Questions about 9mm Casting for LWD in Glock...

[ak47man]

Hello, I am new to casting and have a few questions. I apologize in advance if this information is common knowledge or readily available some place. I have looked for many hours to try and find definitive answers but have yet to come up with any concrete answers.

I have a Lone Wolf Dist. 9mm conversion barrel for my G35. I have all my casting equipment with the exception of a sizer and a mold. I tried using a Lee 6 cavity mold with limited success. I wish to purchase a much higher quality mold.

My questions begin with this, I want to shoot lead loads for practice for USPSA comp. I want to load a light bullet 115gr and I want them to work.

When I loaded the Lee 9mm (micro band 120 gr) lubed with LLA, I experienced leading. I sized the bullets to .356, not sure what my issue was. I was using water quenched WW. I also tried some with some home-brew paraffin, beeswax, Vaseline hard lube with basically the same result.

I am looking into purchasing a new mold, probably a Saeco, do you guys have any recommendations on mold and bullet design for my intended purpose? What type of lube should I be using? Should I need to slug the LWD barrel?

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for the help and I apologize if this is crap that you guys get all the time. I have tried to find the answers on my own but could not get anything definitive. I am hoping that the expertise on this forum will be of help.

Thanks

[mpmarty]

Welcome. I fear you're going at this bassackwards. Hard cast boolits in light loads are an invitation to leading the barrel. They cannot obturate. Sizing to .356 just makes matters worse. Some of my best boolits come from Lee molds, so don't give up and throw money at a new mold until you figure out what's wrong with your loads. Start with slugging the barrel. Mike your cast boolits and see if they are one or two thousandths over slugged bore diameter. If no more than two thousandths over just tumble lube and shoot. Try adding a bit of pure lead or quit water dropping to soften the casts. Clean the bore thoroughly and remove any particles of gilding metal or lead. Try these things before condemning the mold. I have nothing against H&G RCBS Lyman or Saeco molds, I own some of each of these but the Lee mold used according to directions casts boolits every bit as good and the cost of the mold is much less, lighter weight, heats faster and won't rust.

[uncledeck]

I think the first step would be to slug your barrel. 9mms seem to vary quite a bit and actualy range from .355 to .358.

If you don't have the equipment to measure a slug, another option would be to take some of your Lee castings and do not size, just lube with Liquid Alox. Load a couple of dummy cartridges with these unsized loads and see if they will chamber easily by taking the barrel out of the slide and and with the barrel held muzzle down drop the dummy in the chamber. If it slides home with little or no effort then I would load up a batch and see if they still lead.

If they don't your in business, if they do then I might consider not water dropping, just air cooled WW with unsized again. Your alloy may be too hard.

Do you know what velocity your expecting out of your loads?

[jdgabbard]

What is your casting setup? Bottom pour or a small pot and ladle? What is the temp on your pot at?

The reason I ask, is I have found that the Lee molds produce GREAT boolits. The issues when you get bad ones are usually attributed to the method of casting, at least in my experiences. For example. If your ladle pouring with a 6 cav Lee you probably are not keeping the mold hot enough. Which is going to lead to undersized boolits. Not to mention they are going to be wrinkled and ugly.

Another thing to consider is slugging your bore. What does it mic at? The typical suggestion with the TL style is to shoot as cast. Without sizing. However you mold might be dropping boolits that are undersized. The same problem I had with my 2 cav mold of that same boolit. If so you might try either beagling or Leementing your mold. I suggest Leementing. Its pretty easy and there is plenty of info on it if you use the search function.

Before leementing my mold my boolits were dropping about .355 out of that mold. Now after I've done the leementing boolits drop super easy (before they stuck pretty bad) and they drop at .360 or larger. I know when I put them through a .358 sizer die the bands become NICE AND SQUARE. And there really isn't much left of a lube groove. Check it out.

11573

[jdgabbard]

Btw, since I already have a pic of my boolit posted. Anybody know what I can do to remedy that extended bevel? you can kinda see it in that pic. Only the front cavity is dropping them like that, and the sprue plate looks lit is is slightly raised up off of the from cavity. Can see a little light between the two surfaces. Bend the sprue plate a little?

[trickyasafox]

As the others have said, you may be sizing your bullets too small- if you have the option, I would try sizing to 357 or 358.

I have the 120gr Lee TC- works well in a g17 and a kel-tec p11. Don't give up on it just yet!

if you do want to go with another mold though, buy a mold with as many cavities as you can afford- after casting with a 6 cavity you may feel slowed down with a 2 or a 3 cavity.

I'm no machinist JDGABBARD

but it sounds to me like you might have a burr on there or something is warped. I'd look at it through a magnifying glass and see what comes up.

[jdgabbard]

As the others have said, you may be sizing your bullets too small- if you have the option, I would try sizing to 357 or 358.

I have the 120gr Lee TC- works well in a g17 and a kel-tec p11. Don't give up on it just yet!

if you do want to go with another mold though, buy a mold with as many cavities as you can afford- after casting with a 6 cavity you may feel slowed down with a 2 or a 3 cavity.

I'm no machinist JDGABBARD

but it sounds to me like you might have a burr on there or something is warped. I'd look at it through a magnifying glass and see what comes up.

I don't think I have a burr, as I've looked at it fairly closely. However the sprue plate is raised a small bit higher then it should. This mold has given me nothing but problems since I got it. I think it was a bad run from Lee, but I have managed to make it work.

Gonna have to maybe try to straighten it out a little...

[mpmarty]

Before you try to "straighten it out" you may want to look into just buying a new sprue plate. Lee Factory Sales has then for around four bucks IIRC. Then when you break the original trying to bend anodized aluminum, you'll have another.

[454PB]

Lee sprue plates are steel.

[RayinNH]

454, The one and two cavity mould sprue plates are steel. The six cavity molds have an aluminum sprue plate...Ray