Modifying a Lee to Cast a WFN

[Outdoors]

KLR:
Can you expand a bit on "take light cuts"? How small are you talking about here?
I am wondering how many passes was required to get to depth.

Thanks!

Pat

[KLR]

KLR:
Can you expand a bit on "take light cuts"? How small are you talking about here?
I am wondering how many passes was required to get to depth.

Thanks!

Pat

Well, it depends on what you are using and how firmly you are holding it. Generally speaking, I won't try for more than 1/32" the next time I do it. Once you get close to your final depth I'd back it off to 1/64" or less.

[Outdoors]

Great. Thanks!

Pat

[Djones]

Klr thank you for sharing! I may finally get a 32 win spec mold. I will do this to their round nose 324-175-1r.

Great job

[Thin Man]

+1 for what Djones just said. All of my previous mold modifications involved shortening the cavities from the base end. Now that this example of shortening the forward end of the cavity has appeared, I be taking a 2nd or 3rd look at the molds now in hand. Thanks for sharing.

Thin Man

[ballistim]

Congratulations for coming up with a cheap, fairly simple way to create what Lee should have in various calibers a long time ago,,,,,,,,

Absolutely! If I see a 6 cavity Lee custom mold with that big flat meplate my bank account is going down a notch.

[KLR]

Thanks for the comments, guys. Post up if you try this; I'd enjoy seeing pics and hearing about your results.

[KLR]

Update: Last night I tried out the adjustable "beagling" feature and opened my mold .003. I closed it on a .003 piece of tape and then slid one bottom bar over to close the gap at the nose. I cast few bullets, lubed, sized, and loaded them with the same load and at the same depth as before. The nose now lightly engraves in the rifling as the round is chambered and the body is .001 over the groove size.

I shot 4 tonight after work. Temps in the mid 30s and no wind. Distance is 55 yds, 1950fps, Winchester 94. Group size was .85". First two overlapping. I think this will work. Now to get rid of the .001" mismatch in the two halves.



BTW, it takes a lot of hand fitting, but you can do this mod to just one cavity.

[dubber123]

I used this method to shorten a wadcutter mold. An end mill is run into the bottom of the mold to the depth you want, and a plug made from simple round stock is screwed in. You don't really even have to center the plug, as long as it's bigger than the cavity. I used a mill, but I bet it could be done with a drill press.

KLR, I am very impressed with the results from your modification, it's a great idea, and well done.

[JWFilips]

Update: Last night I tried out the adjustable "beagling" feature and opened my mold .003. I closed it on a .003 piece of tape and then slid one bottom bar over to close the gap at the nose. I cast few bullets, lubed, sized, and loaded them with the same load and at the same depth as before. The nose now lightly engraves in the rifling as the round is chambered and the body is .001 over the groove size.

I shot 4 tonight after work. Temps in the mid 30s and no wind. Distance is 55 yds, 1950fps, Winchester 94. Group size was .85". First two overlapping. I think this will work. Now to get rid of the .001" mismatch in the two halves.



BTW, it takes a lot of hand fitting, but you can do this mod to just one cavity.

Nice! Thanks for posting this. How big is your circle Bull? What Are you loading with? I can see some load/ powder adjustment may just be golden! This is a neat Idea. Gunna try it!

[KLR]

dubber123 - I originally tried your approach but I thought that the soft aluminum mold would round off as it rode over the steel plug. There is a lot of slop in a Lee mold.

JWFilips - The circle bull is about .4" id and .7" od across. I'm shooting 28.5gr of 3031. I haven't run these over the chronograph, but I did with the original bullet and same charge last weekend. The original bullet weighed 175gr and these weigh 163gr so I would imagine that they are marginally faster.

[dubber123]

dubber123 - I originally tried your approach but I thought that the soft aluminum mold would round off as it rode over the steel plug. There is a lot of slop in a Lee mold.

JWFilips - The circle bull is about .4" id and .7" od across. I'm shooting 28.5gr of 3031. I haven't run these over the chronograph, but I did with the original bullet and same charge last weekend. The original bullet weighed 175gr and these weigh 163gr so I would imagine that they are marginally faster.

It might be worth a try some time. In use it works like a big alignment pin. It might actually have a side benefit in that way.

[KLR]

It might be worth a try some time. In use it works like a big alignment pin. It might actually have a side benefit in that way.

I put a plug like that in the mold pictured above where I modified only one cavity. My mold had so much slop that I had to file a taper on the edge of the plug so that the mold would ride up and on to the alignment pins. The sharp edges of the bullet nose were the first thing to make contact and I could see that soft aluminum riding on steel would quickly wear the nose. But it would be good for alignment. That's the next thing I'm going to tackle. I have a few ideas brewing.