Need suggestions re 45,357,9mm lee molds??

[aeronc]

I am new to casting and have been cruising this great forum. I have a lee 10# bottom feed furnace, 40# of wheel weights or so, hot plate, cast alum. pan, flux, ladel, spoon, muffin plate, and some reading info. I plan to purchase
1 molds
2 lube tumble vs lube for my unpurchased sizer
3 sizer (contact me if you have a spare lyman450/4500??? for sale or rcbs)
4 dipper (need one of these)

So...I am thinking of the lee 6 cavity molds having read the pros and cons. I am considering 230 gr rn .45, 200gr swc .45, 158 gr .38, 115 gr rn for the 9mm.

1 Do I want to tumble lube or since I will buy a sizer do I want the sizer to lube?
2Do I need sprue plate lube?
3 Which lube?
4 My original question.. which mold # do I want??
5 What size dies will I need? thanks

[mooman76]

Good selection of moulds. If you are not planning on TLing your bullets I wouldn't get the TL bullets unless a particular design strikes your fancy. Nothing wrong with TL bullets, I have some but you mentioned gettin a Lyman sizer and you can TL regular bullets.
Go down to the buying and selling section and you can place a Lubesizer in the WTB section.
You will probubly need a dipper even if you re bottom pouring it comes in handy and you might want to try a little top pour in the future with a particular mould. You could just get a cheap Lee for like $4
Get some Bull Plate lube but you can use some others until you do. I used to use WD-40
You might want to think about the Lee 105g SWC mould. Works great in the 9mm and can be used in the 38/357 for a plinker too, good shooter.
You will have to slug the bore of your guns to know for sure to see what size sizer you need but tipically you will need .452 for 45, 358 for 38/357 and .357 for 9mm but if your 9mm will feed with a 358 bullet you can stick with that.
You will get many opinions on lube. It is a little less critical in pistol than rifle but I use Rooster Red. Works in both for me.

[Pawpaw]

let's see if I can help.

As far as stock Lee dies, I like the following:
For the .357 I use the TL358-158-SWC
For the .45 ACP, I use the TL452-230-2R

I don't load for 9mm, so no help there.

Use Lee Liquid Alox. It's cheap, it's dependable, and after using a number of lubes and lube techniques, I've gone with tumble lube for everything. Rifle, pistol, whatever, I tumble lube it.

Sprue Plate Lube - some use it, some don't. I don't. I lube my molds like the Lee instructions tell me to. One thing I do to my molds is to scribble with a carpenter's pencil on the top of them until the top of the mold is covered in pencil graphite. That's the only lube I've ever needed.

[Dave B]

You can't go wrong with the T L bullets. The 158 gr SWC #90295 will work fine. I use both the 124gr TL cone shape and the 125gr RN in 9mm. The rnd nose feeds in about everything, and so far the TC does too, but I haven't tried the TC in as many guns. If you get the Lee push thru sizer, just tumble lube them and let them dry over night. then run them thru the sizer. Then lube them again. I thin the lube 30%-40% with mineral spirits. A little lube goes along way. They don't need to be real thickly coated. Use a .358 sizer for the 357, and a .356 for the 9mm. I have also learned that the Lee liquid lube seems to work as well on reg. groove bullets. Since I started using liquid lube I haven't used my Lyman 450 except for a couple of special projects.

[NuJudge]

Slug your 9mm to see what groove diameter is. You may well find that it is .357" or even .358". See if your chamber will allow a cartridge with that diameter (actually I like bullets to be .001" or .002" larger than groove diameter) bullet to chamber, and if so get molds that will produce that diameter.

[JohnH]

About two weeks ago thee was a fella who posted a 45 for sale for 70.00. His handle is msp2640. Do a search of the buyin' & sellin' forum by handle I'm sure you'll locate him

[HABCAN]

+1 for the LEE TL452-230-TC #90386 6-banger! I shoot 'em as-cast and TL'd.