433 mold for 44mag?

[Budmen]

I slugged the bore on my Rossi Puma 44mag. It slugs to a generous .4315. After reading the posts others having the same measurements someone informed me the rifle bore standard is 431 for rifles while only 429 for pistols.

Now that I know that I need a new mold. I personally like the alum. Lee molds the best. I know all the Lee haters while curse me but it seems like they heat up faster and cool down faster just making it easier to regulate casting temp. Also I like the fact that they wont rust and I dont need to bother with release agent just a match. O and the most important reason they are only half the price of steel molds:bigsmyl2:

The problem is Lee only lists 430 molds.

Can anyone suggest a mold for me that drops 433 or larger. I would prefer not to have to spend a ton since the only reason I bouht this gun was because I had everything I needed to load 44 willed to me when my mentor died. I have too many guns to invest hundreds of dollars in molds for each one. And again I would prefer aluminum or possibly brass I have yet to buy a brass mold. Bullet design is not that important it will be mostly for fun shooting but it will kill a whitetail someday.......

Thanks
:cbpour:

[fecmech]

I would suggest "Beagling" your current mold and sizing to .433. You are going to need the larger sizer anyway so before going off the deep end in molds try what you have. Beagling entails putting a piece of aluminum tape between your mold halves to hold them slightly apart resulting in a slightly larger bullet. I have used it successfully in my Ruger SBH which has .433 and .434 throats.

[Budmen]

neat idea but wouldnt that just produce out of round bullets? I would think that would make it bigger dia one only 2 sides but if all else fails I will try it Thanks

[edler7]

If you want an aluminum mold, check out Ranch Dog (a forum vendor). He has Lee molds especially for the Marlin 44 and it's sizing demands.

If you haven't ever tried a brass mold, you should...it's a completely different experience from aluminum. Miha has some .44 brass molds for sale on his website. They are a little more pricey, but a lifetime investment with no equal. I got one just for my 1894 and never looked back.

[crappie-hunter]

Well this pretty radical by some standards but this is what I did. My Rossi 92 44 mag slugs at .433 so I ordered a 280 gr LFN from Veral Smith that drops Lyman #2 at .435 had to make a .434 sizer ,this bullet shoots very well out to 100 yds but needs to be driven hard because of the slow twist of the Rossi ,with a very stiff charge of H110, brutal on the 70yr old shoulder,but kills deer like they were hit between the eyes with a sledge hammer.

Wanting a milder load for plinking and general use outside of deer hunting ,this is where it gets radical. I had a Lee 2 cavity 310gr mold that I bought at a yard sale for I believe $10. I removed the spru plate and the handles and chucked it in the lathe and milled off the top of the mold to where there was one driving band left below the two crimp grooves. This left me with a plane base bullet that weighed about 220 gr. There were some tool marks left after the initial cut so to remove these I took a piece of window glass and a sheet of 400 wet or dry paper and layed it in the glass and sprayed it with WD40 the hand sanded all the tool markes off the top of the mold till it was glass smooth. Re-installed the handles and spru plate.

Now I still have a mold that drops boolits at .430 so what to do? Took some previously cast 310 boolits and chucked them in the lathe and drilled a 1/8 hole in the bottom deep enoigh to accept a screw with the head removed so it can be chucked into a battery drill , then embedded the boolits with 320 grit lapping compound from a wheeler barrel lapping kit, then rotate these in the mold cavities with the drill go slow and easy and do each cavity the same amt. of time. My mold now drops .435 boolits that can be sized .434. I use the two remaining crimp grooves as lube grooves and fill them with LBT Blue soft lube and then tumble with 45-45-10.

Am still testing these but first results look very promising getting 1-1/2" to 2" groups at 50 yds, this is good for 70yr old eyes and nerves that are shot. Load is 8gr. of Unique mild and pleasant to shoot.

If you don't have access to a friend with lathe or mill this may not be the best route for you to take ,.but I'm guessin that if you had to buy a new 310 mold and pay to have the lathe or mill work done it would still be cheaper than a new custom mold. My new LBT mold cost me $125 .

Some here will cringe at my crude method of altering a mold but if the results are what one is looking for who cares. I had nothing to loose the mold was not doing me anygood the way it was.

[Budmen]

crappie hunter great ideas

I will check out Ranch dogg forgot he made alum. molds thanks

[pdawg_shooter]

neat idea but wouldnt that just produce out of round bullets? I would think that would make it bigger dia one only 2 sides but if all else fails I will try it Thanks

I would not worry too much about a bit out of round. By the time you shove that bullet down 22" of barrel with 30,000 psi of pressure I expect it will be as round as your bore is.

[Elkins45]

neat idea but wouldnt that just produce out of round bullets? I would think that would make it bigger dia one only 2 sides but if all else fails I will try it Thanks

Yes, but oddly enough that doesn't seem to have much of a negative impact on accuracy.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Crappie: nothing crude about modifying a mould as you described. All you are doing is shortening the mould cavity.

Doing it on mill or a lathe would be the preferred method. Using the sandpaper on glass technique for removing the tool marks is also the best way to achieve successs.

The only thing I would add is that when you are flat lapping on the sand paper you need to use a figure 8 pattern. The figure 8 pattern is used to generate a flat surface, this is how you return a sharpening stone back to flat by running two stones toghether in a fig 8 motion.

A "W" pattern generates a parabola. This is how telescope mirrors are gorund. The mirror blank is rotated slowly while the "tool" is ran back and forth thru a W pattern.

There are other patterns to generate spherical surfaces and round balls as well.

Nothing wrong with your method at all.

Randy

[HDS]

I slugged the bore on my Rossi Puma 44mag. It slugs to a generous .4315. After reading the posts others having the same measurements someone informed me the rifle bore standard is 431 for rifles while only 429 for pistols.

Now that I know that I need a new mold. I personally like the alum. Lee molds the best. I know all the Lee haters while curse me but it seems like they heat up faster and cool down faster just making it easier to regulate casting temp. Also I like the fact that they wont rust and I dont need to bother with release agent just a match. O and the most important reason they are only half the price of steel molds:bigsmyl2:

The problem is Lee only lists 430 molds.

Can anyone suggest a mold for me that drops 433 or larger. I would prefer not to have to spend a ton since the only reason I bouht this gun was because I had everything I needed to load 44 willed to me when my mentor died. I have too many guns to invest hundreds of dollars in molds for each one. And again I would prefer aluminum or possibly brass I have yet to buy a brass mold. Bullet design is not that important it will be mostly for fun shooting but it will kill a whitetail someday.......

Thanks
:cbpour:

You are in luck, looks like this group buy is still open:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=122019

429421 design, drops at 434", so you can run them unsized (if you have a star or similar sizer, get a die in .434" and just lube them without any real sizing).

Personally, brass beats aluminum all the time. All my molds except one are brass. Never had an iron mold.

[Marlin Junky]

Accurate Molds. The 44's start near the bottom of this page:

http://accuratemolds.com/catalog.php?page=6

I've got a 345 grain design (43-340B) with two cavities in a 3-cavity aluminum block and it is, in a word... excellent.

MJ

[cabezaverde]

I have a .436" LBT 2 cavity 200 Grain WFN that I would be willing to part with.