Thanks guys

[35isit]

Cast my first boolets of the year yesterday. Due to what I've read on this board things went great. For my Lee 20lb pot #5 on the dial is about right. I cast boolets that were filled out nice and were shiney. I also learned the importance of cadence. As I used each mold I found it's cadence and made great bullets with each one. I was smart enough to write some notes on each mold this time. So I used 4 molds and experimented

I have come into the possesion of an Ideal .357 mold in 148 wadcutter. It is a beast to use but makes beutiful boolets. I also have a Lee 140 semi-wadcutter I hope it will shoot in my Contender at 100 yards. I got lucky as it is a used mold and it cast perfectly. I also have my LBT 180 LFN throwing usable boolets again. Now I have to get my Lyman 358156 to do better. It cast a nice boolet. But as it got hotter it was hard to open and the boolets didn't want to fall out. Any ideas on the Lyman. All in all a great day casting boolets. Thanks again guys

[RayinNH]

Oh oh, it's all downhill from here, I hope the wallet is fat :smile:...Ray

[35isit]

Ray, Been casting for years. Just done it with a friend and used LBT molds and straight linotype. I only made enough boolits to use during a normal season of silhouette shooting. The last 2 years I've been on my own. My friend is a very experienced caster.

[MikeS]

35isit: How many cavities does you Ideal mould have? I've never heard one described as being a 'beast', so I'm just wondering if it's a 4 cavity, or one of the larger armory moulds?
As for your Lyman mould, you might want to take a magnifying glass, and check to make sure there are no small burrs on the mould that are holding the cast boolits into the mould. If you can't see any, you might want to checkout the sticky here on leementing a mould, while written for Lee moulds, and some of the things are Lee specific (like adding screws), much of it applies to any mould. (like spinning boolits in the cavities to smooth them out)

[GP100man]

I like to run my sprue plates loose & sometimes things get to hot or too much pressure (full pot) & I get a little flashing at the base (it sizes rite out) but when this happens the mould weither 1 0r 2 cavity it`ll want to get stiky openng.

When useing a heavy mold fix yaself a shelf of the rite heigth to rest the mould on .

Some moulds when I use the Lee pot I have a board the rite heigth plus a stop .

A wooden guide so to speak !

Haveing the bench at a comfortable height means alot when it comes to repetitive motions !!

[35isit]

MikeS, It's just a 4 holer. It weighs a ton when compared to the other molds I have. The handles hinge in the very front of the mold like a nut cracker. The Lyman mold drops bullets ok when you first start. It makes great bullets. The next time I use it I will clean and inspect it and slow down my cadence a little and see if that helps. I did notice there was some flashing on the bases. So keeping the mold a little cooler may take care of the problem.

[MikeS]

When I first got my first Lyman 4 cavity mould I thought I was going to really like the nutcracker style handles. Well, after casting a few hundred boolits with them, I've decided that I like the plier type handles better. I find that when I open the mould, it's easier to shake the mould against it's stops (the plier type handles stops that is) to get boolits to drop out. The nutcracker style ones don't let you do that. I just bought a pair of handles from Red River Rick that are the plier type, and his prices are very competitive with new Lyman handles. I haven't gotten them yet, but when I do, I'll let y'all know how I like them.

As another poster said, having a mould shelf of some sort really helps with heavy moulds. I have a Lee 4-20 pot, and even it's little half shelf thing makes a big difference when using the heavy moulds!

Another thing, try and get a mould lube, either BullPlate (if you can find it), or the mould lube that's being sold on eBay is very good too, or some very high quality fully synthetic 2 stroke oil (I have some Motul 2T oil I've used on moulds before getting some real mould lube samples when I bought some moulds), and put a very thin (nearly invisible) coating of it on the bottom of the sprue plate, and mould block tops (after you apply it, rub a dry Q-Tip over the whole area to soak up any excess lube), that will make it easier to open the sprue plate earlier without getting lead smears on the tops of the blocks. Also use the lube to lube the pins inside the mould, and the sprue plate hinge screw (again very lightly).

Also, if you use a hot plate to preheat your moulds rather than placing them on top of the lead pot, they will preheat better, and faster. I mould that's up to temp is your friend. If you're not getting frosted boolits, then the mould isn't too hot. Just make sure whatever you do, that you don't get any kind of lube in the cavities, that will really ruin your casting session!

[35isit]

I finally got to shoot the boolits I cast with the Ideal 148, Lee 140 and Lyman 358156 molds. I was looking for a load with low recoil and minute of field pistol chicken at 25 yards and field pistol pigs at 50 yards. I kinda over thought everything and didn't believe the 148 or 140 would be accurate enough. I assumed the 358156 mold would be the one. It turned out the 148 with my book load of WW231 in either Federal or Starline .357 brass lit by a WW small pistol magnum primer wil keep them all touchung at those distances if I do my part. This is with a 10" contender with a rifle scope on it. No worries if they wont work past 50. I have a load with a 195 LBT for 75 and 100.