Life of a mold?

[.41LC]

I searched and couldn't find anything.

What is the expected life of an aluminum mold, the number of casts one could expect to get out of it?

[deltaenterprizes]

Depends on the operator and how well it is lubricated a critical metal to metal points of contact and the quality of the mold to start with. A $20 Lee 2 cavity will not last as long as their more expensive 6 cavity because of design features.

[Tazman1602]

I've read of a good many ten thousands of bullets being thrown from some molds here 41 given proper care who knows? I don't...........yet

Art

[Bullshop]

I cast commercially. I have some lee 2 cavity molds that are likely 30 years old and still in service. I have never worn out a mold beyond use.
The life of the mold no matter what quality is totally dependent on the user.
BIC/BS

[stubshaft]

If you treat it like a tool and don't abuse it they will last a long time. I have and still use the first Lee mould that I bought in 1972.

[Shiloh]

Maintenance, lubrication, use but not abuse. Just like an engine. I have better than 5000 on a LEE 148 gr. six banger TLWC mold.

My first one, had about 1400 on it but was dropped and smacked a couple of times while hot.
It''s done.

Shiloh

[Bret4207]

Indefinite. It all depends on the care you give it.

[anachronism]

And there are different grades of aluminum used by different mould manufacturers, and it seems everybody uses a different alloy. Some alloys get harder as you use them, some don't change, some moulds seem to be made from recycled Chinese beer cans.

[MtGun44]

Bull plate lube will extend the life by minimizing the wear between parts and esp the
sprue plate against the top of the mold, and the build up of lead smears on the sprue
plate.

I have a Lee mold (105 SWC .38 cal) that I bought in about 1975, still works great, but
I do not use it frequently, so not even close to Bull Shop's experience.

Bill

[Walter Laich]

Have some Lyman 4-cav that I got from my Dad--they are well over 60 years old. Just used them last week and still do as good a job as the day they came out of the factory

W

[jeffwhetstone]

I have a Lee 6-cavity 452-200-SWC that has over 10K. It's a bit worn, but most of that wear came before I learned to treat them properly.

Keep the moving parts lubed with Bullplate, close gently, and you'll definitely get more than $35 worth of boolits out of 'em.

[Knifeman1988]

Ive casted over 2K per lee 2 cavity mould and still looks like they are new.
the first one i messed up on learning.

[gray wolf]

How long will your shoe leather last? I think the guy's sumed it up very well--It depends on how you use em and abuse em. My H&G mold is a year older than I am and I am 68 Holy cow that can't be rite.( can it?) I should say my Hensly mold I don't think they were H&G till latter.
anyway it looks great and cast a perfect W/C bullet. I think if you exersize a little care you will be happy with most molds.
I need to take more naps. Mayby one in the afternoon Eh?

[Lloyd Smale]

im hard on molds. Lee molds were the worse. I used to about wear out a two cavity lee in one long session. 6 cavs are better but they get me by for about a year on a mold i use frequently. What has really changed this is bullshop lube. If i force myself to be at least halfway nice when casting and use bullshop religiously on them the 6 cav molds seem to hold up fine. Still can destroy a 2 cav though. Verals lbt are a bit better but i still have a collection of them that are wore out. Now the aluminum molds that babore and Al from noe are making seem to hold up better then an lbt does. what tends to destroy them is two things. Slaming them closed and hogging out he alignment pins when you do it and lead smears on top that the spruce plate rides over and gouges the mold. Lbts give me more problems in this respect. I never did like that spruce plate he uses and switching to a heavy steal one would help them alot. I know veral spouts off about that high tech design but ive never seen any advantage to it other then its probably cheaper to stamp them out hen it is to machine a spruce plate. Like i said bullshop is the ticket to making alum. molds last it helps with both problemsl.

[Crash_Corrigan]

I have yet to wear out or destroy a mold. My ancient Lee six bangers are still soldiering along after thousands and thousands of boolits made.

One day, a kinda cool and pleasant one at that, rare in Vegas, I cast with two Lee molds. One was a 45 and the other a 38. Each was a veteran six banger and using Bullshops Sprue Plate lube I went through a lot of alloy.

I used two casting pots. One on the top shelf to melt ingots into alloy and channelled alloy from that one to the lower pot when the level on the lower pot went to 1/4 full. Running two molds and dropping boolits into a 5 gallon bucket of cold water I ended up having to dump the boolits out of the water bucket twice as I had water running over the deck.

I ended up with 5 gallons of finished boolits and I did not have to cast those calibers for some time thereafter.

Neither of the molds showed any damage or wear and that is typical of these molds if you use them carefully and lee ment them prior to use and stop every so often to re lube with Sprue Plate lube. Just a shake and they fall out like rain. If they start to stick in the cavities then a short rest on a wet towel on top of a sponge in a shallow dish of cold water to cool down and the rain continues.

I also dip the mold ends into the alloy at the beginnng to get them up to temp and recently I started using Kano Kroil in the cavities prior to using and this is very beneficial to dropping easy boolits.

Recently I obtained a mold from Buffalo Arms Co in Idaho to make a 695 gr Creedmoor boolit for my 50-90 Sharps BPCR. A beautiful mold that produced excellent boolits even in my Lee 4-20 bottom pour pot. If I directed the stream of alloy into the center of the sprue hole it worked perfectly. However a stream directed onto the sides would cause a void and prevented the escape of air from the mold and the boolit was trashed. All the "expert" on the BPCR sites raved about ladle casting and said you could not get good results from a bottom pour pot. WRONG.

The other mold I want to praise is the MP 430-256 from Mihec. Another beautiful piece of work that produced excellent boolits from the get go. This is how Lee should have made 6 bangers. It is the cadillac of 6 bangers and a joy to use.

[old turtle]

I have two NEI molds which I must have cast at least 5000 bullets from each and they are still in excellent shape. I have several Lyman molds which I have used a great deal also. The key is to take care of the molds by adjusting the spruce plate and in the case of iron molds making sure they do not rust. For this I use Marvel Mystery Oily. A good release agent also helps.

[TAWILDCATT]

I have a win mold in 32/20 that I used for a long time until the win 73 I had was stolen.along with the S&W mod 1905.I have a couple rem and colt molds I have used.of course not as extensively as molds are used to day.

[Archer]

I have a Lee round ball mold I've used for the last
48 years, and am still using it, and it works just fine
yet, and that's after it went though a house fire some
35 years ago. I lost count of how many round balls I've
made with it, but it's up in the thousands for sure.

[miestro_jerry]

I have Lee, RCBS and Lyman molds that are 30 or more years old. The only problem I had with a mold if when I loaded it to a friend, who burned himself and dropped it. It has a chip on one corner, it is still making bullets left and right. My oldest molds are still casting well, I use graphite on them, but will try Bullplate Sprue Lube when I can get some.

I store mine with lead in the cavities. Some of my molds are hard to get ones like my Lyman 357 214 mold or my Ranch Dog Molds. So I take care of them.

I have many Lee 6 C molds and many Lyman 4 C molds.

Just can't have enough molds these days,

Jerry