Lee new improved minies?

[Fly]

I just odered a Lee new improved minie mould for my 54 cal .Is there any others
here that have made these?
Fly

[treadhead1952]

Uh, I shoot the Improved Minie in .533"-410 grain and .540"-415 grain in my .54 T/C New Englander. I didn't know that they had any "new" ones. If those are the ones you are talking about, they shoot great.

I start out with the .540" in a clean barrel and after a few dozen shots go down to the .533" to make loading easier. I tried them out with 60 grains of FFg Goex and an equivalent load of Pyrodex Rifle going all the way up to 110 grains seeing what worked best in my barrel. Both of them seemed to shoot best with around 70 to 80 grains. The higher loadings produced more dispersion although they would obviously put a whole lot more of a hurt on anything that they hit. For punching paper or trying "string" matches, 60 to 70 grains would be best to start with.

When casting try to keep a consistent rythem going, having two or even three moulds going one after the other seemed to work for me. By the time one would be ready to cut the sprue and drop the boolit, it would have cooled just enough to get a good fill without "frosting" the next boolit. A steady pace with that many single moulds will make a whole lot of boolits in a short time.



As you can tell, that ain't a new one.

[Fly]

Well these are the ones.http://www.titanreloading.com/molds/...product_id=954

Fly

[Gee_Wizz01]

I use them in my Cabelas Hawken, and they work quite well. I get best accuracy with Pyrodex at 60-70grains (volume measure). I have the .540 as my bore is a little oversize. They load easy, and are one of the most accurate boolits in my rifle. Be sure to pre heat the mold to get best results.

G

[treadhead1952]

Yep, that one you illustrate in your Titan Reloading page is the same mould and boolits as you see in the picture in my post. I have had that one about 7 or 8 years now and it works great still. Preheating it on the edge of the pot while the lead is melting is a quick and easy way to get things up to temperature quickly. You may have to run three or four or even five, but by then it will be dropping shootable boolits or should I say improved Minie Balls.