I got a package today, too. My very own 8mm Maximum mold. This means the 8mm Maximums and 6 holer 8mm Karabiners are going to be dropping in all over the US starting today.

http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/so_mould.asp

I just finished cherrying my new mold up and I even Oldfeller stamped it to make it completely official (now that will be a collectable, as it is the ONLY 8mm Maximum with the Oldfeller stamp, ever). She sits on the eye of the wife's stove, curing out the buffering compound while the bottom pour pot melts in.

Soon I will really know, finally, exactly how much a frosty cast 8mm Maximum is going to really weigh in WW metal. I wonder how much short or over my 225-230 grain guesstimate actually will be?

*************************

I am chortling with glee. It works !! LEE hit the numbers on all the band sizes and on the bore ride nose and it dropped bullets from the mold starting with cast #1 and I am not going to have to lap it or do NOTHING to it !!!!

A swelt and dainty 241 grains as-cast all frosty hot, no gas check & no lube. Missed it by 11 grains (on the light side), not too bad for a volumetric guesstimate.

Great googamooga what a hoss of a bullet! Meplat is .208", length is 1.205" long, bore ride nose is .322", first band is .325" second band is .326", rest of the bands are .327" and I can just necco coat the thing "as-cast" and shoot it as it fits the Paul Mauser mil-std 8mm throat like a glove.

I just stuck one in my 1924 Yugo M-48 well-used throat mauser at a 3.200 OAL, it pushed back to 3.185" OAL and stuck lightly in the throat requiring a very light cleaning rod tap out, marking the first second and third bands very lightly along the the tiniest hint of rifling marks out at the end of the bore rider. If I had really re-sized the case neck (instead of just rolling it on the desk to close it up a bit) it would have stayed with the case I do believe. This one meets the hunting unloading requirements.

I'm gonna shine it up and try again (going for more rifling marks with a full target-style single loading. This time out to a 3.230 single loaded target only OAL (gas check and first driver band only in case mouth type loading, just like the 6.5 Swede). Oooh, it went in. Stuck hard in the throat, pushed back only to the start of the second driver band and got 4 firm rifling marks, a weak first band, a strong second band and a serious crush on the .327" diameter third driving band. It works for the longer single type target loading, too.

$13.55 for a good cast elk/bear/long distance target bullet, I love it.

LEE did their job with excellence on this one, on their own steam, too. Midsouth delivered the goods for a fully discounted standard mail-order price. The design worked and actually DROPPED from the mold as cut by LEE with NO leement (the extra draft in the design helped a lot, I do believe).

Christmas in January !! A brand new mold becomes real and my honey is actually still talking to me !!

P.S. I tried the 8mm Maximum in the Yugo M-48A, the one with the modern ball-cone seat throat and the push-back OAL was 2.930" which means the gas check and the one lube groove right above the gas check would be back down in the powder charge on that particular gun.

Oh well, I always told everyone it wouldn't stay in the neck on a ball-cone throated M48-A gun with that modern short ball cone seat. And it didn't.

Oldfeller

You sound as happy as a "kid in a candy store" I went out and checked the front porch, no package yet, I don't know if I should get the lead pot going so I can start right away.

Oldfeller,
This is great news! You've got me excited. I guess I'll be getting mine by the first of next week, Maine being so far away from Midsouth and all. I'm still worked up over your Swede boolit, I've got 60 of them ready for the range tomorrow.
Maineboy

Oldfeller, Read your post with intrest and your effort with the 8mm heavy in the ball cone seat of the mod 48-a yugo. Don't know if you got the lighter karabiner mould too, bet you did, but at a tenth of an inch shorter, it sounds like it ought to fit the Yugo 48-a. Am I right about this, I should have followed this closer.

woods

I don't have anything that shoots .323 bullets, don't expect to buy one, but I sure have a a good time watching Oldfeller have such a good time.

I emailed Midsouth today, asking about the 8mm Maximum, they replied that the moulds are still on order. Oldfeller must have the only one.

No, another 25 were just cut and shipped. They may be saying they are collecting the next order and are between orders again.

In any case, the drill at Midsouth is to place your order up front and then you will be put into one of the 25 mold order sets that are constantly being processed on through.

If you call expecting to catch a spare mold, likely all you will ever hear is "It shows on backorder at the moment, would you like to place an order for one?" There should never be spare molds if Midsouth does the system correctly.

Oldfeller

Oldfeller, I ordered the mould quite some time ago, right after you announced the availability of it and long before the "on order" info was added to their special order moulds page. When that information was added, I assumed that my order was one to be filled in the first shipment.
I'm wondering if I have been overlooked.
The reply I received to my email inquiry was
"The item is still on order, I am sorry for the delay. Thanks!!"
Have you heard of anyone else receiving theirs?
Maineboy

I checked with Mid-south today and my molds shipped yesterday. I checked my credit card and it was billed yesterday.

I checked also and mine was shipped today.

Mine shipped today.

Mainboy,

Let me guess, you were so early in the process if you placed your order the clerk said "Whazzat? We don't have any custom cut molds .... Oh, part number xxxxxxx? Yes, I show that in the computer at $13.55."

I don't know that this happened to you, but would not be surprised if it were the case.

There were 3-4 people who got orders placed on the raw part number verbally with clerks, orders which languished in being added to a 25 lot as they WERE NOT PLACED THROUGH THE WEB PAGE. These folks were supposed to be rolled into the clean up order which took place a few weeks ago.

Beyond this, I have no explanation to offer as to why folks did not get their molds in a timely fashion.

(please use the web page for ordering the custom cut stuff, I do -- it works better that way).

There has been confusion inside MidSouth as they worked through their various system conflicts. I just reviewed the web page and the pricing is still not corrected on the double cavity molds.

It has been increased slightly but is still single cavity pricing.

Last time I called them about this issue Midsouth simply stopped, cut an immediate lot of single cavity molds at LEE and tried to clean up ALL the outstanding orders that way.

Apparently the parent systems bug is still stopping them from being successful in changing to double cavity pricing.

Now I am being told the web page and order shipment system will not be able to be corrected completely until during the month of March at the earliest. Probably needs a bug fixed by a outside programmer, who knows?

Midsouth is rolling out the mailings for their new catalog and is tied up totally in that imperative business deadline right now. There is nobody free to work on anything other than the catalog right now.

Remember, Midsouth isn't a huge company like some of the ones we all work for. Getting that catalog out is their life-blood for the rest of this year.

However, they ARE the one company that is willing to supply custom-cut molds for fully discounted pricing, so I am willing put up with an ordering system bug or two until they can get them fixed.

Other than Mainboy, is there anybody else who has NOT gotten shipment notification on their order? Ancient or recent, doesn't matter to me. I will attempt to get it rectified. Just post it here.

***********************

Also, please remember that if any of us come up with a good, accurate design and want to get Mountain Mold to cut the try-out mold, cast it, shoot it enough to have confidence in it, then that same design can then be put into the Midsouth system by ANY OF US and produced for less than $15 (single cav) or less than $18 for a double cavity.

I intend to follow this path from now on myself, as Mountain Mold can cut a one-off tryout mold for me for $70, which is less than I spent on the 6.5 and 8mm profile slug molds (which were not shootable).

I would be happy to show you how to do this.

I want to be blunt here, if I had had a fully shootable 6.5 mold, I would have shortened the 6.5 bullet some. Hindsight is 20-20, but using a Mountain Mold tryout mold give you 20-20 vision and you also get invaluable REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE SHOOTING IT from multiple people, and that is very desireable in my post-6.5-Swede eyes.

It was not available back then, but it sure is available now and should be used. Custom design stuff is tricky, and unless you test both FIT and FUNCTION it can suprise you.

Oldfeller

****************************

Just got off the phone with the manager over this area at Midsouth. There have been 3 rounds (or full cycles) of 25 count orders for the custom cut molds. The very last round was the clean up round, and it cut off at whatever the number was on that day.

He has NO left over 8mm Maximum molds and is a quarter of the way up to the next order quantity as we speak.

He has 7 molds that are being held up for B/O on "other items" (somebody said "only ship it complete" and now you are caught in the gas check shortage).

He supposedly has a few six cavity 8mm Karabiner molds that were accidentally created when rounding up when ordering from LEE. These are on the shelf and available now.

He will make sure the extra 6 cavity 8mm Karabiners show in the system for phone in or Web Page ordering (I'd still order through the web page -- it works better that way).

Don't say "only ship it complete" and order any Factory Back Ordered Hornaday 8mm gas checks. That would mean a considerable delay to you.

If you call and you don't show a back order on a mold and you were very early in ordering your stuff -- then you have a serious problem and should crank up a new order.

No back order showing at all means you didn't really get an order placed when you thought you did.

My Molds arrived today. I have plans for the weekend and won't be able to cast any bullets until Monday. I't like having a new car and no gasoline! Molds look great. Well I'll let you know next week how they cast. I don't know when the weather is going to clear up to shoot them

My Oldfeller 8mm maximum mould arrived today and looks every bit as good as he described. I'll be casting some tonight and plan on loading a bunch for trial in my 24/47 Yugo and my Turk. Should have a range report on Friday evening. Thanks again Oldfeller

Interesting, the disclaimer on the molds says not for use in M48 yugos but the M24/47 is the same save for a differnet bolt. What gives?

-M

My understanding is that the disclaimer is for the Yugo 48A because it's throat is not as large as other military 8mms. I'll know later when I load up some dummy rounds.

Yugo Model 1924 has a Paul Mauser standard military throat (large and long).

Yugo M48 and M48-A have very short ball cone throats. Still, we have some feedback that the 8mm Karabiner will indeed load in the M48 throats and shoot groups that cloverleaf.

Interesting, I can't get it to load in my 48-A without setting back so far the gas check and first lube band wind up in the powder.

Mainboy, glad you got your stuff. I was concerned there for a bit you had had a "lost order" scenario.

Oldfeller

I guess that's the beauty of Mausers, so much "diversity."

Thanks for the replies.

-M

Oldfeller,
I cast up about 150 last night. They don't drop from the mould like your custom 6.5 does. The bullet wants to stick in the upper sprue plate side, I believe right at the gas check shank. When I separate the mould blocks, they don't come apart at the same time. The bottom releases easily, but the blocks stick together at the top and refuse to release unless I apply considerable force. Then it takes a lot of banging on the hinge pin for the bullet to drop. Any suggestions? I'd like to speed up production. I have similar problems with other Lee moulds. Still, this is a great bullet and I plan on loading some up tonight and shooting them this weekend. I weighed 5 of them and they all weighed between 144.4 and 144.9 grains with my alloy. Diameter of the driving bands is exactly .001 less than you reported on each band. I ran a few through a Lee .3255 sizer and seated some checks. They're on nice and tight. I also made up a couple of dummy rounds and seated them so the gas check was even with the base of the neck. In both the Turk and Yugo, they chambered with a little force and showed engraving on the nose and the 2 upper driving bands. The Turk must have a tighter throat as it forced the bullet a bit further into the case while the Yugo didn't.
Maineboy

[ 02-12-2003, 05:05: Message edited by: Maineboy ]

Mainboy,

Mold lapping is an art-form that takes a try or two to get down pat. I know I ruined one mold trying to find out how to do it on my first time out of the gate.

(but it was a cheap LEE mold so it didn't hurt very much when I did ruin it).

I will leave it up to you what method you use (see archieves of any of the boards or go to castpics.net and get the info there) to mount the bullet on the spinning mandrel.

But I would recommend that you use some common bathroom scrubbing compound like Comet as your first lapping compound. Use it wet like pancake batter. Use just a drop or two of it in one side of the mold blocks first time out. Wet your spinning bullet first.

Clean everything well between adding more comet and lapping again (stuff can build up in the cavity or on the bullet if you are not careful).

This will NOT overlap your mold very fast, and it is relatively forgiving while you "feel out the ropes". It will remove the edge burrs very nicely and it will give you a good smooth surface finish.

Oldfeller

Thanks Oldfeller, I'll give it a try. I don't want to ruin this one because it took so long to get.
Maineboy

Oldfeller,
I tried honing it and it worked! I drilled a hole in the base of one of the bullets I cast last night, screwed a drywall screw into it, then cut the screwhead off. I then chucked the screw into my variable speed drill. I couldn't find any comet in Mrs. Maineboy's cleaning supplies but I did find some Soft Scrub, which is a liquid abrasive. I put a couple drops into the gas check shank and next 2 driver bands area, wiped most of it out with a Q-tip, closed the mould over the bullet, then spun it about half speed for 30-45 seconds or so. I cleaned up the mess, then repeated the process. I then cleaned the mould up with soap and water and a toothbrush, followed by alcohol on another Q-tip. I lubed the mould per Lee's instructions and smoked it. I cast about 50 bullets. There is still a little sticking of the mould blocks when you open them that I attribute to the sloppiness between the handles and the blocks. Once the mould is open, the bullets drop free with no more than a shake. My production time has about doubled, maybe even tripled. I have a couple of other troublesome Lee moulds I'm going to try this on. I did increase the diameter a bit over half a thousandth which I think is negligible.

Glad it worked out for you. Lapping isn't hard, it just requires a little bit of care in doing it.

Oldfeller

Weather finally cooperated here in Missouri. It was 61 degrees yesterday. I cast outside so it was perfect. I got the 6 holer and the one holers from midsouth/lee warmed up and the first bullets fell out of the 6 holer as perfect as you ever saw. the single mold took about 20 bullets til it started cast pretty ones. I also tried my 329-205 LEE for my mannlicher M95 and it's brand new and it started droping good bullets after after it got warmed up. Either I'm getting better or LEE has all their ducks in a row now. No "leement" on any of the 3 molds. weather turned cold again today, supposed to get down to 4 or 5 degrees tonight but I have 400 plus 8mm bullets cast and will lube and gas check them in my nice warm basement. As soon as I get a good day it's off to the range.

What's up with the Lee .329-205? Where do you get it. I haven't seen one but would like one. Never heard of it before.

-M

I got the 329-205 from Midwayusa. I think they are the only ones stocking it. LEE doesn't have it on their site. I'm going to go out and try some of the bullets I cast Monday, in the 6 inches of new snow. I will see how much unburned powder come out of my M95, I made the cases from 7.65x54R. I loaded some of the karabiner bullets today not any of the max's.