Loose screw on Lee Mold

[Arceagle]

Tried casting some boolits for my 45 colt Ruger BlackHawk with a new Lee 300 gr flat nose 2 cavity mold. This is only my fifth sit down at the casting furnace. I have been using a NOE mold making 115 gr boolits for my .327 Fed Mag, with decent success. However this attempt to cast big bullets in a small mold was rather frustrating. First you had to be really careful to get the mold completely closed. Of course I only discovered this after not completely closing the mold and having to stop and clean lead out of the mold. I finally ended up holding the mold up to the light before each cast to make sure I got it closed. The problem I didn't figure out is why the sprue plate screw kept coming loose. I had to tighten it 3 times while only casting a little over 200 boolits. When I finished sorting the boolits I had only 80 good boolits. I had rounded bases, wings, wrinkled noses and every other deformity I have heard about so far.

I have been using a electronic scale as part of my sorting process, if it passes all my visual inspection I then weigh it and if it is more than a few grains away from the average it goes back in the scrap pile. Sorting this batch was brutal with 60% being returned to the lead pile.

The loose screw part worries me the most about this casting session. I'm worried about stripping or breaking the screw. I'm not putting a lot of torque on the screw, but is it stretching or actually backing out?

Also what is the cause of the rounded bases? I remember it being covered in some of the material I have been reading but memory is not one of my strong points.

[Ben]

Sorry, but that is just part of owning a Lee mold. There are ways of
dealing with the problem however.

Takes about 15 minutes or work and your problem is over :

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=110409

[DLCTEX]

I'd send a new mould back to Lee, but you may have the problem again in the future. Lee needs to learn about Bullplate mould lube and save themselves some trouble. Lubing the alignment pins, sprue plate, and it's screw with Bullplate will cure most of such troubles. The dumb idea of using bullet lube or such builds up carbon and leads to trouble. The thread posted above will cure a lot of ills.

[Arceagle]

Thanks, I checked out the post and I think I have that size tap already. Looks like a easy fix. I had some Bull Plate that came with my NOE mold which I only treated twice during 4 casting sessions. I used it 3 times on the first session with the Lee Mold. One other problem I had with the sprue plate was it wanted to hold a little lead in the edge of the hole. I could easily knock it out with a wooden match, but it would reappear shortly. Several of the culled boolits were done so because of a sharp nick taken out of the edge of the base, that I think was caused by the spot where the lead was building up sprue hole.

[MT Gianni]

Sprue tearing can be caused by cutting too early. Bullplate will help that also.

[tomme boy]

They know about Bullplate. They said they have never heard anyone that has had any luck with it.

[Arceagle]

Cutting too soon is a possibility because I really had to slow things down with this mold. The large 300 GR. cavities and small aluminum block really kept things hot. I didn't see any smearing but that could be because of the Bull Plate.

Lee probably haven't heard of anyone having success with Bull Plate because it can't fix all the problems I was having with this first try with their mold.

Like one of my teachers said "There are no problems - only opportunities'. I started learning with a high quality NOE mold, then tried a lower quality Lee. If I get where I can consistently throw good boolits with this mold using a high quality mold will be a breeze.

[jonk]

I never got the point of bullplate on the sprue cutter itself, but it's all I will use for pin alignment, rib lube, etc. It also makes a mean bullet lube in speedgreen form. So that's step one.

Step 2- Leement your mold to polish it and get it dropping like a champ.

Step 3- you can either put in a set screw to hold the main screw in place, or slightly (SLIGHTLY) peen the top of the screw hole and screw it all back together ot get more tension (I did that one one with good results).

[popper]

Lead build up at sprue hole due to loose screw? I get that little build up in the hole, but not on the bottom of the sprue hole. Sprue plate no hot enough to fill out the flat base or not enough lead on the top to suck in or lube at the edge of the cavity?

[Arceagle]

Thanks Jonk & Popper, Went back over the mold with a magnifying glass and when I put some white paper under the sprue hole that was causing problems I could see two small (very small) burrs on the cutting side of the hole where the lead was building up. I slid it back and forth while putting downwards pressure and the burr is not catching on the mold so it must not be protruding from the bottom. With a tooth pick it kind of feels like a wire edge like you get sharpening a knife. I'll try to find a way to buff it out. I don't think it was caused by the loose screw, but just another small problem with the mold. I could really see why the screw was getting loose while checking out the mold. Every time I opened the sprue plate the screw would move with it, but when it closed it didn't move back.

[MT Gianni]

They know about Bullplate. They said they have never heard anyone that has had any luck with it.

Once you find that it works you have no reason to talk to Lee again.