Advantage of TL design boolits?

[dpicts]

I dropped my 9mm 6 cavity (Lee) mold last night while casting and messed it up, so I need to get a new one. I size and tumble lube all my 9mm boolits, but that could change at some point...
I know you can tumble lube a non-TL boolit so I was wondering if there is any real advantage of a TL design over a traditional design (when tumble lubed)?

(I tried to do a search as I am sure this has been asked before, but apparently I don't know the right set of terms to search for.)

Daniel

[Char-Gar]

No advantage that I know of, other than being made for tumble lube, if that is your thing. It isn't my things, so I don't have an of these TL design bullets.

[rintinglen]

I haven't found a single solitary speck of benefit to the TL designs. You can TL any boolit, and it will typically work just fine, and the TL designs that I have tried were not the equal of older, established, designs. My SAECO H&G 68 copy boolits out shoot the TL 45-200, and I finally just threw away my TL 38-158 SWC, it was so bad.

I have run 311-291's out of my 30-40 Winchester 1895 at a measured 2300 feet per second with minimal leading and excellent accuracy. My own 9mms get 358-242 122 grainers covered with a healthy coating of recluse formula 45/45/10 liquid lube. Work just fine.

[waksupi]

Tumble lube bullets are for those who are trying to get by cheap.

[excess650]

Tumble lube bullets are for those who are trying to get by cheap.

....and save time. I shot many thousands of Lee 38-105-SWC and Lyman 452460s coated in LLA. TL is far less labor intensive IF your mold(s) drop boolits of size compatible with whatever they're being shot from.

[Shiloh]

My 9mm TL molds drop to small to be of any use. .38 TLWC works fabulously. .38 158 gr. SWC.
is too small. So I guess it is hit or miss with TL molds.

Two others work flawlessly.

Shiloh

[MT Gianni]

From a manufacturing point of view it ties you from the mold to the case with only their products. How can it be wrong if they sell the molds, dies, and lube and keep all the sales in house?

[MtGun44]

TL lowers the entry cost by avoiding a lubrisizer. Many swear by them, others swear
at them. I personally dislike the smell of LLA (Mule snot) and really hate the
sticky coating all over the boolits.

It does let the new caster get into the hobby cheaper -and that is a definite good.
However, there are a good number of dissappointed new casters when they can't
get the performance that they want without leading. I'd call the 9mm one of
the bigger risk cartridges for this design, but people have gotten good results.
The most critical issue is boolit fit and many/most 9mms need .357 or .358 boolits.
Finding a TL design that will cast that size will be the first requirement.

TL can and does work, and keeps the first costs down. So - you choose what
you want to do. Personally, I think pan lubing a conventional "known good" design
and pushing through a Lee push-thru sizer is as cheap and IMO, a more
certain route to success, esp in the 9mm.

I suggest the conventional 356-120-TC and pan lubing with NRA 50-50
or other known good lube, sizing to .357, use air cooled wwt alloy and you
will have a very high probability of success.

Good luck!

Bill

[dpicts]

just to clarify the question: I was not asking about tumble lubing itself (I have tried TL and pan lubing and find TL to be much easier and less messy...at least with my 9mm, 45acp and 380auto), but rather if there was any reason to buy a TL design over a traditional lube groove(s) design if all other factors are equal. Ie: why does lee even make the TL design molds (other than marketing/sales)?

Since writing starting this thread, I read in another thread where someone was saying that TL grooves OUTSIDE the case may help the boolit to engage the rifling better, but TL grooves inside the case are more likely to get sized down by the case/crimp. Based on this it would seem that since the Lee designs all have the TL grooves inside the case, it is a worse design overall (given that most of my leading issues turned out to be due to boolit being sized down too much by the case/crimp.) Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[MT Gianni]

just to clarify the question: I was not asking about tumble lubing itself (I have tried TL and pan lubing and find TL to be much easier and less messy...at least with my 9mm, 45acp and 380auto), but rather if there was any reason to buy a TL design over a traditional lube groove(s) design if all other factors are equal. Ie: why does lee even make the TL design molds (other than marketing/sales)?

Since writing starting this thread, I read in another thread where someone was saying that TL grooves OUTSIDE the case may help the boolit to engage the rifling better, but TL grooves inside the case are more likely to get sized down by the case/crimp. Based on this it would seem that since the Lee designs all have the TL grooves inside the case, it is a worse design overall (given that most of my leading issues turned out to be due to boolit being sized down too much by the case/crimp.) Anyone have any thoughts on this?

IT totally depends on the design. Ranch Dogs TL molds designed by him and all made by Lee for TL'ing all shoot great. They also fir the throat in the designed application. That to me is the big if. does it fit?

[captaint]

I used to TL the daylights out of real lube groove boolits. Works fine. Had no lead left behind - in the 45ACP, that is. Can't say about other cal's. Mike

[MikeS]

There is one thing about TL boolits that nobody mentioned, and might or might not be a feature that's good. That is that because the TL design boolits don't have a large lube groove, generally speaking a boolit of a particular weight will be shorter than a conventional lube style boolit. As an example, I have a bunch of the Lee TL358-158-SWC boolits, and some Saeco #12 boolits that are also 158gr boolits, with a single conventional lube groove, and a conventional crimp groove, and while the 2 boolits weigh roughly the same, the TL boolit is considerably shorter.

I make sure all my boolits fit the bores they're going to be shot out of, and I've never had any problems with either TL design boolits, or conventional lube boolits, so for me it's just a matter of being a bit easier to lube with the TL design boolits I have, and also being cleaner to load. I've used LLA, LLA thinned down with Hoppes #9, and straight JPW (which when dry is really easy to handle as they're not tacky at all), and so far they've all worked for me, with no leading.

[turbo1889]

I think most of the so called problems with tumble lubing boolits and boolits of tumble lube groove design is not so much a matter of the idea itself being faulty but rather a problem with the tumble lube as sold by Lee without any modifications in the form of additives and the Lee tumble lube mold designs, specifically their undersized dimensions, and/or Lee quality control in general.

There are various other substances that have been used as a tumble lube by themselves and/or mixed in certain proportions with the Lee goop that have a far better reputation then the Lee goop has by itself. In addition there are at least two custom mold outfits selling higher quality tumble lube boolits designs that have had critical dimensions changed compared to what Lee uses that have a much better reputation then the Lee tumble lube molds.

I don't think it is so much of a tumble lube reputation problem as it is a Lee reputation problem.

That said, back to the OP's original question of why use a tumble lube design at all if a conventional design can be tumble lubed as well. Four things come to my mind two of which have already been mentioned by others. Those two being the shorter boolit length per given weight or higher boolit weight per given length factor of design which can be an advantage in some cases and using tumble lube grooves/bands on the nose of the boolit outside of the case to "squeeze fit" to the guns throat and/or engrave in the rifling upon chambering.

The other two of four things that come to my mind that have not yet been mentioned are as follows:

First, generally tumble lube type boolit designs fill out easier when casting then conventional lube grooves do and there tends to cast easier with a lower cull rate then conventional lube groove boolits, especially compared to conventional boolit designs that have very deep sharp edged lube grooves like the Keith designs which can be more picky about casting conditions, rhythm, and methodology resulting in a greater cull rate and/or more operator strain and attention to detail compared to casting with a tumble lube design which tends to fill out easier and be less finicky about casting conditions and methodology.

Second, the little micro tumble lube grooves tend to have "wicking" effect that draws some of the thin liquid tumble lube goop into them so that they store a little more of the tumble lube then is generally there from just a surface coat. The wider conventional lube grooves don't have this effect to any considerable event and if they do what wicking that takes place puts the extra bit of tumble lube too deep down in the bottom of the grooves where it has very little if any chance of being used where as with the shallow depth tumble lube grooves what bit of tumble lube is wicked up in the micro grooves is close enough to the edge of the boolit to be used to provide additional lube beyond just the normal surface coating that tumble lube provides. This wicking effect is especially present if you are using a thicker consistency tumble lube mixture.

[turbo1889]

In addition, there are a few folks out there now who are powder coating and baking their boolits after casting instead of lubing them with either tumble lube or conventional lube. They claim that the powder coat (same stuff as used to powder coat metal parts in industry) forms a tough jacket over the boolit kind of like a copper plated boolit that holds up and gives no leading of the bore and that the baking process used to cure the powder coat also heat treat hardens the cast core of the boolit at the same time with the same process so it is "two birds with one stone".

The guys doing this claim that the Lee tumble lube boolits work better for this process then conventional lube groove boolits and "look more right" as well. I am not in the loop on this new trend and have only recently encountered it but thought I'd throw that out here as well.