My "woes" with a set of used Lyman 225-462 blocks + success with Lee & NOE

[bedbugbilly]

Long story short – I fell in love with the .223 after shooting a friend’s and I got a Ruger All American Ranch bolt action - .223/5.56 and put a Leopold Freedom scope on it. Then the Covid crisis hit- then at the end of April, I had to have emergency surgery on a foot/ankle that resulted in a 6 month recover. So today, I finally got to the garage to do a little casting after a long dry spell. I had three different molds to try out for the .223. I am primarily a plinker/can killer and am not going to push the boolits hard – just want to play with different boolits using Red Dot or Bulls Eye along with data from the Lyman Cast Bulet Handbooks. Plan on playing with plain base as well as gas check. I do have a decent supply of 55 grain .224 FMJ and both Varget and H335 for those.

I started with the Lee C224-55 in a double cavity. I’m pretty low tech but am using some hard lead that I purchased from a member here. I ladle cast out of a 10 pound Lee pot. I got everything fired up – started casting and was very happy with the results of the Lee mold. They dropped like butter with excellent results – perfect cavity and base fill and couldn’t be happier. So – off to a very good start and I cast about 200 and will size and gas checkt them tomorrow.

The next mold I tried was a NOE 225-45 – a five cavity set of aluminum blocks that casts a nice round nose flat point 45 grain gas check boolit. I bought it off a member here. (I LOVE all of my NOE molds!). They dropped like butter from all the cavities with excellent results and excellet bases – ready to gas check. I’m anxious to try these with the Red Dot as well.

THEN THE TROUBLES STARTED . . . .

Quite a while ago, I purchased a double cavity Lyman 225-462 that is supposed to throw a 57 grain round nose gas check boolit. On a whim, I bought it off of evilbay and at a decent price – should have known better. At a casual glance at the blocks – everything looked good when it arrived. I put it away, knowing it would be quite a while before I would be casting. After the above two molds – “I was on a roll!”. NOT SO QUICK!!! I had preheated the blocks and got good pours from the start. Everything functioned good – sprues cut with no issues and after cutting the sprues and looking at the end of the bases before opening the handles to drop both cavities – all looked “perfect”. They dropped like butter so I kept going until I had a pile of about 80 or so – then I took a break and grabbed a cold can of water. I decided to take what was cast and inspect them and put them in a plastic container before pouring more. I put my “cheaters on” – hey, I’m old and you young ones will need ‘em someday too. As soon as I picked up the first one to closely inspect it, I knew “something ain’t right!”. I inspected another twenty or so boolits and ALL were the same! The bottom of the gas check portion of the base is “canted”. In other words, the flat bottom of the base of the boolit is NOT at a right angle to the length of the boolit. It is this way for boolits from both cavities. I don’t have a camera so I can’t post photos, but if you look at the gas check bases, there is no way that there is enough material to crimp a gas check on and even if you could, it would be at an angle.

My first thought was that there may be a problem with the sprue plate. This set of “used” blocks looks like new and the top of the blocks are machined smooth and square with the sides of the blocks and the sprue plate is in perfect shape – it functions perfectly to cut the sprues. On closer examination of the blocks, it is evident that borth boolit cavities are machined at a very slight angle to the top of the blocks. I don’t know how the blocks are machined as far as fixtures to hold them while the cavities are cut with the cherry, but the first thing that goes through my mind is that there was a machining chip under the blocks or they were not clamped square with the cherry.

My guess is that the fellow I bought these blocks from knew they were bad so decided to “dump them”. I won’t do that. If anything, I’ll keep the screws for spares as well as the sprue plate and the two halves of the blocks will take a long trip over a short cliff – I won’t pass on a set of bad blocks. I have decided that I’m going to load these up as a plain base boolit over a mild charge of Red Dot and see how they fly. If they shoot accurately that way – then I’ll continue to use the mold and shoot them as plain base. My guess is that with the angle base, they may not work well. I have owned many molds in the past 50 or so years and have always had good luck with used Ideal ad Lyman blocks with the exception of one set that was mis-marked – it was a hollow base single cavity and the cavity did not match the mold number stamped on the blocks. Fortunately, I had another firearm that I could use the boolit from the mis-marked blocks in.

I’m not complaining as it is what it is – just never have seen this particular issue with a set of blocks in all the years I’ve been casting.

[sigep1764]

You might try loosening up the sprue plate. If it is overtight, it could bend up at the opposite end of the sprue plate from the hinge screw.

[Bent Ramrod]

Sometimes a small boolit in a soft alloy will push to one side at the base as the sprue plate cuts off. This would make the base look crooked. Honing the bottom of the cutoff plate or countersinking from the top would sharpen it, or a harder alloy could be used for more resistance to side pressure.

I would put gas checks on the shanks, run them through the lubesizer and see how they shoot. Pushing the boolit down into the die with sufficient force to seat and crimp the gas check might straighten out the base and eliminate the problem.

I shoot the 225462 in my Hornets with very good results.

[MT Chambers]

either way the lyman will still be working for years after the lee mold has fallen apart into your melt.

[Dusty Bannister]

I found this same issue as Bent Ramrod describes with the Lee Bator mold. The large sprue hole does not cut so much as wipe across the base of the bullet. Rather annoying to have the sprue plate hole almost as large as the base of the bullet.

[ubetcha]

Is it possible to have someone machine the top of the blocks ( the gas check shank end) flat and make into a plan base bullet?

[bedbugbilly]

ubetcha - I thought about what you suggest as a possible "fix". I have looked at the cavities with a magnifying glass and they are definitely cut at an angle to the top of the mold but hard to gauge at what degree. I no longer have access to machine tools or I would put it on a surface grinder and grind the top square with the cavities and convert it into a plain base mold - checking the blocks as they are now - all sides are square with adjacent sides. I'm going to hang on to it and if I can get access to a vertical mill or a surface grinder - I'll attem[t the conversion.

Frustrating because there is not enough of a base to gas check as it is now. I have a friend that I was talking with about it and he gave me an Ideal single cavity 225-462 that he no longer uses. I can cast with that and try the boolit out of my rifle - I would think it would be a decent boolit for the shooting that I do, so, we'll see.

Funny how a person's shooting changes over the years. I never had any interest in the various 22s but after shooting the .223 in my friend's AR - I fell in love with the cartridge. The AR platform isn't for me but I enjoyed the opportunity to shoot one and can see how folks could easily get wrapped up in them. I have a feeling that after I start shooting this rifle of mine - it's going to lead to a couple more rifles in other 22 calibers. I'm thinking that a .222 Remington would be fun as well. Not that the .223 wouldn't do what any of the others would - I just like loading different cartridges and seeing what different boolit weights and designs will do.

MT Chambers - can't disagree with you on the Lee molds but for less than $20 it at least allows a person to try a boolit and if it works - then go with something like a NOE, Accurate, etc. in same design.

Thanks all for you comments and suggestions - what you say on the small sprue size, sprue plate hole, etc. certainly makes sense and I can see how that could easily happen on small boolits like this little pills. I'm making a note of it in my reloading notebook as a variety of things could screw up the GC base. I was careful with my casting cadence, not cutting sprue too soon, block and lead heat and on the blocks I[m talking about, the bases were all flat and level with the top of the blocks with complete fill of the sprue hole when I cut the sprue off. That is what surprised me when I inspected the cast boolits and found the issue with the GC base. With the magnifying glass, I can see the offset of the bases and it's clear that the cavities were "mis-cut". Things happen during production and as small as the cavities are - I can see how it could slip through on inspection at the factory - if they inspect each set of blocks.