Fixing a tight gas check shank?

[Elkins45]

I'm attempting to be ultra cheap here. I have a pair of Lee 8mm rifle bullet molds bought from different suppliers but both are the new style mold. Both cast boolets with my normal alloy that have gas check shanks too fat for either Hornady or Gator 8mm checks. I know it's not the alloy because I have an old single cavity of the same design and they snap on easily to those casts.

I emailed Lee and they want me to send in the mold and some sample boolets. Shipping will be a measurable percentage of the cost of the molds so I would at least attempt to apply a free home remedy if for no other reason than as a learning experience. Is there some way to make a section of a mold smaller? I was thinking of maybe painting just the gas check shank section of the mold with graphite spray lube or maybe mold release spray. I wonder if that might add the tiny bit of thickness I need to make the checks fit?

Any other ideas?

[beagle]

The only cost effective fix that I know for that is to slightly expand the gas check. Can be done with a ball bearing or a bolt turned to size mounted in an M die.

Hard to add metal to a mould. It can be done but would be expensive./beagle

[quack1]

I have a couple of molds with fat gas check shanks. I do like beagle says-turn a bolt to the size needed, but in addition, I epoxy that turned bolt in a piece of broomstick. If you anneal the checks you can spread them out on the bench and expand them by hand pressure and don't need to mount it in a M die.

[geargnasher]

Aluminum checks of thinner material might help. For low-velocity work, up to about 16-1700 fps, I've had pretty good luck with making paper gas checks out of Manilla file folder material and gluing them on with spray adhesive.

Gear

[high standard 40]

The method I use is to slightly expand the gascheck. I use a punch that I made myself using a piece of steel rod, I chucked it in a drill and then shaped it with a file. I use my arbor press with the punch and expand the opening of the gascheck. I made one in 7MM and one for my 44.

[jonas302]

would annealing the checks help?
I suppose it depends on how much you need If you do need to send them back they should both fit in a flat rate padded envelope for under 6 dollars I do understand the frustration of spending the shipping to get them fixed im sitting on a bad one right now guess I will wait till I have 2 or more to split up the cost

[grouch]

You can expand the gas check using a round head screw the right size. Just set the gas check on a metal surface, insert the screw and tap the point of the screw lightly with a 16oz hammer. For .30 cal, the right size is #8.
Grouch

[Boolseye]

I had a Lee mold with that problem, the C312-185 1R. I eventually removed the gas check shanks with my drill press and made a plain-base mold. Before that I would expand each GC with a punch.

[Fishman]

I would at least try the graphite spray lube idea and mask off the rest of the cavity when spraying it. I have used mould release to spray the cavities of a lightly pitted steel mould and then lee-mented it to remove the release everywhere except the pits in the cavities. Worked pretty well. I've also used too much mould release in the past when I didn't know better, and gotten undersized boolits. Removing the mould release gained me .0015 back on diameter.

[MT Chambers]

NOE sells/sold a tool that is used to seat checks and slightly taper bullet base so checks fit.