I am a person that enjoys a list of suggestions to follow in order to get a better final product. I am still fairly new at this game. I came up this list after reading a lot on this forum. I have Saeco, Ballisticast, RCBS, and H&G molds already, and really didn’t want to use an “inferior” Lee mold after all the bad things I had heard about them.
But, I wanted to try a particular Lee bullet and so I broke down and ordered the 6 cavity mold. There is nothing new in this list. I stole all of this material from others here and just put a few pictures with it so that the beginner would understand what to do with his new Lee mold. I have now changed my attitude toward Lee Molds. I’m quite happy with the Lee mold that I have, now that I have done these steps.
1. Step one was to install a cam screw. The Lee 6 cavity molds use a hand sprue cutter that cams off the mold block. You drill a 1/8” hole, countersink it, and then screw in a sheet rock screw for the sprue cutter to cam off of. This gives you steel on steel and doesn’t wear the mold block down as you cast thousands and thousands of boolits.
The next picture shows you how it works.
2. The next thing I did was to drill and tap the block for a set screw so the sprue plate would not loosen up as you operate the sprue plate. I used a 10/32 set screw.
3. The backside of the sprue plate was not flat. I put it on my belt sander and with the sander off; I sanded the sprue plate, by hand, to flatten it out. I did not sand it so much that I sanded the vent lines out. I just slightly flattened it out.
4. I kissed the edges of the mold blocks on the sandpaper again to deburr the blocks to allow them to close.