Finally cast a few boolits. They are from a Lee 457405F mold, a 405gr Flat Nose 457 bullet.
I kept some of the better ones for measuring diameter and weight. They averaged at 408.8gr (SD=2.3), and sized out at mostly 0.458, with a few at 0.459.
A pic:
Comments/suggestions are most welcome! I noticed they got a tad frosty. In the moment of casting, I was thinking I didn't have the mold warm enough. Oops, lol. These will get remelted anyway, as I just wanted to practice casting a bit and wanted to see what my mold produced.
So, with the mold throwing mostly 458's, and with my Marlin likely to be best served with 460's (I have to slug it yet, but almost every 1895 shooting cast boolits I've heard about is best with 460's). So....how do I go about getting them up to 460? I have a Lube-A-Matic coming soon, so I have the ability to size/lube, but I'm not aware of a way to size "up"?
I've read a little about beagling, and a little about different alloys making the boolits "grow" a little? Not sure I understand that stuff real well just yet, though.
I may just want to move this mold out and get a different one, as I had hoped to GC the boolits, too. Maybe not necessary? Seems like a good idea, though, to keep from having a job of mining lead out of my barrel. That's another area where the more I read, the less I understand, lol.