.480 cast bullet problems.

[adirondacker]

i have been using the lee 400 grn mold for casting these bullets,i was casting them very soft,weighing +- 412 grns.about 1/2 of them would size offset,sizing them .476 in my old lyman 450.i also was experiencing a good amount of fouling in the barrel,tauras raging bull.
  sooo,i cast a new batch much harder weighing in at +- 395 grns,this reduced the diameter by about .002,making them .479 +- as cast, down from .481 but i still have the same sizing problem.the bullet has a wide flat meplat,i am using a large flat top punch wich works very well with other similar bullets.
  do i need to replace the mold,i see rcbs has one now,or am i just doing something wrong.thanks,adker

[Tom W.]

I've been using the single cavity RCBS 476-400 SWC mold, # 082094  with top punch #638 without any problems, with Wheel weights sized to .476.
It takes a bit to heat up that big mold, but once it gets up to temp there's no problems.

[Graybeard]

I'm one of three folks all GBO members who did the initial product testing on that mould. We all used it and sent Lee our comments and recommendations. I think they may have tweaked it in a minor way but no serious changes as neither of us felt any major changes were needed. It's a good bullet and I've never had any problems with the bullets from my mould. It's been awile but I'm pretty sure I posted my comments on it way back then.

As best as I can recall the bullets dropped right at 400 from my alloy and worked beautifully.

[Lloyd Smale]

try sizing them nose first without lube pressure then size them base first like you normal would. I used to run into that problem with  big bullets in the lymans and it worked for me. One other maybe faster way to do it would be to get a lee sizer that size and run them through the lee first. One thing im not understanding is how your bullets are smaller with the harder alloy. If anything they should be bigger.

[Lloyd Smale]

by the way that is an excellent shooting bullet. Keep in mind though that it doesnt have much lube capasity and casting it real soft and trying to run it hard isnt going to work.

[adirondacker]

do you think it may be related to mold temperature,how much do you think that cavity changes with temperature,i don't use a thermometer just adjust temp according to what casts best.i do like the bullet i have shot allot of them thru it but always had a fouling problem and alot of reject bullets,seems like i tried nose first into the sizer,maybee i didn't run them deep enough.i have some more of the 412 grn cast but not sized,i'll try them again see what happens.thanks,adker

[adirondacker]

well,loyd was right on,the nose first trick worked,i think when i tried that last i was not running them in far enough.i just got done with about 150,all but one looked pretty good,i see what you mean about the shallow grooves.last batch i did i tumble lubed,i lubed these as a second process with alox in the sizer.i think i will back my load off a little and see of my leading problem gets better.thanks,fella's,adker

[Lloyd Smale]

I guess i dont know how to read your post. Are you bullets filling out well out of the mold? or is it a fillout problem. If its a fill out problem it will usually occur between the two cavitys on bigger molds where theres the least ammount of material and they get hot. Only cure for that is to either slow down and run cooler which works better with iron molds or to go a tad faster and cast real frosty bullets with the aluminum molds. Sometimes with my big iron molds i have to give up with some alloys and just cast them using one cavity or even rotate from one cavity to the other. Thats one problem with the lee molds. There isnt much material to them. Ive been stuggling with the new 475 6 cavity lee group buy mold. Its a fine line between to hot and to cold and would be a bugger  of  a mold for a beginner to use. If your bullets are filled out properly nose first sizing and being careful to start the bullet in straight should take care of it.