Got one of the new Lee 2 cavs.

[wallenba]

I got a new Lee C312-155-2R mold last week. Last night I prepped in my own manner. I take them apart as far as I'm able. The sprue plate screw is now a regular screw and came out easily. I do that to take down any ridge around the screw hole that can lift the plate. Then I use a fine emery paper disc on my Dremmel tool and radius the bottom edge of the sprue plate and the top outside edges of the mold halves. I thoroughly clean the steel parts with 91% rubbing alcohol. I then scrub each mold half under hot running water with plain bar soap and a tooth brush. After drying with a paper towel, I then clean them with Q-tips and rubbing alcohol. This gets the mineral deposits from my water out (I hope).
What I found was the mold handles can be removed from the mold halves with an allen wrench. The pins are a self-tapping type with a steep spiral threading. I got mine back together working very carefully to engage the threads correctly. I don't recommend doing it, but I was curious, and I won't be doing it again.
The mold cavities are beautifully made and it produced excellant boolits at exactly .313 with #2 alloy. It took a while to get it to operating temp, and needed a steady rythmn to stay there. I think that is because the new mold block design has less mass. It's narrower on the bottom than the old ones.
I would say that these, for the money, are the best entry level mold out there.
I'm sure that others here must have them and may have posted about them, but I had to add my 2 cents.

[Taylor]

I have the same mold,yes it does cast a nice bullet.My plate seems as though it lifts upward from the mold,but leaves no smear.I polished the plate and top of mold halves with honing oil and fine stone.I like the new design,but wish it were all the same size and not narrower at the bottom.Much better built than the old style.

[dromia]

Lee rejig their mould design and still keep their no QC policy.

One step forward two steps back.

[Four-Sixty]

I just got a new mold from Lee and spent about 20 minutes cleaning up the "smear" from where the cavities were cut on each side of the block. I used a mach to basically bend the "flash" back into the cavity, then back out until it broke off.

[paborn]

I use the old mold Lee C312-155-2R in a CZ 527 in 7.62x39. It casts at .312 and sized to .312 with NRA lube, I have gotten a 1.1 inch average over many, many 5 shot groups, no smaller than 0.6 and no larger than 1.8 inch. The load is 15.5 grains of Alliant 2400 at a velocity of 1780 fps. i wanted to get the same bullet it the new mold with the pins for alignment, and it came in today. I've not cast with it yet but I've some comments on this mold.

1. It appears these molds do not have vent lines. It does, however, have a wide, very shallow scalloped portion about a half an inch wide completely across the mold through the middle of the bullet. This would act as a vent.

2. While the mold is in close contact to the left, right, and in between the bullet cavity, it does not touch directly beneath the nose of the bullet. When the mold is closed, you can see a line of light when looking through the mold from the sprue plate end. Maybe it's designed this way to vent the mold. I just hope it won't fin.

It takes care to align the pins when closing the mold.

I'll crank it up in the next couple of days and see how it performs, and what size bullet it makes.

Paborn