Loading Lee 309-150-F30 ??

[cwheel]

Just starting to load boolits cast from a Lee 309-150-F30 that was given me from the passing of a friend a few years back. 150 gr. boolits wouldn't be my first choice for 30:30, but thought I'd give this mold a try. Boolits cast and sized fine, no issues. But I notice that when seating to the OAL of 2.5 or so, I heavily engaged the rifling with the boolit to the point of sticking the boolit in the bore extracting the loaded round. Further experimenting showed that I had to seat the boolit in the loaded round deep ( 2.375 OAL ) to just get it off engaging the rifling. Measuring the nose of the boolit with a micrometer showed the nose of the boolit was between .300 - .304 ( .004 out of round ) just under the short nose radius. That sure showed why it engraved the rifling. Question here is it safe to seat these that deep ?? 2.375 is a full 1/8" deeper ( .125 ) than normal, or any spec I can find in any of the 5 manuals I have. Or should I just scrap this one and buy another mold ??
Chris

[shredder]

I have the same mould ( Lee 150 FN 0 but mine is not behaving like that at all. How does it look inside the cavities? Has someone done some lapping in there? Is there any metal on the mould faces? When you close 'er up and hold it to a bright light can you see light between the blocks anywhere? Does it close easily?

[cwheel]

Looking inside the mold, looks almost new, nothing but almost fresh machining marks. No signs of anyone enlarging this mold. No gaps between the mold blocks, blocks are face to face. This mold is as it came from Lee. If I had to guess, I'd say the blocks are cut large in the nose area. Boolits drop from this mold @.310. This 1940 Winchester 94 saw lots of time in a saddle scabbard and very few shots fired. Bore is perfect, chambers factory rounds just fine.
Chris

[FergusonTO35]

Unless your loads are at the max I see no problem seating 1/8 deeper. You are already creating less pressure than the same charge with a jacketed bullet.

[cwheel]

True enough. Starting load I thought to try is 27.5 gr. of 3031, that right in the middle of the charge range and shouldn't be to high pressure to give a try. Sure don't like seating boolits so deep as the gas check gets into the casing though, don't think it's a good thing. Sure would be better if Lee had cut the boolit nose small enough to clear a little better.
Chris