Cloudpeak
02-09-2010, 09:48 PM
Over the last two days, I've been "breaking in" my new New Lee 356-125-2R mold. This mold drops a nominal diameter of .3585". I think these bullets will work in both my 9mm and my new S&W 620 (7 shot .357). Hot dog!
I led a friend down the 1911 (Trojan 9mm) path after he shot mine he ordered one and I told him if he ordered the lead, I'd cast him a few bullets. He brought over 60 lbs. of their "Hardball" (1 BN point harder than Lyman #2) so I cast the whole works. Should be around 3,360 bullets. I spent 5.5 hours casting. I'll be shooting some test loads next week to see how they do. The Lee 124gr RN TL bullet shot very accurately in my STI but I used wheel weight lead. This Roto Metal alloy is harder so it will be interesting to see how it shoots and if I'll have leading problems as I shoot reduced loads for practice and steel.
The bullets drop out of this mold much easier than the TL design. I think that the grooves in the TL bullet have more surface area to "grip" the bullet. The cavities seem to cast uniform diameters and this is the best Lee mold I've owned yet.
I did have occasional "finning" out of the cavity nearest to me, maybe one finned bullet out of every 5 or 6 casts. The handles are loose & the molds close well and there's no daylight between halves, the alignment pins are fine and there's no lead on the mold face. No big deal but kind of puzzling. It appears the nearest cavity is running cooler.
Anyway, here's a couple of pictures. One of the mold & bullet and another of what 60lbs. of Roto Metals looks like after it's "re-formed":-D
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/WyoBob/Guns/DSCN2122.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/WyoBob/Guns/DSCN2124.jpg
I led a friend down the 1911 (Trojan 9mm) path after he shot mine he ordered one and I told him if he ordered the lead, I'd cast him a few bullets. He brought over 60 lbs. of their "Hardball" (1 BN point harder than Lyman #2) so I cast the whole works. Should be around 3,360 bullets. I spent 5.5 hours casting. I'll be shooting some test loads next week to see how they do. The Lee 124gr RN TL bullet shot very accurately in my STI but I used wheel weight lead. This Roto Metal alloy is harder so it will be interesting to see how it shoots and if I'll have leading problems as I shoot reduced loads for practice and steel.
The bullets drop out of this mold much easier than the TL design. I think that the grooves in the TL bullet have more surface area to "grip" the bullet. The cavities seem to cast uniform diameters and this is the best Lee mold I've owned yet.
I did have occasional "finning" out of the cavity nearest to me, maybe one finned bullet out of every 5 or 6 casts. The handles are loose & the molds close well and there's no daylight between halves, the alignment pins are fine and there's no lead on the mold face. No big deal but kind of puzzling. It appears the nearest cavity is running cooler.
Anyway, here's a couple of pictures. One of the mold & bullet and another of what 60lbs. of Roto Metals looks like after it's "re-formed":-D
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/WyoBob/Guns/DSCN2122.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/WyoBob/Guns/DSCN2124.jpg