I'd like to see, and extended video, on the safe handling of lead, when casting bullets. Also, how to safely smelt down wheel weights. Thanks. Look forward to all your videos!
It's not a matter of cost with me. I've owned Marty's and other molds that cost far more, but Lee is my hands down favorite. Snipping sprue is not for me.
yes mine is a .312 185gr mould and is missing the cross hatching in a section as well. I haven't tested it out yet to see if it is detrimental to the casting. Bloody Shirley needs to pick up her game though hahaha.
You complain that the handles fall off after beating the mold handles?? I have many Lee molds that have good solid handles and my castings fall out easily. I prep them and try not to abuse them. Otherwise nice video.
I have found with my Lee two bullet that it works better when the mold is up to the right temp. Did you have any problems with the mold being so big to keep it at the right temp? I should have made a video on it as I did a few hundred rounds in one afternoon. All I did to get the mold up to temp was put the corner of the mold into the lead and let it sit for abit.
I bought slingshot pellet molds from do - it corporation it can also used for making buckshot or with a knife and mallet can be split for split shot . Each mold ( I bought two ) has two different sizes and the two molds do different sizes . I haven’t used them yet but they are well made with handles . I’ll have to get a weight on buckshot and sizes to compare to my slingshot pellets
I've seen those molds, they look quite simple not having a sprue cutter plate. I got rid of this Lee "000" and was lucky enough to get "00" buck and No. 4 buck Lee molds at a good price, both of those are better made than the "000" mold and I'm happy with them.
You can stack them 2 by 2 in a 12 gauge wad and if they are a little tight you can cut the wad petals off to give them a little more room. Just quietly you can substitute 6 000 Buck for 9 00 Buck and load them with the same data or if you want a nice light recoiling load then 1oz target data can be used with the 000.. Those 2 cavity .311 round ball moulds are also great for nice cheap Buckshot loads with 9 balls weighing an oz
Use a graphite based lube on the mold cavities and make sure the mold is plenty warm. As you see after you used it for awhile the shot got better. I use a propane torch at a distance of a foot or so to heat the molds evenly before starting to pour, the first few fills are toss backs into the pot and then the production begins when the interior of the mold is hot. If you use the graphite based spray your buckshot should fall out of the mold. Put some JB Weld epoxy in the handle holes.
Have you ever not seperated the shot, and instead just put 3 strings together in the shell? I've always wondered what the patterns would be like. If they would seperate in flight, or if they'd stay together.
I bought a dual cavity .495 calibre down ball because I needed it for my phone bill but was wondering what is the largest diameter you'd want to put inside of a 12g shotgun shell? I imagine it was triple 000 buck. thanks for the video I will be buying one of them
+RC Hunter If you want a big diameter you can use a single .690" round ball in a 12 gauge. With multiple projectiles I think 00 buck is really the biggest that makes sense.
I found that the little nub that hardens on the end of the casting pot nozzle can affect fill out. The tips of my lee 200 grain .309 mould were quite rough till i noticed this so i put a steel container under the nozzle and gave it a quick squirt to clear the nozzle and then poured into the mould. So does this mean you will try the drive key slugs again too? :-)
I recently worked out another trick to help fill out one of my problem moulds. I tried putting the sprue plate hole right against the nozzle of my furnace and gave it a good squirt on the handle. It made for really nicely filled out bullets, most probably because of all the weight of the lead pushing down into the cavity would have forced all the air out through the vent holes. Do these 000 work any good? I saw a mould for sale in Auckland which got me wondering :-)
I'm wondering. Seeing all the spurs and protrusions after the cast I'm wondering if you could get your hands on a rock tumbler with some ceramic cones or beads. Toss them in there, and get good round pellets. Yes I know they get squashed coming out, but i'd be more worried about marring the barrel from the protrusions.
why do you hit the handle multiple times instead of hitting the back of the mold ? other videos ive seen tap the back of the mold and they come out in one or two taps
it works good i also use wheel weights and water drop it makes for some hard buckshot after its tumbled it flys straight and patterns better then factory stuff
Just bought one but haven't used it yet. Surprised to find it was aluminium as all my rcbs moulds are heavy steel. But I'll just have to see how it lasts.
what's the make and model of that lead furnace? I've been in the market, but good user reviews seem thin on the ground, you seem to use it the same way I intend too. it seems apt.
did you make a video of you loading them 000 into anything i would like to see? i was frustrated with my 18 cavity mold for 00 buck too then it seems to be bigger than i want .330 i wanted .311 bummed out i have bunch of buck shot i cant use.
I have heard that will work as a way to separate the pellets. I sold this mold so unless I get another I will have no opportunity to try it out myself.
I have literally broken up tons of Lee #00 and #000 buckshot by tumbling in a dryer for 90 minutes. While they're tumbling, I pour more. I could never go back to snipping.
Is the slug sticking on the core pin? I've had good luck polishing the core pin with metal polish on a felt disk on a Dremel tool, helped the slugs come off the core pin easily.
Why wheel wieghts and not pure lead? Ammo manufacturers use the lead from recovered car batteries to make buckshot.That look like it was expensive. What the powder load your using to push it like 42 gr of blue dot? Glue the handles on.
Wheel weights are the most common scrap lead, and I had a 20 pound pot full of the stuff. The shot made by commercial makers is made by extruding lead in chunks, then rolling it to make it round. Because of the process the lead used must be soft or will not be formed properly. As for load data there is a limited amount of load data for 000 buckshot in the Lyman book, I dont recall the load from memory.
314299 Shooting Channel While it doesn't have a lot of buckshot data, the RCBS shotgun book is far more useful than the lyman book. It has hotter recipe, and far more variety. It also organizes the data better. The same load will show up further down the column with more powder,velocity and pressure data, so you don't have to guess at what you will get with loads between min and max.
It's this one. www.midwayusa.com/product/890340/rcbs-handbook-of-shotshell-reloading-reloading-manual I did a comparison here: www.midwayusa.com/product/890340/rcbs-handbook-of-shotshell-reloading-reloading-manual
+DrDakotaX Not really. Shot that starts off "perfectly" round is no longer round by the time it leaves the barrel, it gets deformed a lot by setback on firing.
hello friend, u could tell me how I make or where I can buy a formwork mold to manufacture pellets for 4.5mm rifles pressure ?or equipment that there thank? you.
i use a rock tumbler with a octagon drum on it it removes all the flats and nubs i use sharpshooter USA molds i have a few different sizes from #f to 0000
A screw, a pin, epoxy, would all work. My frustration is that the handles should not require repair or modification, as Lee should have made them correctly in the first place.
314299 Shooting Channel I agree that products should be made properly the first time from the factory. But, if the fix is so easy--and since you are clearly capable of it--why not just fix it, show the fix to others who wish to do the same, and then the product is better? And if it is a known issue, just fix it before the issue happens when you get it. Then it is 'never' a problem. I don't know. Just seems kind of silly to complain and then not do something about it to fix it.
***** It's "silly" to expect a quality product to be made and delivered by the manufacturer? I dont think so. The handles are not advertised/sold as a kit that requires the user to modify it to make it workable. My review was of the product that Lee makes and sells, showing the deficiencies is accurate and honest. Showing the necessary fixes would be a separate video, but I have no plans of doing so prior to reviewing the product.
do as i do look at the wal mart reduced ailes most of the water pipe safe solder is tin got 2 rolls for 3 bucks.. also a lil goes along way.. good casting my feind..
At the moment pretty much nowhere has these in stock. A "normal" price on a set of these would be around $60 US, but if you find a set on a place like eBay be prepared to pay a lot more.
I tried using much more heat but still did not get very good fill out. I got rid of this mold a couple years ago since I really wanted one to make 00 Buck. The 00 Buck mold I got works much better and fills out quite nicely.
Thanks for showing this new item, every new product has some issues.If your viewers think they can do it better job for less they could try out the US manufacturing market for them self's.
+Roy Pierce Most Lee molds are just fine and are a great deal for the money, we know Lee can make a good product at a decent price but their inspection process seems to have been a bit lacking in this instance.
I hate to say it you’re not an old-time caster. You take a candle to the mold and carbon the whole mold with the candle that will release anything that’s in the mold and you won’t have a problem banging on it.🧐
So I'm not an "old-time caster" am I? Well, I've been casting for close to 40 years at this point. Yes I'm quite aware of smoking molds and have done it myself to aluminum molds, however a good quality mold used with good alloy/temperature does not NEED to be smoked. Iron molds should never be smoked. Aluminum ones like the Lee products sometimes work better if smoked, but smoking a poorly made, defective mold like the one in the video will not magically cure it. I have dozens of Lee molds and for the most part they are satisfactory, but this one was a piece of junk that should not have been allowed out of the factory.
Ya’ll need to quit picking on Shirley. If ya’ll could have been at our last Christmas party ya’ll would better understand Shirley’s commitment to pleasing everyone!
If you havnt already seen them theres a (very) few recipes for 000buck in Lyman 5th edition Shotshell Reloading Handbook.. On the bright side I bet they would be awesome shooting them out of your .410! :-D lol
Since so many people claim Shirley inspected the product, maybe the factory ONLY hires inspectors named Shirley. Don't worry, it's a joke, Shirley I couldn't be serious.
She missed dents on two molds I've got too. Nothing as obvious as in the video, but the ones in the video could be cleaned up with a needle file easily. My dents, not so much.
instead of beating on the hinge pin, why don't you partially "LeeMent" the mould? take a hardwood stick and RUB HARD all over the cavities, and edges to remove the Burr left by the machining. I do this with EVERY aluminum mould, as they ALL have some burrs, even the best made ones You'll keep the mould tight, and the castings will come out MUCH easier!
My Lyman 35863 wad cutter mould is exactly the same... I have to wait for all the planets to align, say 10 hail marys and hold my tongue in the exact place in my mouth before it will drop both bullets cleanly :-| lol
I have the Lee 18 Cavity 00 and #4 Buckshot Molds, and I have been thinking about buying the 000 Buckshot Mold. I smoke my molds as well, but occasionally would have the same problem with the shot sticking. I found a product that works very well from Franklin Arsenal. It is a Drop Out Bullet Mold Release Agent and Lube. Here is the link: www.midwayusa.com/product/763758/frankford-arsenal-drop-out-bullet-mold-release-agent-and-lube-6-oz-aerosol No more bullets and/or buckshot sticking to the molds. They drop right out!! Give it a shot. I think you will like it.
all those burs and lips will always be there after machining unless you have a very good programmer that can come in with a small tool to clean them up, which costs time and money. normally they'd knock off those burs by hand but that also costs money. if you order a cheap debur tool off amazon you can clean all that up nicely. There's a reason why they're so cheap. you shouldn't expect the quality of lyman and saeco for that price.
Generally most Lee molds dont have as many issues as this one. I do expect any mold I buy to be functional out of the box, after all these are not advertised and sold as a kit requiring the purchaser to finish them. A break-in period is one thing, but manufacturing defects are quite another issue. If the manufacturer needs to put more time into a product to make it usable and functional out of the box than that is what they should do, and charge what is necessary to make a quality product.
314299 Shooting Channel yes they should do what it takes but in a competitive market corners get cut. you won't see something like this in a lyman mould ever. but it really could have been a lazy inspector, or they don't do 100 percent checks which coud be another posibility. either way, you generally get what you pay for. I work in a cnc shop as a machinist and we inspect every single part that goes out the door multiple times before hand and rejects from customers are very very rare and not good for business. you can imagine our parts are very very expensive. the parts I make can cost a few thousand dollars a piece and they are always absolutely perfect.
I was loading nine pellets if my memory is correct. There are a couple loads for 0 buck in the current Lyman Shotshell Handbook, I was using that data.
Their quality is going down hill...Just sent a 240g mold back to them because it was casting 260 to 265g bullets. They sent me a new one that is within 2 g. But it cost me $6.00 to send it to them and did not get that back.
The 452-230-TC TL mold I have consistently drops 243 grain bullets. I like the size, but there is no convenient data source. I had to find some iffy data and work up carefully.
I have shot buck shot,.....I ain't happy with the patterns. I exclusively use 6 and 7.5 shot and deer slugs and with that I can hunt anything. Except ducks and who cares about ducks. I will buy some BB rounds and test their patterns and if I like it I will cook up some loads that work best. Lee has some good stuff,........some.
Buckshot can be tricky stuff. Generally with buckshot the less choke the better, too much ruins the patterns. Even the best buckshot loads are still short range.
I have this mold. It looks like crap, the fit & finish is crap, but it works fine. I get 100% fillout, and the shot drop free, if I just up the heat and cast fast.
That is interesting I am no expert, although I have loaded countless 00 rounds using the lee mold and was told you don't need to cut them I have not noticed any problems
