I am new to casting and wish to shoot lead cast bullets in my Rossi 92 in .357. I have used commercial cast 158 grainers and they performed allright at about 1450 - 1500 fps. I am after a mould closer to 180 grains. Can anyone recommend me a mould to use. I see Lee only goes upto 158gr and wish I could get my hands on one of the 180gr 6 x that was the group buy mould.

Any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

I shoot the RCBS 38-158-SWC gascheck in my Rossi 357 with very good results. In 100% wheelweights, and including gascheck, it weighs 165 grs.

Using 16 grs Lil'Gun, I get 1815 fps muzzle velocity. Look in the "Shooting" section of www.castbullet.com for a recent article about it.

Doc, LBT makes a very similar mould, or you could feed the specs into the program at mountainmolds.com and have one made.

You are going to have to be extremely lucky to find and get one of the groups buys. There were only 45 made and I don't see anyone who has one and has shot it parting with it.

I seem to remember that Badass Wallace down on your continent got one. You might check with him to see if a deal is possible. You might also check with Lar45 for permission to have another run made. I don't think it would be any trouble at all to find 25 takers.

Your right, with as good as it shoots, we could probably do another 25 without a problem.
I'm going to wait until I get the Fat-30 finished before I think about another, but someone else could do it if they wanted. I have the drawings. What would be nice is to order enough to get the old $25 price, then put up an e-store to sell them as folks wanted them.

Oh, one more thing. I also have a Rossi 92. Someone sent me some of the LBT 180's. I tried them in my Rossi, but the nose was slightly too long to feed right. That's why the special Lee run had the nose at .3" Your gun may be different though.

Junior your article about your Rossi is what has got me into this mess. I love your articles as they are no nonsense and get down to business.

Leftoverdj I will get onto BAW and see if he has one of the molds as that may be an option. Interesting to see if he has had success with it.

Lar45 I have loitered and watched this section of AR for too long. If there was enough interest in another similar mould I am very interested. Good to hear it sounds like it shoots well.

Thanks guys.

why do you want such a heavy boollit to shoot out of your .357? my mould is the lyman 150 gr. no. 358477 i believe. my model 27 loves this slug loaded over a proper amount of bullseye.......

I bought some 180grn Oregon Trail True Shot bullets for my revolver and it loves them with 15.0grns LilGun. My best 50yd accuracy. I now have the Lyman #358429-170grn mould trying to be able to cast my own. These bullets are Keith type and my OAL is 1.660" to catch the crimp groove. I was thinking of buying a Marlin '94 in .357 but can not find out if they would cycle through it. Does anyone know if they would or any other brand that you don't have to keep the OAL down to 1.6 or so? The Oregon Trail bullets don't have to be seated that long and would work but I would rather cast my own and the OT's are a TCone design. BM

Bill

Blue Moon, I just bought a 1894C Marlin and the max OAL it will handle reliably is 1.61" I bought a Lee 358 158 RF for it and it works great. My bullets come out at .360 and I shoot them straight from the mold with no sizing and liquid allox for lube. I tried a 3 different semi wadcutters and they tended to clip a little lead off of the little ledge on the bullets. The OAL using the Lee RF is 1.578", feeds as fast as you can lever it without a hitch.
For a Target load I am using 5.2 grs of Universal Clays with the Lee RF using wheelweights plus 2% tin. For a horsepower load I use 16grs of H110 behind a 158gr Win JHP. I wanted loads that I could use in the 94 and my Blackhawk that were the same so I didnt have to keep them separate.
The Marlin is just a sweetheart. I love that little bugger. It is accurate with about anything I stuff in it. The best price I could find on it was through WalMart. $360.

BlueMoon,
I shoot that 358429 in my Marlin 1894C and it WILL NOT feed when seated in the crimping groove. The maximum length that I have found that will feed is 1.604" and then only if the lever is cycled with care! You will need to have them a bit shorter. I take the sized case and trim it back so that when the bullet is seated in the crimping groove, the O.C.L. is acceptable to feed. You can do the math, but 1.600" would probably be better. Also remember that with the shorter case, pressures will be higher than the loading data indicates. Maximum loads should be approached with caution. Good-luck...BCB

Hi All!
I have one of the Lee 180 six cavity molds and would buy at least 1 more. The very first group was acceptable..... So if you ever want to do that 'reorder' thing....I'm in again...

Dale

Yup, feed and function in the Rossi can be a problem. I've been playing around with the Ly cowboy boolit lately and found that crimped in the crimp groove is too long and crimped on the ogive too much boolit tin the case. Then, on a whim I tried a Lee taper crimp die and crimped half way in between. Voila! Perfect. Now I'm going to order a Lee taper crimp die for my 44 Rossi to use on similar style Ly cowboy boolit in it.

The boolit I like best in .357 for pushing up the velocity is the Ly 358156. sundog

quote:

Now I'm going to order a Lee taper crimp die for my 44 Rossi to use on similar style Ly cowboy boolit in it.

Do you mean the Factory Crimp Die?

Thank you all for the info. I just happen to have a Lee taper crimp die (not FCD) in .357 that I bought several years ago to try in my revolver because my RCBS die puts on a crummy crimp. I went ahead and bought a Redding profile crimp die and have used that ever since.

I was just checking the WalMart price on the '84C. Looks like they've went up about $10 since last year. At least the gun shops I checked would sell me one for $350.

I've also seen that you can alter the carrier or lifter to feed longer rounds but I'm not sure about trying to do that either. I'm not sure about shortening the .357 cases and how much more pressure I would get.

I just received a new Midway catalog yesterday and they show more Saeco molds than I've ever seen. They show two molds for the same 180grn bullet I've been buying, one gc and one plain base. Also, they show the top punchs for Saeco molds that will fit a Lyman or RCBS lubisizer.

Thanks Bill

Lyman 173gr. Keith style SWC, great bullet

Hog Killer

I have a M1894 .357 Mag carbine. The most accurate bullet is the 358429. For .357 Mag cases, it has to be seated deep and crimped on the forward edge of the front band or it's too long to feed.

I've also had great luck with the #398 Saeco at 164 grains and also the 38-158-CM RCBS cowboy bullet. Any of these are good with .38 or .357 Magnum cases. A friend has a Rossi and it shot well with my reloads./beagle

John,

Do you remember what the OAL of your .357 load was with the 358429? And is that the longest load you can use or does the bullet shape make some difference? I've talked with people who had older Marlin 357 rifles that said theirs worked fine with a OAL of 1.660" but theirs was a '81 model and each rifle may vary some to what it feeds.

Bill

Junior, no it's a TAPER crimp die. Lee says that is you have a crimp die made after 1986 that there is little or no advantage. But, what I have noticed is that their suggestion to set to case mouth plus a half turn could be a little much - try 1/6 or 1/3 (measure by using a face of the die lock nut) and get only as much as you want - mostly to remove the bell more than anything. Take a look at:

http://home.valornet.com/corkyconnell/cowboy%20loads/cowboy_loads.html

I'll have to find out why my .357 pic is not displaying though - that won't be until Monday unfortunately. The .44 Mag pic will give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Works for me. sundog

edit: Okay, I was able to dial my other computer, fix the .357 pic, and get it uploaded to the server. You ought to be able to see it now.