Lee Single Cavity Molds And lyman

[bouncer50]

When did Lee stop making single cavity molds.? How about Lyman do they still make them.? I am old school on single cavity molds. That what i started out with in the old days. I really like them for rifle casting i believe you get less reject in a single cavity. I know its slower to make them but i believe they make better bullets. What are your opinion on single vs double molds. :castmine:

[Reg]

I agree completly. Easier to control quality and you have a much better selectin of different types and weights

[NavyVet1959]

My experience is that for nearly every one of my molds, I bought the 2-cavity and then ended up buying the 6-cavity afterwards.

[HABCAN]

My old single-hole 'grooved' 7mm LEE has realignment problems in use on closing if not sufficiently lubed and I'm going to replace it and two old 'grooved' two-hole 30's with the new 'pinned' two-holers ASAP. If I could replace some of my old favored twos with sixes (which LEE doesn't make (yet?), sheesh!) I'd do that, too. I'm happiest with my LEE .44, .45, and 7mm Soup Can sixes.

[MT Chambers]

Many believe that bullets will be more consistent from a single cav. mold.

[Guesser]

I have 8 SC Lee molds and 16 Ideal/Lyman SC moulds. They make the most consistently uniform bullets. My DC are all good molds but they cannot maintain uniformity when I use them, biggest problem is the hot spot in the thin material separating the two cavities. As for 4 or more cavities, I sold all them off, too heavy, too awkward, too unbalanced in production. I love the old small block Ideal SC.

[bouncer50]

Many believe that bullets will be more consistent from a single cav. mold. My friend and i were casting 45 acp with Lee molds his a DC mine a SC he made almost twice as many as mine. I only had two reject he had close to 30 rejects his remark was my bullets look better then his.? His DC mold i notice either the front or rear cavity would not fill up correct due to i believe to heat different in the front or rear cavity.?

[MT Gianni]

Lee listened to it's market and got rid of the sc molds. I find little deviation between weights with NOE and LBT molds, 2-5 cavity.

[NavyVet1959]

Many believe that bullets will be more consistent from a single cav. mold.

Well, with a single cavity mold, you definitely do not have to be concerned with there being any sort of variance between the cavities of the mold. :)

[rintinglen]

A single cavity mold is great if you have nothing but time.

There was a time when there may have been some truth to the old superstition about single cavity versus multiple cavity molds as to which was more consistent Modern manufacturing methods have pretty much swept that notion into the dust bin of history. CNC machines make cavities to tolerances tighter than any that we can cast. Variance between boolits is much more likely to be a result of cast technique than any difference between cavities. I spent some time weighing the out put of my NOE 311-465 and comparing it to an old Lyman 311-465 that I have. The NOE boolits ran plus or minus .3 grains, pretty much the same as the SC Lyman, but 4 at a time.

Life's too short to cast with single cavities.

[ascast]

what rintinglen said, and I would ad that it depends on your application. Combat pistol shooters maybe shooting 200-300 per day, a single cavity just wont get it: and regardless of how consistent they may or may not be, you need more cavities. BPCR and the like require a much more uniform bullet. Guys are weighing bullets to 2 or 3 tenths of a grain on 550grain bullets. That a 0.03% difference in weight, which is connect directly to cavity size.
I would like to know if guys on he top end of the BPCR pile are happy with multicavs, or not.

[paul h]

I've shot 100 yd groups of 2" with cast bullets from a revolver, and rifle groups of 1" at 100 yds with a rifle, both five shot groups. The handgun mold was a four cavity Ballisticast, the rifle mold a two cavity Lyman. Bullets were visually inspected but not weighed.

I'm not a competitive shooter see no appeal or benefit of a single cavity mold. My preference is four and six cavity molds. I value what little free time I have and have found quality four and six cavity molds achieve a level of accuracy that meets my needs.

[Smk SHoe]

I'll stick to my multi cavity molds. Even if my reject rate is 10%, I can still crank out a lot of bullets. I Just have limited time on weekends to do everything I want to do. Can't spend all my shooting time casting.

[longbow]

Not totally sure on the consistency comment re single cavity vs multi cavity as my NOE, Accurate & Mihec 2, 3 and 4 cavity moulds cast virtually identical weight and diameter boolits from each cavity but personally I prefer casting with a 2 cavity mould. I will agree that some older cherry cut multi cavity moulds showed some measurable differences between cavities.

Not exactly sure why but maybe a bit of each: faster than single cavity; easy to use and get good boolits; not too heavy; less boolit hangups/stickers; familiarity and comfort using 2 cavity moulds as I have more of them than anything else.

I do find I get more rejects and stickers when using 4+ cavity moulds than when using single or two cavity moulds.

Nothing says you can't have a multi cavity mould for volume casting and use just one cavity if you want absolutely consistent boolits from one cavity. Might be hard to keep mould temperature high enough using 1 cavity of a 6 cavity mould but not a problem with a two cavity mould.

To each his own.

Longbow