Sitting in my reloading room is an orange Lyman box containing a virgin 429421 mould. What kind of prep do you guys do for a steel moulds first date with the melting pot?

I've got used Lyman moulds and a couple of aluminum Lee moulds but this my first new steel bullet mould. I'm trying to get spun up to make some bullets when shelves are bare and the .44 is my pistol flavor of choice.

With a old tooth brush ,I clean my moulds with PVC cleaner ( MEK) or acetone to remove all the oils and grease
Warning the tooth brush may start melting if you let it soak in either to long
I then inspect the mould with a magnifying glass to see if there are any burrs at the edges of the cavity and burnish them if needed with a Oak dowel
I then lube the sprue plate and make sure it is working properly

Atache the handles

Then pre heat the mould either on a hot plate or on the melted lead in your pot


After a few rejects to finish bringing the mould up to temp
I cast a few and check to see if it is droping to spec

As several of the last Lyman moulds droped way small and were sent back in short order

John

John,

Thanks, I went ahead Sunday and wiped it down good with isopropyl alcohol and used a q-tip to both degrease the bullet cavities and look for burs.

It took only a few minutes to get it up to the proper temperature and it began dropping very nice looking bullets with ease. No sticking, the mould drops bullets easily.

BUT the bullets are .429" as dropped from the mould. This one may be going back to Lyman for some adjustment.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick R:

BUT the bullets are .429" as dropped from the mould. This one may be going back to Lyman for some adjustment.

IMO that is to spec , yea it would have been better if it droped .430 or .431

When you order a 501680 350 gr .501 dia mould and it drops .493-.494
That is when you scratch your head and wonder

John

Rick, which alloy are you using? Lyman cuts their moulds to drop the designated size using their own #2 alloy. If you are using something different the mould may cast a bit smaller or larger, depending.

Their Cast Bullet Handbook is worth what it costs, if you don't have it already...

Doubless,

I'm using Wheel Weights mixed with a bit of left over pure lead.

I've got a older handbook that's probably over thirty years old, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to invest in a newer version.

You will have to check the book, Rick, but there is a table in the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook that will give you the difference in sizes their moulds cast when alloys different from their 90-5-5 is used. (And your manual is probably the same one that is currently offered. I don't believe they have updated it.)

I have cast literally thousands of pounds of wheel weights for handguns, and they work just fine. Adding pure lead is going to shrink that bullet from what it would be with pure ww. I don't know how much, but it will be smaller, and the degree of change is dependent on how much pure lead you use.

I hope this helps... Have fun.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick R:

BUT the bullets are .429" as dropped from the mould.

And the average weight is?

they average 254.5gr after being sized and lubed.

there may be a bit too much lead in my cast bullet recipe.

Well in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" category. I finally got to the range yesterday with some of these bullets sized to 0.429", lubed with RCBS lube and loaded over 7.0gr of Unique with a Wolf primer.

Shooting from sitting at 20 yards they went into groups which were under two and a half inches. That is about as good as I can shoot with a 4" iron sighted revolver and 51 year old eyes no matter what bullet I'm using.

Clean up consisted of running three patches soaked in Gunzilla thru the bore that brought out very little lead and left the barrel looking minty clean.

I believe I'll just shoot and enjoy this bullet.

rich r,

my favorite .44 cal mould.

with the castings at .429" might i suggest lee's liquid alox or white label xlox tumble-lube then loading as is? you'll find these accurate in .44 mag cases from 8gr of unique to 22gr of 2400.