Undersized lee mold

[emorris]

I have good luck from the lee two cavity molds in various calibers and I never had a problem with them other than the usual sticky bullets and such. Today I tried my new lee TL452-230-2r mold with wheel weigh alloy and I am getting undersized bullets. They are dropping around .448-.450 and I need them to be .452, but may be able to get by with .451. The bore on my 1911 slugged at .451. I have used the same alloy with my other lee molds (smelted in large pot) and all have came out bigger than the advertised diameter. I played with the heat setting, pace of casting, and also tried water dropping. I have never delt directly with lee percision, but I do think that I have no other choice but to send the mold back. Just asking for advice on what to do. I also tried lappping the mold with some comet and spinning a bullet in the cavity, but it didnt help with the size, only helped with bullet dropping

[Ben]

Send it back, Lee will gladly send you a new one.

I just ordered 2 molds from Lee about 10 days ago. They were not suitable, I called them - - they said to return them.

They gladly refunded my money.

Ben

[swheeler]

I have good luck from the lee two cavity molds in various calibers and I never had a problem with them other than the usual sticky bullets and such. Today I tried my new lee TL452-230-2r mold with wheel weigh alloy and I am getting undersized bullets. They are dropping around .448-.450 and I need them to be .452, but may be able to get by with .451. The bore on my 1911 slugged at .451. I have used the same alloy with my other lee molds (smelted in large pot) and all have came out bigger than the advertised diameter. I played with the heat setting, pace of casting, and also tried water dropping. I have never delt directly with lee percision, but I do think that I have no other choice but to send the mold back. Just asking for advice on what to do. I also tried lappping the mold with some comet and spinning a bullet in the cavity, but it didnt help with the size, only helped with bullet dropping

It happens, but not only Lee makes undersized molds. I would send it back to them and they will replace it with one that casts a bullet large enough, I have had good luck with their customer service.

[462]

Some time ago, I bought two Lee moulds, from Midway, and they both dropped too small. Midway gladly took them back and issued credit...even for the return postage. A recently purchashed Lee mould is perfect.

[ColColt]

What's with these mold companies? RCBS, Lee and of course, Lyman seem to all be making molds undersized prompting you to either have to call/email and send them back or beagle them. It seems the best policy is to just have one custom made to your specification and you have no surprises awaiting you.

[OuchHot!]

I hope that I am wrong, but I suspect that the larger firms make most of their money on everything but molds. So, given the challenging economics, they let the tooling wear a little more. I suspect it is simply a business decision.

[emorris]

Mold was shipped back to lee today along with a full length 270 winchester sizing die that was scoring my brass. Hopefully the turnaround wont be too long