Mold life?

[DeadWoodDan]

Has anyone ever had a mold that had to be retired from service? Why? What was it made of (Alum., Brass, Iron,etc.)

I understand that Alum. molds will not last as long if cast at hot temps, but after purchasing a few LEE's 2Cavitys i discovered they actually produce better if ran cooller than my NOEs. Still have some more casting / experimenting to do , but just my experience thus far. I don't want to ruin the molds if not neccesary. Options?
(Lee mold 309-120R and 309-115F)

I have read that NOE uses a better Alum material and thus one of the smaller reasons for higher price (better quality) / i have two so far and can tell the difference. Will hope all molds will outlast me.

DWD

[MtGun44]

i still have my first ever mold, Lee 2 holer 38-105 SWC bought in 1975. I admit that
it isn't used much anymore, but never wore one out, any kind.

Bill

[Chicken Thief]

Retired a Lee 405gr 459 HB after a guestimated 8k castings. The sprue hole was worn way big and the boolit looked like it had a small ear at the front. Base pin rattled but cast ok.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I can see wearing out the hinge pins or other mechanical parts with Lee Moulds possibly, long before the actual mold blocks go bad. But I have a well used Lee .44-310 that I recently bought for $5 and the hinges are floppy loose, but the mould blocks go right back into alignment when closed (with a little manual alignment) so that really isn't a factor. It makes good boolits but I need to lap it to gain a .001 or 2

On brass and aluminum moulds I can see dinging them and hurting them that way. Maybe overheating them but this is pretty hard to do.

Most moulds can compensate for wear of the hinge on the sprue plate easily.

On steel moulds the only thing I can see hurting them is rust.

Mould life is more directly impacted by human hands mis-handling them than any other factor.

I bet there are guys here who have cast hundreds of thousands of boolits with the same moulds over a life time.

I still have my two first Lee moulds I bought in 1977. They are also still perfect and make perfect boolits, mainly because I take care of them. The primary way to take care of them is storing them in a safe place where they won't get banged around.

The main thing I see as limiting mould life ,,, is ,,, BuBBA! [smilie=w:

Randy

[MT Chambers]

I wore out a few Lee 6 Cavities, when used in a semi-production set-up, so I stopped using Lee molds....they wear out on the top, where the parting lines meet the cavities, aluminum is too soft, because it's never happened with LBT, BRP, NOE, NEI, aluminum molds that I use in my small business.

[mooman76]

I haven't worn one out yet to the point that is doesn't produce good bullets and I have allot of Lees and have don't thMost, even Lees should last the average person a lifetime. I might also add that When I first started I didn't take care of my moulds like I do now. I didn't abuse them but I didn't have bull plate either so I really did little to nothing to lube them except WD40. I did get a Lee 6x 9mm used and the BB was worn and uneven so I just rounded the BB holes with a drill bit by hand to make them round again. There isn't much bevel left but it's still a useable mould.

[theperfessor]

Any mold lasts longer if you don't slam them shut. That's how 95% of the damage occurs to a mold. Ease them shut, use a flat surface to help lineup the mold halves, a little lube at wear points, and even a Lee 2 cavity mold can last a long time. Rarely are the cavities effected by wear, it's always the alignment system that fails. Bubba is the right word.

[runfiverun]

i have two molds that have been used so much that i can't read the numbers on one of them and the inside faces are going smooth on them.
i did make and sell enough of those two boolits to pay for two master casters, a couple of stars,and about 20 other molds.
i still use them.
i'd say i got my moneys worth from those two.
i'd like to have the lead back that has gone through them.

[bobthenailer]

I wore out / broke beyound repair 2 lee , 2 cavity moulds years ago ! but all of my current iron & aluminum moulds are in very good condtion ! most have between 10,000 up to 70,000 bullets made on each of them .

[trk]

I've bougth some on E Bay that SHOULD have been retired.

[geargnasher]

I personally have never worn out a mould, but have purchased used two-banger Lees that were run without lube and the vertical alignment pins had worn the opposing block faces pretty badly and had some vertical slop in the blocks. A carefull peening, filing, and proper lube fixed them.

Some of the commercial guys report wearing out Lee six-cavity moulds after many tens of thousands of boolits, but I'm not sure exactly what they "wore out".

Gear

[turbo1889]

If you really want to find out how long it takes to wear out a mold, then convert it to be used in an automatic casting machine and run the machine 4-8 hours a day and just keep the pot full on top while doing other stuff and give the mold a squirt of 2-cycle mix oil in a fine tip spray bottle every time you add more ingots to the pot (sprue plate and alignment pins/grooves).

Lee Aluminum single and double cavity molds are history in less then 5-K cycles. Better quality aluminum molds especially those with quality alignment pins can last up to a little more then twice that but nothing aluminum has ever lasted up to or beyond 15-K cycles. I wore out a Mountain Molds brass mold at about 25-K cycles not counting the hand casting that had proceeded its use in machine casting. I have yet to reach that number of cycles with any of my other brass molds so I don't yet know if that was pre-mature or if that is the expected life span under the more rigerous stress of machine casting. Iron/Steel molds which do not have quality male/female paired alignment pins but just have a male pin that goes into a simple hole on the other side don't last beyond 10-K cycles before they need to be repaired with quality hardened steel paired alignment pins. I have never had a brass mold that didn't come with quality male/female paired pins but I suspect that they would wear out even faster then iron/steel in a set-up with just a male pin with a hole in the block on the other side. I have several iron/steel molds with quality male/female paired pins on them that have well over 25-K cycles on them by me and some of them were bought used to begin with. I also have several such molds that have rust damage and I had one iron mold that one half cracked in half in the handle slot on one side of the block and was thus rendered useless.

Long story short:

----- Having a quality male/female paired hardened steel alignment pins is THE KEY.

----- Having a quality sprue plate and hold down set-up that is not prone to damaging the top of the blocks is THE KEY.

----- For hand casting aluminum, brass, iron, steel, etc . . . it all works.

----- For machine casting brass, iron, and steel work. Aluminum works as well but does not hold up in my experience over time and machine casting will eventually eat anything aluminum for lunch.

----- Iron and steel with quality alignment pins and sprue plate hardware appear to outlast brass. But brass does not rust and iron can indeed fail due to brittleness although that may have been a fluke fault in that particular iron used for that one mold block.

----- Hollow point and hollow base molds have the additional problem points of the mechanism in the base of the mold. Even with very gentle hand casting and continuous application of 2-cycle oil to the pin mechanism some set-ups simply don't hold up. I have worn out several Lee shot-gun slug molds just with hand casting and plenty of lube and TLC. Don't expect much more then 5-K out of them even with the best care.

[Bret4207]

I've damaged Lee moulds back in my learning stage and ruined them. I still have other Lees that have thousands of pours through them and work fine. Operator error, by hand or machine, is the biggest factor in my opinion. Put lube where it's needed, treat them right, they last.

[turbo1889]

I agree that if you baby the Lee "waffle iron alignment grooves" molds they can indeed last for quite a few boolits.

Point is that machine casting is the torture test for molds and a machine will wear out a mold far faster then hand casting.

In general terms, not just considering molds, if you want to test something for how long it will last you don't baby it you torture test it and then you can extrapolate the results of the torture test for normal use. Torture testing brings out flaws and gives more consistent results. Test under "normal" conditions and specific flaws in a design may not be readily apparent and a wide range of life spans are usually encountered that won't give a quality averaged result without a larger then practical number of samples in testing. By torture testing I mean continuous testing under the conditions that would normally be considered the worst that can be practically encountered in the normal working environment of the tool to be tested and applying those conditions continuously to the tool while under working load.

If you "rough handle" a mold by hand and slam it shut and smack the sprue plate shut and then smack on the sprue plate again to open it and then beat on the handle hinge bolt several times every time you open the mold to ensure the boolit always drops out of the mold regardless of whether it just drops out already or not. That is about the worst conditions that you can subject a mold too without outright deliberately abusing it for no reason, and that is basically what it is subjected to on every cycle of an automatic casting machine that is running at full production speed and hasn't been slowed-down, trimmed, balanced, and had all the end points on its mechanical movements buffered to be as gentle as possible on the mold.

So as I initially said, machine casting is the torture test for molds so those are good numbers to work from to estimate long term mold life and how gently you treat your mold when hand casting can be viewed merely as a multiplication factor on its usable life span compared to the torture test data.

[454PB]

I bought my first Lee mould shortly after they began producing them (early 70's I think). I used it as the instructions said, and within a thousand boolits, the block and cavities were covered with brown staining from lubing it, and it was dumping wrinkled boolits. I cleaned it up and quit lubing the mould, and that's the way I use them to this day. I now own about 20 Lee moulds, and so far none has required retirement or replacement. But, if it should happen, none of them owe me a penny.

[BLTsandwedge]

I shoot thousands of H&G #50s- the traditional .358 button-nose 148g wadcutter. I've used the same mould for many, many years and it shows no sign of loosening or other wear. It is a 1942 H&G 'potbelly' six-cavity. 60 year old example of true industrial art.

http://hgmould.gunloads.com/molds/pot%20belly%20mold.jpg

[Bret4207]

I agree that if you baby the Lee "waffle iron alignment grooves" molds they can indeed last for quite a few boolits.

Point is that machine casting is the torture test for molds and a machine will wear out a mold far faster then hand casting.

In general terms, not just considering molds, if you want to test something for how long it will last you don't baby it you torture test it and then you can extrapolate the results of the torture test for normal use. Torture testing brings out flaws and gives more consistent results. Test under "normal" conditions and specific flaws in a design may not be readily apparent and a wide range of life spans are usually encountered that won't give a quality averaged result without a larger then practical number of samples in testing. By torture testing I mean continuous testing under the conditions that would normally be considered the worst that can be practically encountered in the normal working environment of the tool to be tested and applying those conditions continuously to the tool while under working load.

If you "rough handle" a mold by hand and slam it shut and smack the sprue plate shut and then smack on the sprue plate again to open it and then beat on the handle hinge bolt several times every time you open the mold to ensure the boolit always drops out of the mold regardless of whether it just drops out already or not. That is about the worst conditions that you can subject a mold too without outright deliberately abusing it for no reason, and that is basically what it is subjected to on every cycle of an automatic casting machine that is running at full production speed and hasn't been slowed-down, trimmed, balanced, and had all the end points on its mechanical movements buffered to be as gentle as possible on the mold.

So as I initially said, machine casting is the torture test for molds so those are good numbers to work from to estimate long term mold life and how gently you treat your mold when hand casting can be viewed merely as a multiplication factor on its usable life span compared to the torture test data.

I'm sure you're correct as far as torture testing. But the question isn't CAN you ruin them, but rather how long will they go with reasonable care? At least that's my impression. Believe me, I wish all moulds were made like an H+G or Cramer, but they aren't. That's still not a reason, IMO, not to exercise due care.

I have to say, your description of machine casting really cements my impression of them as terrible tools for casting.

[btroj]

Let's be realistic here too. If, as turbo says, you can get 5 K pours from a "normal" mould before it wears out then we have the following.
30,000 bullets from a 6 cav Lee
10,000 bullets from a 2 cav Lee
How many of use shoot 10,000 bullets from a single mould in the lifetime of a rifle?
30,000 bullets for most users will last a lifetime from a handgun

Seems to me that for a normal volume user a Lee mould will last plenty long. Others ever longer.

Take care of your tools and they will take care of you.

[turbo1889]

. . . I have to say, your description of machine casting really cements my impression of them as terrible tools for casting.

I agree an auto machine is harder on molds then hand casting except for a beginner who doesn't know not to beat the daylights out of the mold.

BUT, is it ever so nice to just putz around the shop working on little projects and loading a few rounds and just "baby sit" the machine checking it ever so often adding more ingots to the top and/or giving the mold blocks a squirt of 2-cycle lube and just like magic it manages to churn out several thousand boolits in an afternoon without taking up any more of your time then would have already been taken up by the other stuff you are doing. In addition, the machine does almost exactly the same thing on every cycle of the mold. The same amount of metal poured out the bottom of the pot, the same size sprue puddle, the same number of seconds wait time before it breaks the sprue and opens the blocks to drop the boolits, the same number of seconds cool down time before it does the next pore. Once you get the adjustments tweaked just right that kind of consistency produces amazingly consistent boolits that are difficult to match in terms of consistency when casting by hand.






Let's be realistic here too. If, as turbo says, you can get 5 K pours from a "normal" mould before it wears out then we have the following.
30,000 bullets from a 6 cav Lee
10,000 bullets from a 2 cav Lee
How many of use shoot 10,000 bullets from a single mould in the lifetime of a rifle?
30,000 bullets for most users will last a lifetime from a handgun

Seems to me that for a normal volume user a Lee mould will last plenty long. Others ever longer.

Take care of your tools and they will take care of you.

The 5-K figure I gave was in specific reference to the Lee single and double cavity moulds that do not use regular alignment pins but rather have those waffle iron like alignment ribs and grooves and I was saying they won't last longer then that if converted to be run in an automatic casting machine which is about as hard on them as a newbie who treats them rough would be. Provided they are not one of the Lee single cavity hollow base molds which has additional problems with the base pin alignment groove wearing out if treated with TLC for hand casting they should last longer then that by some multiplier of my 5-K number according to how well they are treated.

I have not run Lee 6-cavity molds in an auto casting machine so I don't know for sure that they will last longer then the single and double cavity Lee molds but I strongly suspect they would mainly due to having real alignment pins that are steel and are male/female paired. My machine is built for single and double cavity molds, and although I have managed to make one three cavity mold work in it by making a custom sprue plate with a big trough so that a big puddle forms and fills the two end cavities after the middle cavity is filled by the stationary single pour stream (double cavity molds are also filled with the stationary single pour stream which hits the sprue plate right in-between the two cavities and fills both simultaneously through a trough ground between them) it simply isn't compatible with the Lee 6-cavity molds although I can make just about any single or double cavity mold work in it and it is possible to make some three cavity molds work as well but I'm not going to get a single stationary pore stream to flow in a trough well enough to fill six cavities and still get complete fill out, just not going to happen. I would have to build a whole-nother specialized machine to handle that kind of mold which isn't out of the question but certainly isn't happening anytime soon.

[kenyerian]

I'm more of a hunter than a shooter so some of my molds for muzzel loaders that are around 40 years old are in very good shape. I have put some wear on some of my pistol molds but I'll bet that I will never wear any of them out. All of them have more than paid for themselves.

[Dave C.]

LEE 6 cav.
They are cheap, as in good value. Use them for 35 to 40 thousand rounds then replace.

Dave C.

[jcwit]

Been casting since the 1960's. Have yet to wear out a mold, some have casted thousands and thousands of bullets. These may be Lyman, RCBS, or Lee. All were single or 2 cavity.

I will admit to screwing a couple up, trying to "improve" them. I finally learned to keep my mitts off them, my "improvements never worked.

[casterofboolits]

The only mould I guess i wore out (or killed) ws a six cavity NEI. I was starting a casting business and I think I may have gotten 8,000 boolits out of it. It just quit making boolits no matter what I did! That's when I started ordering from H&G.

[jabilli]

I've clocked something like 5k on my Lee double cavity 9mm, still good condition.