Handles for every mould?

[woodlecj]

Just starting out casting and am gathering some moulds off of eBay. Should I have handles for every mould or do people move the handles around?

Thanks,
Craig

[Longwood]

Just starting out casting and am gathering some moulds off of eBay. Should I have handles for every mould or do people move the handles around?

Thanks,
Craig

A member here sells the Lee 4 cavity handles for cheap.
In the past, I often modified handles to work with other brands.
The Lee handles are surprisingly well made for the price and if I am going to grind and drill handles, it will the ones from Lee.

[Longwood]

Just starting out casting and am gathering some moulds off of eBay. Should I have handles for every mould or do people move the handles around?

Thanks,
Craig

Not all mold on ebay are bad,,, but all bad molds seem to end up there.

[woodlecj]

Thanks Longwood, I always look on Swappin & Sellin, but these folks here are fast! They must monitor that forum by the minute!

So, since the Lee handles are cheap, you're saying just get them for every mold? Are there any adjustments to be made or just screw 'em in?

[PbHurler]

I use two sets of Lee, two sets each large & small Lymans, two sets RCBS & two sets Saeco and just switch them to whatever moulds I'm using. (I have lots of various manufacturers' moulds)

[geargnasher]

There's a sticky in the mould sub-forum regarding what handles fit what moulds, if that would help.

Gear

[Elkins45]

Unless you're casting commercially where every minute of down time costs you $$$ then I don't see any great reason to have more than a couple of sets of handles in each style. I have several duplicates of the Lyman 2 cavity style, but that's only because they were on the molds when I bought them at a swap meet.

I'm not overly frugal, but I don't see spending and extra $15-30 with every new mold just save five minutes swapping handles.

[woodlecj]

Elkins45,

That's what I wanted to hear!

[Longwood]

Thanks Longwood, I always look on Swappin & Sellin, but these folks here are fast! They must monitor that forum by the minute!

So, since the Lee handles are cheap, you're saying just get them for every mold? Are there any adjustments to be made or just screw 'em in?

Not quite,,,, by the second.
They are leaned over their computer keyboards with a finger poised.
Everyone seems to need extra's and they do sell well.

When the subject comes up a sale of the Lee handles sometimes is soon to follow.
The handles he sells is one of the better made products that Lee sell n my book and if you need to modify one a little, so be it. I have done quite a bit of grinding and drilling new holes in some of mine and they are then dual purpose and still work perfectly.

[paul h]

You can tie up alot of money of handles as you gather molds.

What I find is that with heavier bullet designs I'll be casting with two molds, i.e. while one mold is cooling, I'm cutting the sprue, removing bullets, refilling the cavities with the other mold. Hence I have 2 ea of RCBS and Lee 6 cavity handles which fit the majority of my molds. I only have one Lyman mold, so only one pair of lyman handles. I know Lee 6 cavity handles can be used for RCBS style molds, but I prefer the RCBS handles as the mold doesn't overhang the handles as much as on the Lee handles.

I can swap molds between handles in less than a minute. While I'm all for buying tools to save time, extra mold handles isn't the best use of my money.

[Longwood]

On any set of handles, it has been said that a great idea is to knock off the handles then glue them in place with a good adhesive that will stick to metal.

[captain-03]

Just swap them between moulds ... keep the expense down!!

[462]

Lee's six-cavity handles are very adaptable and possibly the best value of any casting item.

My single-cavity Ideal 308291 surely looks awfully comical and puny, stuck way out there on the end of a set of them.

[shadowcaster]

I have a set of handles on every mold, but that's how I purchased them. I would have handles on every mold anyway. I don't want to take the time screwing around changing them. They are always ready to go this way, WHENEVER I need them. A bit more expense, but well worth it to me.

Shad

[Longwood]

Lookie,,

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=153100

[fcvan]

I bought Lee handles for a Lyman 225-415 and yes, it looks odd. Who cares, the handles were 12 bucks. I have one set of mold blocks that doesn't have handles. The mold is new in box from Saeco, back when they were still in Carpenteria, CA. Dad bought the mold for the 30 Carbine but never actually cast for it. Turns out, the mold is for 32, not 30. I bought a Lee C308-120 RN for the Carbine because it was a gas check design. I'm tempted to try the 32 which is plain based and size it down. one of these days, the Lee mold is working out great in the M1 and the Blackhawk. Frank

[big dale]

I found that after buying the lee handles for about a dozen sets of molds that I had to go to a yard sale and pick up an old "chester drawers" to refinish so I would have a place to store my boolit molds. If I were working with only one set of handles I could have bought another mold from MiHec or Noe, and I always need another of their molds.

Have fun with this stuff.

Big Dale

[MikeS]

I like to have each mould mounted on it's own dedicated handle. When using brass and aluminum moulds that have relatively soft threads, it's conceivable that the screw holes could get loose from moving the moulds around. By mounting the moulds onto the handles on time I avoid this. The only problem with doing things this way other than it costing an additional $12 or so depending on where you buy your handles, is the fact that it takes up much more space.

Most of my 2 cavity moulds that I have (I don't have many of them) are mounted either on Lyman handles (if it's a Lyman mould), or T/C handles. The T/C handles are made from bronze I believe, and with a little bit of grinding they fit RCBS, and Saeco moulds (and possibly more, but those are the ones I've tried). I like the T/C handles as they look and handle like the old style Lyman handles, a nice compact setup.

[WilliamDahl]

I do not have handles for every mold that I have. I only have 2 sets of handles for the Lee 6-cavity molds. I swap them around to whatever I'm molding at the time. I'll usually mold 2 calibers at the same time and let each mold cool slightly while I'm filling up the next mold, before going back to the other one and dropping the bullets into water. I try to make the calibers different enough that I won't have difficulty in separating them later.

[Wayne Smith]

I have gradually accumulated a set of handles for each of the molds I use regularly. Infrequently used molds get handles switched around.