamer being plunged .12” deep. This is now basically a plain base Bator.

It will probably be at least next week before I get a chance to load any of these up to see how they do at the range. If anyone has any comments or suggested loads, please feel free to share your thoughts.

Personally, I’d be tickled half to death if I can find a way to get good performance out of the plain base version or the beer can GC version. I’m always looking for ways to be more frugal with my ammo manufacturing.