SAECO .460 500 grain mold

[Mark Daiute]

Last year I bought the SAECO M1881 500 grain .460 mold from Buffalo Arms. The mold and the handles cost about 4 times what a Lee mold costs delivered to my PO Box. No matter as Lee does not have the mold that I needed.

Heres the problem: My 405 grain, hollow based Lee Mold is advertised as casting a .459 bullet and the bullet casts at all of that. I purchased the SAECO .460 mold from Buffalo as I wanted every bit of width I could get for my trapdoor. It casts a bullet considerably less than .460, more on the order of .457/8 (best I can tell with my Dial Caliper).

Anyone else run into this?

I'm using what I believe to be straight lead

Thanks,

Mark

I'm going to cross post over on single shot rifles.

[bobthenailer]

fist what alloy are you useing ? saeco moulds are speced with taracorp mag alloy and they will cast .001 to .003 over stated size . if not send back to saeco or open up the mould, or have someone on this fourm do it for you.

[Mark Daiute]

fist what alloy are you useing ? s


AFAIK- straight lead- I smelted it myself from scrap, old plumbing lead, roofing leads and the like.

Thanks,

Mark

[454PB]

Cast size depends on the spec alloy the mould manufacturer uses. Pure lead will cast the smallest diameter of any "lead alloy". Add a little antimony and it will cast bigger.

[HEAVYSHOT]

try the same thing with wheel weight and you will be ok heavyshot

[13Echo]

I have the same mould. When cast of 30:1 alloy it mikes at .460"

Jerry Liles

[Mark Daiute]

Life has been nuts lately. As soon as I have an afternoon to myself I'll try casting with wheel weights as well as alloying some lead 20 to 1 with tin. Will the addition of tin help increase "as cast" size?

It'll be interesting to see if the wheel weights cast with a greater diameter. On the other hand this mold is specifically for my trapdoor so I wanted a soft alloy.

We'll see.

Thanks for the responses.

Best,

Mark

[trap shooter]

saeco and lyman all cast small good luck them to fix it go to hollowpoint mould service he can inlarge the mould

[13Echo]

Adding tin to lead increases the fluidity of the melt which results in better fill out of the mould and increased diameter of the bullet produced. Also a hotter mould will cast a larger diameter bullet because of expansion of the mould metal. I tend to cast large bullets for the Sharps and Trapdoors at about 800deg F melt and prewarm the mould on a hotplate. It just seems to work better with these large bullets.

Jerry Liles