Axton1
03-01-2012, 03:10 PM
Just want to take a moment to thank everyone here for all of the info that gets shared. Great site and great people! I have been reading and looking through the site for a while now and it's a tremendous help to understand what to avoid as much as what to do. Having an idea of what to expect before-hand is a great help. I just bought my first mold - a Lee 140g SWC, six-banger in .358 and tried it out this week. After a thorough cleaning and lubing the mold pins, and just a bit of smoke from a match, I was pleased to find it dropped boolits cleanly after the 3-4th pour with no “wackin’ smackin’ or bangin” – so, looks to be good to go! The pre-heating and other things I’ve read here worked great. [smilie=w:
I did have one issue and that is in technique – something that will be learned. Hands-on and OJT as they say! I kept getting boolits that had fins on them and took me 15 – 20 drops to figure that out just what the Sam Heck was happening. I found that I was accidentally squeezing on the lever for the sprue plate release and that was opening up a gap in the end of the mold! But, once the operator error was corrected – keep your big fat gloved fingers off of that little handle, a PILE of nice boolits was accumulated in a HURRY! Can’t wait to get some of them loaded……….they are currently LLA lubed and drying on the bench as I type! (Also, this resulted in quite a few over-sized boolits that had to be melted again and put back thru the mold! But the great thing is, it didn’t take much effort to make a wrong back into a right!)
Again, thanks to everyone here for all the invaluable info that you post! Hope to pass on a thousandth of the info that I’ve gleaned from others! Happy posting!
A1
I did have one issue and that is in technique – something that will be learned. Hands-on and OJT as they say! I kept getting boolits that had fins on them and took me 15 – 20 drops to figure that out just what the Sam Heck was happening. I found that I was accidentally squeezing on the lever for the sprue plate release and that was opening up a gap in the end of the mold! But, once the operator error was corrected – keep your big fat gloved fingers off of that little handle, a PILE of nice boolits was accumulated in a HURRY! Can’t wait to get some of them loaded……….they are currently LLA lubed and drying on the bench as I type! (Also, this resulted in quite a few over-sized boolits that had to be melted again and put back thru the mold! But the great thing is, it didn’t take much effort to make a wrong back into a right!)
Again, thanks to everyone here for all the invaluable info that you post! Hope to pass on a thousandth of the info that I’ve gleaned from others! Happy posting!
A1