FIRST EVER revolver casted boolits by myself. Please tell me what you think

[missionary5155]

Look like shootable slugs !!!
But yes some cylinders are not as long as others. Another reason I am very fond of Dan Wessons.
We use that same mold in numerous applications.

[Forrest r]

Lee dies a a good value for what they are and do a good job of producing generic reloads. The issue with them is that they are really designed for jacketed bullets.

You've already ran into the short comings of the seating stem. At the end of the day the expander button/expander stem is just as bad for cast bullets. Most other die mfg's use a "cowboy action" or "m-die" sets of reloading dies. These dies have long bodied bullets/lead bullets in mind. They can still load jacketed bullets but their main focus is cast/coated/lead bullets.

A m-die does 2 things. It has a small step (small large ring at the to of the expander button) that makes a shelf in the top of the case. The bullet being loaded sits on this shelf, it aids in keeping the bullet strait when seating. The end result is no bullet bulge to 1 side of the case and no swaging of the bullets base on 1 side from being seated crooked. The other thing the m-die does is expand the case deeper then the traditional lee expander. This aids in keeping the bullet strait when seats, causes less deformation of the bullet & protects the bullets base from beings swaged down.
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A lee factory expander next to a lyman m-die. The m-die goes into the case to the step at the top of the expander button. You can clearly see a brass ring/high water mark left on the lee expander by the brass cases.
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I do have some lee dies sets. I like their taper crimp dies and use the lee dies to reload the 9mm's and 45acp's. I do either use a factory m-die like the 1 pictured above for the 45acp. Or make my own like this 1 for the 9mm's.
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If you really sit down and think about it. There was a lot of force put on your cast bullet to de-form the nose. What you're not seeing is the bullet's base being swaged down in size or out of round or both. This excessive force will also affect the bullets body, drive bands, lube grooves, etc.

This is another reason commercial caster typically sell +/- 16bhn bullets, they can take the punishment.

You're making custom ammo with your own cast bullets (I consider a cast bullet a custom bullet). To get the most out of them it's a good idea to get dies that are cast bullet friendly. NOE makes an expander ball that's excellent for little $$$$ that uses the lee universal expander die body as the parent die. You simply buy the expander button for the caliber your reloading cast bullets for. Very nice setup that you buy the expanders for every caibler you wish to reload cast bullets with and use the same lee universal die body.

If you get a chance to buy a used rcbs 38spl/357 seating die, do so. I see them every now and then at gunshows, single dies sell for +/- $5. They also come up from time to time on places like e-bay. I like rcbs simply because the have 3 different seating stems for their 38spl/357 seating dies. If you call them they will ship you a new 1 for free.

Anymore i make my own custom expander buttons and my own seating stems. I use 2 sets of rcbs dies, 1 for the 38spl & the other for the 357's. Rcbs fixed me up with the different seating stems & I use a m-die to expand the cases. I use a set of lyman dies for the 44spl and hornady for the 44mag. I make my own seating stems for them. I've also made my own seating stems for lee dies in the past.

It may seem a little odd or a lot of different things to do/change to reload cast bullets. Myself I've been casting my own bullets since 1985 using nothing more than 8/9bhn range scrap. I still use that same 8/9bhn alloy/range scrap to this day. I found early on that I had the ability to mangle and deform my cast bullets far worse then the poor quality wrinkled up under sized boolits I was casting when I 1st started casting.

There was no internet back then & I started out with a lee 10# pot and a h&g #50 6-cavity mold. Heck it only took 4 or 5 tries and a lot of cussing to figure out I might want to pre-heat the mold instead of setting it on top of the pot or dipping corners in the melt.

Anyway, sorry for being long winded, those are some good looking bullets you cast & they look pretty darn good sitting in that gp100.