Midsouth Shooters Supply has Bator & Soup Can Molds in stock

[high standard 40]

Attachment 90389thanks guys for the help! Here's my nose diameter

My 6 cavity mold yields a .219" nose and .226" drive bands using an alloy of 80% COWW/20% Lino. I did note that my particular mold gives very poor bullet bases with a very ugly sprue cut. I disassembled the mold and put the sprue plate on some sand paper and discovered it was cupped pretty bad. I now have it trued up and I also touched up the sprue holes with a camphering cutter. Operation seems to be much smoother now but I have not had the opportunity to cast with it yet.

[waco]

My 6 cavity mold yields a .219" nose and .226" drive bands using an alloy of 80% COWW/20% Lino. I did note that my particular mold gives very poor bullet bases with a very ugly sprue cut. I disassembled the mold and put the sprue plate on some sand paper and discovered it was cupped pretty bad. I now have it trued up and I also touched up the sprue holes with a camphering cutter. Operation seems to be much smoother now but I have not had the opportunity to cast with it yet.

I might try that. Some of my bases are not flat. If you look at my pic, you can see some of the boolits are leaning.

[.429]

i used alum gas checks that came from a guy here on the site. they seated good after going thru the Lee sizer. it sounds like they did make a change with the diameter of the nose and i wonder if that's why these are now 5gr less? doesn't bother me, i like the lighter boolits

[high standard 40]

What gas checks are being used on these? ( next question) I have put some aluminum ones on the boolits from the mold that I currently have and they start out fitting loose but tighten up somewhat when I crimp them and stay on but can be pulled off pretty easily.

I just poured a few to test my modified sprue plate and the bullet bases are much better. I have not sized and lubed any yet but I did measure the bullet base because of what you said about loose gaschecks. I'm getting .210" so I placed a gascheck cup side up on my bench and placed a bullet into the check. If you then pick up the bullet, the gascheck stays on the bench. Kinda loose. I'll have to see if they will crimp on tight enough.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

i used alum gas checks that came from a guy here on the site. they seated good after going thru the Lee sizer. it sounds like they did make a change with the diameter of the nose and i wonder if that's why these are now 5gr less? doesn't bother me, i like the lighter boolits

.429,
while it'll depend on what alloy you cast with, My two 'older' midsouth/Lee bator molds cast light as well. below is a copy of my post, from much earlier in this thread. those weights were from using an alloy of 94-3-3. and both boolits have FAT noses.

AG,
I already have two older (and different sized) Lee 22 bator 2 cav. molds, (one is 48gr. and one is 51.5gr) and I'll be curious what their new 2 cav. block style and CNC machining will mean for the bator. I think their small size mold block for their 2 cav. works great for the tiny Bator. I worry about the large 6-cav mold for a tiny boolit, I am guessing it'll be difficult to keep the mold temp high enough for perfect boolits...just my guess from using other 22 molds that I have that are made by different manufacturers.
Jon

[xacex]

This mold has to be the most inconsistent from batch to batch that LEE ever produced. Whenever I see a new batch posted here there is something wrong like nose diameter being to big, or to small, gas check shank being to big,or weight being to little. Maybe this is why it is not a production run item. To many problems with QC on a tiny boolit. I had one that cast a perfect boolit, cast a bunch that I have stored, and sold off the mold. Got over 300$ for it on fleabay. It seems the rarity of the mold makes it valuable in times of need. It payed for some of my Mihec molds

[AlaskanGuy]

Well, i had forgotten to make everything ship shape before i started breaking in the 6 banger.....

Nonetheless, here is the pic....
Attachment 90531

Make sure to have all your ducks in a row... Flow rate, temp on purty hot, mold heated long and hot.... They come out hot and heavy, but i forgot what a pain it is to break in a brand new mold..... In the picture above, pile on top if the first cull run, and from that i culled again and got the pile on bottom, now i will move to the scale and prolly throw most of the bottom pile back in the pot...lol

Hey, is gotta be done.... Lol... One good thing though, at least i scrubbed the poop out of it and they were dropping free and nice...

You get yours worked out yet Watco?

AG

[AlaskanGuy]

This is what i got. Mine mostly weighed around 51.0 to 51.3 gr of the ones that i kept.
Nose
Attachment 90532

Bands


GC Shank
Attachment 90534

OAL
Attachment 90535

There ya go.... Hope its a shooter... Hope to try when the weather breaks.... Prolly be 10 days or so, so the bullets can cure at least a little bit.... I usually let hem sit for a month.... But i wanna play... I think i will alox a few and then size them .225 and see how they do... I know, i am rushing them, but i promise to only do 10 or 12.... He he

Ag

[Idz]

For my first batch using my aluminum GC on range scrap alloy I got 50.9 +/- 0.8% weight and 0.557 +/- 0.4% OAL . (The quoted relative errors are the standard deviations of the sample). My plan is to try these with a powder coat.

[waco]

I cast some with 80/20 COWW/LINO air cooled. I sorted out the culls and kept the ones that weighed between 50.4-50.7gr

I then ran them through a Lee .225 sizer with Hornady gas checks. After that, I shot them with HF Matte black PC, Baked in the oven @ 400 Deg. for 20 min. then water dropped.

A light coat of Lee liquid alox and back through the .225 sizer.

Boolits weigh 52.5-52.7gr ready to load.

CZ 221 Fireball, and Savage 10 .223 will be the test.

Attachment 90567

[waco]

BTW

Right out of the mold with my alloy, .226 driving bands ans a .221 nose.

50.4-50.7grs

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

the news of more molds having the smaller nose keeps coming...this is great !

[AlaskanGuy]

Where is yours Jon????

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

The new "mis-shipped" six cav. mold is sitting right next to me, the new 2 cav. which I originally ordered, but they shipped the six'er instead, is being shipped in a second package with a return shipper label for the six'er, which is still in the hands of a civil servant. Maybe monday or tuesday it'll be here ???

[leadman]

high standard 40, the sprue plate is machined so there is a cup in it. I spoke with Andy Lee at length about this but he thinks this is a good idea. He siad it helps the molds vent. I take my sprue plate over the the belt sander and flatten the bottom out and then I get a flat base with no flashing on it.
On the larger caliber 6 cavity molds I open the fill holes and they fill much better from my RCBS bottom pour pot.

[high standard 40]

high standard 40, the sprue plate is machined so there is a cup in it. I spoke with Andy Lee at length about this but he thinks this is a good idea. He siad it helps the molds vent. I take my sprue plate over the the belt sander and flatten the bottom out and then I get a flat base with no flashing on it.
On the larger caliber 6 cavity molds I open the fill holes and they fill much better from my RCBS bottom pour pot.

Sounds like you and I are on the same page here. I'm getting much better bullets since I dressed the plate.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

high standard 40, the sprue plate is machined so there is a cup in it. I spoke with Andy Lee at length about this but he thinks this is a good idea. He siad it helps the molds vent. I take my sprue plate over the the belt sander and flatten the bottom out and then I get a flat base with no flashing on it.
On the larger caliber 6 cavity molds I open the fill holes and they fill much better from my RCBS bottom pour pot.

Sounds like you and I are on the same page here. I'm getting much better bullets since I dressed the plate.

Well Dang it Andy Lee !!!
I thought I've 'warped' a couple of my six cav mold sprue plates. I ordered a few custom made steel six cav sprue plates for real troublesome cases...My RD 225-50 RF plain base was the worst, the new steel sprue plate made all the difference in the world for base consistency. Venting he says...there is many better ways to get better venting.

Rant Off.

[historicfirearms]

Anyone tried the newer bator in a semi auto yet? Wondering how they would feed.

[AlaskanGuy]

I have some loaded in front of unique.... 6.5 gr... And they sure are funny looking.

Attachment 90603

I took one and shoved it into the chamber to see how far to seat.... I seated at 2.062 to engage where needed..

[.429]

here's my first group. it's about a 4.5"in group at 100yrds. i'm pretty happy with it since I havn't done any ladder testing yet. i used i4198 and loaded them to about 1900fps. it should be pretty easy to cut this group size in half