NOE verus Lee molds

[terryt]

HI:

Are NOE molds worth the extra money over Lee molds.

Thanks,

Terryt

[Ben]

I have several Lee molds ( about 30 + ). I think for the money they are hard to beat. As far as quality and precision is concerned, NOE is miles ahead of the typical Lee. NOE is always right on the money with their specs. Lee is very much hit and miss. It isn't uncommon to have to do quite a bit of work ( Lee-menting ) to a Lee before you can cast with it. With an NOE, clean it and start casting some of the most beautiful bullets you'll ever see within minutes of the mold's arrival.

It is worth the extra money ? ? It all depends on your expectations of the mold.

If I could allocate the extra $$, I'd certainly buy the NOE.

Ben

[Hickory]

NOE moulds use a better grade of alumimun that holds up better and is not likley to gould as quickly as the Lee .
Lees are not bad moulds by any means, they cast very good boolits.
In my opinion, all boolit moulds are like women, some will handle ruffer treatment better than others, and non should ever be abused by striking them.

[imashooter2]

My only NOE mold is a 360180 WFNGC from the very first run. The drawings speced .360 diameter and the boolits drop .362 - .3625. Several others report the same size. The mold itself is very consistent and beautifully machined, but the casting size is not what I call right on the money.

I'm also a big fan of the Lee lever sprue cut mechanism. If I could get the NOE designs in a Lee mold, I'd chose Lee and if it ever wore out, I'd buy another and still be money ahead.

[Springfield]

Not for pistol bullets. Maybe for more precision rifle bullets. I have 20 different LEE moulds and they(almost) all work fine. I have one NOE mould for .223 and it works very well. But so do my 5 Mihec moulds and my 3 NEI molds, and maybe 10 Lyman/Ideal molds. The question with LEE molds is not will they work, is will they get them cut to spec. If they are, you are good to go. If not......well then you are only out 50 bucks or so. As for holdiong up, I think LEE moulds are underated. I have a couple of 44-40 LEE's that have over 50,00 bullets each through them and still cast fine. I am NOT happy with the pvot pin set-up on LEE's, but that can be fixed, if need be.

[skimmerhead]

is a rolls royce nicer than volkswagen?


skimmerhead :takinWiz:

[Gee_Wizz01]

The short answer is YES! NOE molds cast correctly right out of the box, just follow the instructions in the box for prepping the mold before using. NOE molds cast to the correct diameter, they are well machined and the bullets drop freely from them and you get a top punch with them also. If you should have a problem, Swede stands behind them and will make it right. They are worth every penny.

G

[ph4570]

NOE's are a thing of beauty, accuracy and functionality. LEE's are, well, just LEE's -- you roll the dice and take your chances.

[fatnhappy]

HI:

Is NOE molds worth the extra money over Lee molds.

Thanks,
Terryt

absolutely

[Jack Stanley]

I have two NOE molds and three or four LEE molds . The LEE are a little out of round some are a touch undersized for what I want but they'll take a Hornady gas check easy and they shoot fine . For the most part they cast easy most of the time .

The two NOE ..... The gas check shank is big on both of them and I have to hammer the checks on to seat them . One of the molds refuses to fill out regardless of temp , alloy , pour style , smoked or not , phase of the moon or pleadings . The other , I don't try to gas check it anymore , I just drive it at low velocity and it works fine .

Worth the money ? not for what I'm doing with the bullets , oddly enough the LEE works as well and I can seat a check to it easy .

Jack

[R.C. Hatter]

:coffee: Is a pig's butt pork ? NOE moulds beat anything Lee ever thought about 6 ways to Christmas. The QUALITY is built right in, and they stand behind their products. This is not to say Lee moulds are not servicable, but NOE moulds, like Miha's, exude quality. Unfortunately, you have to pay for it.

[Heavy lead]

a 5 cavity NOE at $92 is worth WAY more than a Lee custom group buy at $75 is, the NOE is a $125 mould, the Lee a $35 mould, simple as that.

[terryt]

Hi:

Thanks, I figured NOE was better but wanted to be sure.

Thanks,

Terryt

[btroj]

I really like my NOE molds. I think they have a much nicer product than Lee. Does this mean the bullets shoot better? No. But I find it casts a bullet I like and it is a pleasure to use a well made mould. I also am willing to pay for a better made mould because I appreciate the work that went into it.
I would have no trouble with either- I am far more likely to buy a mould for a bullet I want rather than looking at the manufacturer as a major criteria.

[Artful]

I love all my NOE molds - and they provide designs that are not available elsewhere and I think are worth every penny I paid for them.

But I think for the money the LEE 6 cavity are an exceptional bargin as are the handles.
I would have to say I would recommend to a person new to casting , they would be better off spending money on LEE's six cavity over their single or double cavity molds.

[pls1911]

NOE hands down. ..No contest

[That'll Do]

NOE molds are definitely way ahead of Lee molds hands down. My NOE molds are a pleasure to cast with.

[NuJudge]

I can cast a bit faster with a Lee than I can with the NOE, but there are times when Lee is a bit off dimensionally.

[Just Duke]

NOE moulds are fantastic!

[primersp]

NOE moulds cast at the size and weight they are built for

[Shooter6br]

Still waiting for mine. I am sure they are top line molds.

[SCIBUL]

+ 1 for NOE molds. They cast straight right dimension boolits. I have several LEE molds in 2 or 6 cavities and like the boolits they make but my NOE is definitively better. I own the 7mm hunter and once the mold is broken the reject ratio is near 2%. It is a 4 cavities and boolits are within 0.3grs tolerance : fine !

[Ohio Rusty]

Does NOE have a wesite or a link to their mould selection?
Ohio Rusty ><>

[a.squibload]

Another plus for NOE molds: their RG molds make hollowpoints!

[runfiverun]

n.o.e. is a vendor sponser here and he [AL] should be easily contacted through a p.m.
b.t.w. i tried my first noe mold tonight and it definately will not be the last one.
it dropped the very first slightly wrinkled boolits from the mold as soon as i opened it.
after the initial warm up it took a tap and all 4 boolits actually measured what the drawing said they would.
very happy person.

[Mal Paso]

Got my NOE 429421 yesterday noon. Had it seasoned by evening and made 600 Boolits last night. The first ones dropped without coaxing and once I got the hang of it I could open the mold keeping all the boolits on one side and drop them without a scratch. Don't have a Lee but NOE is Definitely better than Lyman. Thanks Al!

[Storydude]

Apples and oranges.

NOE molds are custom run, Lee are mass-produced.

[Newtire]

Does NOE make a larger assortment of moulds than Lee for our purposes-sure. Do they cast any better....Couldn't prove it by me. To be honest, not real fond of hollow point method. Have a few Cramers and am spoiled? I have a nice NOE that makes good 215 grain .44 boolits. Kind of high dollar moulds and since my first one was such a dud & was told I had to run it hot....Didn't have those issues with other moulds. Maybe they have gotten better.?

[AggiePharmD]

Funny I found this today as I've been thinking about the same thing? Is an NOE or Accurate mold better at about three times the price of a 6 banger Lee? Probably so. I've got one NOE in a rifle bullet and absolutely love it. I'm looking for a WC 38 cal mold and can't make my mind up which way to go. I've about decided NOE/Accurate are the way to go but neither really have what I think I'm looking for really.

Thanks for bringing this topic up.

[WALLNUTT]

If a NOE doesn't cast the proper diameter body or GC shank send it back they will make it right.

[theleo]

If you have problems with a Lee mold call them and get tec support. If there's a problem with a NOE mold you call and talk to the owner. The only issue I've had with NOE is I made an order for a 4 cav mold that showed in stock but their inventory was off. I got a call from Swede letting me know the situation, he asked if I'd be happy with a 5 cav in the same design? "Yeah that's fine with me, how much more do I owe you to get the 5 cavity?" and Swede said "Our mistake, you don't owe us anything." His molds drop like they say they will without any modification and his customer support is second to none. NOE is there first place I go.

[GLL]

I have two NOE molds and three or four LEE molds . The LEE are a little out of round some are a touch undersized for what I want but they'll take a Hornady gas check easy and they shoot fine . For the most part they cast easy most of the time .

The two NOE ..... The gas check shank is big on both of them and I have to hammer the checks on to seat them . One of the molds refuses to fill out regardless of temp , alloy , pour style , smoked or not , phase of the moon or pleadings . The other , I don't try to gas check it anymore , I just drive it at low velocity and it works fine .

Worth the money ? not for what I'm doing with the bullets , oddly enough the LEE works as well and I can seat a check to it easy .

Jack

What was Al's response when you discussed the problems with him?

5-6 years ago I had what I considered a slightly out-of-spec mold and gave him a call. Four days later I had a new mold on my desk ! He has the best customer service available !

Jerry

[hermans]

There is no comparison.....you get what you pay for. NOE molds are in a different class.Life is just too short to do your casting with Lee molds.

[MT Gianni]

I believe NOE's quality has improved over the 5 year life span of this thread. Not by much as it didn't need much. Lee has had to improve their 2 cavity molds to even stay in the market.

[William Yanda]

Is a Cadillac worth more than a VW or Yugo?

Personally, I have more Lee molds than NOE molds but I do have both.

[Char-Gar]

Fiat and Ferrari are both Italian cars that begin with the letter "F", but that is where the comparison ends. Lee and NOE are both aluminium bullet molds, but that is where the comparison ends.

[xd45forever]

I just got my first NOE and I will say that it WILL NOT BE MY LAST!! I started out on lee's and I have some lymans too but the NOE is the way to go!!perfect boolits every time!

[tazman]

I have great success with both Lee and NOE. I tend to prefer NOE mold because the quality is better. That said, I use my Lee molds just as much as my NOE molds. I just can't seem to get some designs in NOE yet.

[Oreo]

IIRC, several years ago NOE was contracting the mold production out and just playing administration of the group buys. That was when wait times were pushing two years out. Then Al opened his own machine shop to do all the work in-house. Wait times dropped dramatically and Al has first-hand quality control. I would imagine any quality difference over the years was a result of this transition.

[MT Chambers]

NOE, ACCURATE, LBT, MOUNTAIN MOLDS, all make aluminum molds, that's where comparisons with Lee end.

[StrawHat]

I have molds from both Lee and NOE. the Lees are from the old Group Buys and cast as ordered. The NOE molds are from Group buys and cast as ordered. I am happy with both.

I also have some of the early Lee one and two cavity molds for a variety of calibers. They all cast to correct dimensions and give me boolits I can use. Maybe I have been lucky, but many of my molds have been casting for 40+ years.

The biggest factor for me is the shape of the boolit. If Lee has the mold I want, I will try it. If it is not aailable from Lee, I look elsewhere.

Kevin

[dragon813gt]

Apples and oranges. The comparison starts and ends w/ aluminium. Not saying that Lee molds don't cast great bullets. I simply don't have the time to "Leement" them in the cases where they don't work properly. I gladly pay the premium for a NOE mold. There is a reason I sent all my Lee molds down the river :)

[GhostHawk]

My Budget for Guns, reloading, casting all comes out of my Social Security check.
Because of health problems for the previous 16 years I'm getting the minimum.

So out of my 568$ a month check I am allowed an allowance of 168$ a month.

Remember I was unable to work, had virtually no income I could spend for 15 years. So this is good.

But, starting from scratch, with nothing, would you really choose 1 high end mold over 5 Lee Molds?
Because that is exactly the situation I am in. So every time I added a gun, new cartridge, I needed ammo, dies, mold, size kit, ammo boxes, and powder. Comparing the NOE or similar 100$ mold to the Lee in that situation the Lee wins every time. 50$ and you have press, 40$ and you have both a mold and a sizing kit.

Now if you have the dollars, and can afford that expensive perfectly milled mold, by all means, go ahead.

But could you back off on looking down your noses just a little bit for those of us who can't?
There are MANY of us who are just barely making it.

[Smoke4320]

The new style Lee 2 cavity molds are suffering from pin holes too close to body edge. Many are either under or oversized. Almost all require stoning the sprew plates, drilling, tapping for setscrew for pivot screw and deburring.
NOE, Accurate do not
Old adage still applies
You get what you pay for

[Springfield]

I have some of everybodys mould. Personally I prefer my Accurates to my NOE's, but that is just a personal thing. I love my HM2 moulds, I wish he would come back. My Mihecs make wonderful hollowpoints. And I have LOTS of LEE 6 cavities. For cranking out lots of Cowboy bullets or plinking bullets, they are difficult to beat, price wise. Just be ready to work on them to keep them running. Sometimes work on them a lot. I have a couple of 44-40 LEE moulds that have a few hundred thousand bullets through them, and they hardly resemble a stock mould anymore. The others, they just work. So if you are really into accuracy, and need an exact bullet, NOE, Accurate are the way to go. If the LEE mould happens to fit your gun, great, but it is the luck of the draw. It all depends on your demands.

[clum553946]

I'm new to this & have a few Lee's, 1 Noe & 3 Accurate's. I believe you pay for what you get. I've been taking a few newbie shooting buddies to the range & bought the Lee's to learn on plus they were inexpensive, so if I didn't like casting, I wouldn't be out that much. Well, I found myself liking it & the 6 cavity Lee's put out a lot of boolits fast! They're great for letting these guys blow through a bunch of rounds, plus getting me a ton of casting practice. The Accurate's just flat out cast great boolits. They mic out within tolerance & are not out of round like the Lee's slightly tend to be. Just bought the Noe so I haven't tried it yet, but there's a ton of difference in the way the Noe & Accurate moulds feel and cast as opposed to the Lee's. Whether they are worth the extra money is an individual call & depends on what your needs are in my humble opinion.

[quasi]

a 5 cavity NOE at $92 is worth WAY more than a Lee custom group buy at $75 is, the NOE is a $125 mould, the Lee a $35 mould, simple as that.

this I agree with.

[rbuck351]

I have a bunch of Lee molds and 5 NOE molds. For pistol molds the Lee's work fine. I have a few nose rider Lee molds that don't ride the bore by 2 to 5 thousands undersize. My NOE boolits actually ride the bore like they are supposed to. None of my Lee nose rider boolits fit the bore. All of my NOE nose riders fit the bore. I have yet to get a Lee rifle boolit that shoots well. The NOE boolits all shoot well. That is worth the higher cost to me. I called Al twice. First because my order got messed up because of my address change. He sent a second mold before I figured out the first mold was sitting at the post office instead of in my mailbox. Called the second time to tell him I was sending back one mold. Great guy with great molds, answers his own phone and will bend over backward to get customer satisfaction.

[Hamish]

Guy's, the OP was 5 years ago,,,,,,,,,,,

If you're going to discuss the quality issue, you would need to discuss the quality comparisons of 5 years agooooooooo,,,,,,,,,,,

[Virginia John]

As with anything else, you get what you pay for but Lee molds work just fine. They may not be the Rolls Royce but they get you where you are going.

[Harter66]

But the thread is back at the top again.

Right now today for a utility pistol bullet I would buy a 6cav Lee. Why ? It's $60 to the door ,the sprue handle is a neat asset of them, and it makes a pile of usable boolits in a hurry for volume shooting where 2" is close enough.
For a rifle bullet well NOE gets the go ahead every time . I have several Lee rifle moulds and 1 of them is serviceable in 2 rifles from plinkers to game the others are plinkers only ,that I blame on the rifles but I have to fidget with the moulds and rattle them and they only come in 2 cavities even if they worked well.
I do have a communication issue with a NOE mould but they are 4-5 cavity rifle moulds and I have the communication problem figured out now . It was/is me. I don't have the 1st Lee mould I bought 8 yr ago it was recently replaced with a 6C but the 7mm Hunter I bought 3 yr ago will be around a long time .

The reason I bought the 1st NOE mould was because I'd been looking for a particular bullet weight for a project . I had found an RCBS at a vendor and when I got to the check out shipping had the mould up to with in $10 of the 4c NOE price for the 2c . As is my way I added $20 and ordered the 5C . Even the rejects looked good out of the mould . Never going back.

[MostlyOnThePaper]

Fiat and Ferrari are both Italian cars that begin with the letter "F", but that is where the comparison ends. Lee and NOE are both aluminium bullet molds, but that is where the comparison ends.

Almost where the comparison ends. They BOTH use Lee handles :kidding:

[Jack Stanley]

When I bought my two molds through group buys It was indeed some time ago if his quality is better now than what it was then , I'm very happy for everyone that uses them and is happy . ME ..... I'm not likely to buy another , that's not saying I won't or they are bad . I got two lemons in a row and I'm not looking to make it three .

[bedbugbilly]

Lee versus NOE . . . Chevy versus Mercedes. They'll both get you there but one rides a little nicer and costs more.

I have Lees, Ideal/Lyman, RCBS, Ohaus, Winchester and one NOE - a spacial buy. The NOE is faintstic!

But . . . if a person is on a budget . . . Lee's will produce good boolits. I have only had one "clunker" from Lee (I've owned probably 20 different ones over the years) and my "clunker" should never have left the factory - pins not installed correctly (they didn't even extend to catch the opposing block) and when I corrected that, the cavities were misaligned. Kind of soured me on them . . . now, if I order one . . . it's from a sponsor here and I just request that they take the mold out of the box and inspect it before shipping . . . which they are happy to do.

If I was really in to shooting a particular pistol/rifle (I don't shoot competition - just a plainker at my age of 62) I would save and get a NOE - great molds and great service. I like to "play" - mainly shoot 38s, etc. so the Lee is affordable to try different styles and weights. My NOE was for my 1905 Danzig GEW98 - wanted a lighter bullet for cat sneeze loads and the boolit from the NOE is about as perfect as I could expect.

[jethunter]

I have a lot of NOE molds. the only problems I've had were with alignment pins and binding. If NOE could get that issue fixed they would be the premier mold maker.

[dragon813gt]

Just ordered another NOE today. Their weekly special w/ 15% off combined w/ the 10% off I had from being part of the $1k club means a mold for my 375 H&H is on it's way :)

I do wish their alignment pins weren't as blunt. I've had some galling issues w/ them. Don't have this issue w/ the tapered pins on Mihec molds. The molds still work, I just have pay more attention when opening and closing them.

[Green Frog]

The only aluminum moulds I own are a pistol bullet NOE and a Black Powder Carbine bullet mould by Lee. The former came out about 8-10 grains heavier than I expected, but is virtually perfect for its intended purpose. I have yet to cast anything with the latter, but it is a special order 6 cavity mould, so I expect it to be superior to the run-of-the-mill ones from regular production. BTW, traditionally it's a good idea to have pistol bullets drop a thousandth or two over final size to give a little bit to size and lube with. It's only my single shot rifle bullets I expect to drop out at their final size.

Given my choice, I still prefer iron mould blocks, but that wasn't your question. ;)

Froggie