LBT and Veral Smith -- As I'm from Australia and not the U.S. I'm wondering if anyone has had any dealings with this Company? Are his molds any good and do they cast quality projectiles? He suggests that the chamber and bore be sluged for size so he can cut an accurate mold to suit my bore. I'm wanting 405gn and 500gn molds for my Lott to use for practice,Pigs etc and trial on Buffalo in the Northern Territory of Aust. Also can anyone reccomend a brand of Bullet Sizer without a heater. Thanks from Ozzy.

He used to answer questions directly on his own forum at Graybeard's Outdoors.

His molds have an excellent reputation but their reputation is largly from large caliber pistol molds. You might check on his current legal status since he tends not to get along with the US Treasury Dept.
Mountain Molds also produces good molds that you can design yourself.

If you are willing to use molds with tin-lead (no antimony alloys) and no gas checks Paul Jones makes the best on the planet and Steve Brooks is really good also.

You can check their websites.

There are several other very good bullet mold makers that can match Veral Smith. Try asking around at Cast Boolits, BPCR.net and the Single Shot rifle forums.

Others include Hoch which require modified handles and NEI.

You might also check with "Accurate bullet molds" I've heard good things about their molds and his deliver time is fast.

Hal

There's a fairly famous mold maker that's down in Australia.... Makes top quality stuff...

His name escapes me right now - but he is well known in the cast bullet competition circles..

That's where I would start...

CBE is the Aussie mould maker you are thinking of.

I have few of Veral Smiths moulds and while they work fine I was a bit underwhelmed by what they were for the money I paid.

Most of my moulds are off the shelf moulds and now have some from group buys on cast boolits. The MIHEC moulds are produced mostly for group buys on that site and the quality and price for what you get is outstanding. The downside is you have to want what is on offer and the group buys can take a while to be delivered because of his backlog.

One of the most useful and most accurate 458 cal moulds I have is one I had CBE make up for me. It is based on Gould's HP design (which Lyman still make) but I had Jim add some more weight and a GC shank. I now have several HP pins and a pin to make solid nose pills. Depending on pin and alloy used it can weigh anywhere from 390 to 440 gr. It's a nice mould and very accurate but being a one off custom it was not cheap.

There are several suitable designs by Lyman, RCBS and Saeco for your application and I would consider one of those. Best thing to do first though is try to make a throat impression of your chamber's throat and slug the bore and you can go from there. If you are not familiar with how to do this go to the reference area on the cast boolits site or search google.

In terms of bullet sizers I have an RCBS unit and it works fine. With most designs the heating is not standard and can be added later.

quote:

Originally posted by JFE:
I have few of Veral Smiths moulds and while they work fine I was a bit underwhelmed by what they were for the money I paid.

I'm in total agreement with this statement.

The cavities are extremely well made but the rest of the mold is rather humdrum. The alignment pins are press fit roll pins without wear bushings on the female side. They are sticky and wear with use. The sprue plate is an interesting design, being a machined stamping that creates thin cups over the bullet base to slow the rate of cooling at the bullet base, but it doesn't seem to work any better than a properly filled thick sprue plate. The pivot is fine but the hold down finger is another split roll pin and gimmicky. They are well ventilated and do tend to cast high quality bullets but I'd much rather have a Ballisti-Cast or Accurate mold.

perhaps Paul Jones or Steve Brooks can provide you with what you want.

check their websites.

I had this one made at Accurate Molds for my 458 Lott.
http://www.accuratemolds.com/b...bullet=46-530E-D.png
It is about 510 gr with hard alloy and have shown very good accuarcy in both 458 WinMag and my 458 Lott. We measured them to about 2100 fps.
My plan was to get a heavy large meplat huntingbullet for the Lott. I have used the same design in my 470NE and it have flattens everything this far.
I size them in a Lee sizer to .460 before putting them into my Rcbs lubesizer. I do this just to save my Rcbs from the hard alloy big bullets.

SR,

sad news to relate. Paul stopped production about six months ago. Like the rest of us, he is getting old. The bad news he got about a ten-year head start.

If I wanted a really high quality mold these days, I would look at NOE in Utah.

I have about a dozen of his, both rifle and pistol. Lyman made a great mold for the .458"s.
NOE makes a copy, big blunt nosed 500 +/-gr.
You can get a multi-cavity with mixed HP and standard. He ships to OZ.

Rich

quote:

Also can anyone reccomend a brand of Bullet Sizer without a heater

I went to Lee push through sizer and Alox lube but then I don't push by bullets really hard.

One can size a lot of bullets in a short time.

I have been using LBT for years and have nothing but good words to say about his molds. I have a two in 458 one a 400 gr LFN the other is a 525 SP. Size at .4605. In my Ruger 77 these bullets will group under 1 1/4 at 100 yards when I do my part, of course some froups are better these are averages. I use an RCBS sizer die with LBT lube. PM me if any questions.