Lube grooves on PC boolits??

[Bashby]

I have only been casting for a year or so and have 3 molds. I have never tried any type of lube, started with PC and see no reason to do anything else, so on the 2 molds I ordered from Accurate, I opted for no lube grooves. My thoughts are that my non grooved 9mm boolit is less likely to be swaged when crimping, which I was having trouble with when loading my Lee 110gr SWCs. I’m wondering if there are any advantages or disadvantages to grooved vs smooth boolits that I’m not aware of.

[William Yanda]

By casting boolets with no lube grooves you are excluding yourself from accumulating unused lube grooves to offer in the lube groove market. Your choice.

[farmerjim]

I thought waksupi had that market cornered.

[charlie b]

LOL nice

Smooth side PC bullets seem to do OK for many. I have not seen anyone complain about them. The only downside I can see would be the amount of force necessary to size them. I'd try to get the mold made so I did not have to size the bullets.

[mehavey]

Classical/grooved bullets PC'd shoot accurately every bit as smooth-sided.
Size much easier/lower possibility of base "fringe" on plain-base from displaced alloy (already noted)
Still leave the option of normal lube downstream.

Eye of the beholder to be sure -- but other observations invited.

[Bashby]

By casting boolets with no lube grooves you are excluding yourself from accumulating unused lube grooves to offer in the lube groove market. Your choice.
I never thought of that! Did you invent the donut hole also?

[Bashby]

It seems that more surface engaging the rifling would be an advantage in some instances.

[fredj338]

I have only been casting for a year or so and have 3 molds. I have never tried any type of lube, started with PC and see no reason to do anything else, so on the 2 molds I ordered from Accurate, I opted for no lube grooves. My thoughts are that my non grooved 9mm boolit is less likely to be swaged when crimping, which I was having trouble with when loading my Lee 110gr SWCs. I’m wondering if there are any advantages or disadvantages to grooved vs smooth boolits that I’m not aware of.
I agree there is no need for grooves on a bullet that is going to be coated, but your reasoning about swaging is just not valid. If you are swaging down during the loading process, a non groove bullet wont fix that. The advantage is easier casting & higher vel with a given powder charge as you have greater bearing surface. Of course higher pressures/vel could be a disadvantage if you are just going plug & play.

[bangerjim]

I have both grooved and NLG molds. I cast, load, and shoot both. I PC everything. I see absolutely ZERO difference in them. The only thing the NLG mold fad was about was for mold makers to sell new molds in styles people already had! I have 4 of them and will never own any more. Not everybody in the world powder coats, and grooved molds will always have a very hot re-sale market.

[MUSTANG]

A boo lit with lube groves will have less surface area contacting the rifling compared to "No Lube Groove" which will have a greater surface area contacting the rifling for the same dimension boolit. At the Top End of loads, there will be a greater theoretical pressure generated at some point during the powder burning curve because of GREATER resistance for the "Non Lube Groove" boolit compared to a lube groove boolit. Using the standard loads for hand guns using bolts; probably No Discernible Difference between the two.

Many of the heavy solid copper Rifle bullets that are machined use "Lube Grooves" machined into the bullet to reduce the overall friction of the bullets bearing surface.

[gwpercle]

You can powder coat any boolit , smooth sided or with LG's .
If at some point in time you can't powder coat ... and all your boolit moulds are smooth sided and you want to size and lube a few untill you get your powder coating process back up and running ...you've cut off that option ... it's powder coat or nothing else .
Never leave yourself without a second way out ...options are good ...you don't want one way out .
I'll take my moulds with Loobe Grooves every time !
Gary

[MOA]

What he said ^^^^^^^^^

[Conditor22]

I have only been casting for a year or so and have 3 molds. I have never tried any type of lube, started with PC and see no reason to do anything else, so on the 2 molds I ordered from Accurate, I opted for no lube grooves. My thoughts are that my non-grooved 9mm boolit is less likely to be swaged when crimping, which I was having trouble with when loading my Lee 110gr SWCs. I’m wondering if there are any advantages or disadvantages to grooved vs smooth boolits that I’m not aware of.

non-grooved 9mm boolit is less likely to be swaged when crimping ----FALSE

1) use a die or 38spl powder through die to expand your case necks before seating the boolits
2) don't over-crimp your boolits -- 9MM is a tapered case prone to over-crimping. I use the Lee FCD and only crimp to where the case mouth flare for seating is removed, pass the plunk test, and when you push the loaded boolit against your bench it doesn't move. Until you are comfortable with your process, load a couple of dummy rounds and pull the boolits to make sure you are NOT DOWNSIZING them.

There's a thread or 2 or 3 on this somewhere.

[Mal Paso]

There seems to be a bunch of MP NLG molds for sale on ebay, ones with grooves, not so much.

[hermans]

I have both grooved and NLG molds. I cast, load, and shoot both. I PC everything. I see absolutely ZERO difference in them. The only thing the NLG mold fad was about was for mold makers to sell new molds in styles people already had! I have 4 of them and will never own any more. Not everybody in the world powder coats, and grooved molds will always have a very hot re-sale market.
I could not have said it any better!

[Traffer]

There is a difference if you make your own molds. Lube grooved molds MUST be cut with either a cherry or CNC on a Milling machine. It requires some pretty good machining skill and rather expensive machines.
No lube groove molds can be made by PLUNGE CUTTING. Which is the same as drilling a hole. If you have a rounded point drill bit, you can make NLG molds on a DRILL PRESS if you are careful.
Since I make my own molds that is quite a nice benefit.

[Dieselhorses]

You can powder coat any boolit , smooth sided or with LG's .
If at some point in time you can't powder coat ... and all your boolit moulds are smooth sided and you want to size and lube a few untill you get your powder coating process back up and running ...you've cut off that option ... it's powder coat or nothing else .
Never leave yourself without a second way out ...options are good ...you don't want one way out .
I'll take my moulds with Loobe Grooves every time !
Gary

I second that-great point!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dieselhorses]

Deleted

[jessdigs]

The advantage I have found is that my MP NLG molds do seem to release bullets better than my LG molds. My mp 311-180 is the hardest to shake out and in my 9mm and .40 nlg molds the jump out on their own.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

[popper]

Pistol moulds, I don't care. My rifle moulds have a small & shallow groove, not for lube but for displaced lead. They work very well at near max loads in 30 cal and are accurate. I can PC/HiTek or tumble lube with BLL. I can seat to any depth without running into crimp or lube groove. MOA @ 200 from AR10. Not too shabby for an old man.

[gwpercle]

I've heard it said that Powder Coater's were an intolerent lot ... but not even tolerating the grooves for lube on a boolit puts them in a whole different category ... Fanatical ... ?
Gary