Rifle molds on the cheap

[5whiskey]

Obviously this involves Lee molds. I'm aware there are other mold manufacturers. Unfortunately, I have finite funds to spend on my hobbies as ultimately, my kids being clothed and eating takes precedence lol.

Looking at Lee's line-up, they offer very little selection for those of us interested in casting to feed our mil-surps. There is a .324 mold for 8mm mauser, but bullet weight is too light and BC too low for my taste. My plan there is to get the C329-205-1R, which is exactly the weight I am looking for, and size the bullet down to .324. I feel this is solid and I'm committed to trying this.

Then on to casting for Mosins and Arisakas (and one day an enfield). I don't care for their .312 diameter mold options, again bullets are too light. On top of that, I've slugged my Arisaka bore and .312 might work for that as dropped with PC but I'm almost positive it will be a no-go for a mosin or enfield.

Lee does have a 30 cal mold (C309-200-R) that is pretty much what I'm looking for in weight and profile, absent the obviously smaller diameter of .309. Has anyone ever honed a mold to open it up .005 or so? I've read that a bullet cast from the mold with a stem added, coated with flitz, can open up the mold. Anyone ever actually do this? What was your accuracy like? I'm guessing said process would introduce enough inaccuracy in bullet roundness to mandate pushing through a sizer. What are your thoughts?

 

[Dufus]

I have honed at least a couple of molds to get the sizing right for me.

I used the cast bullet coated in micro fine Clover compound. Never tried your method.

I use a small drill press for such tasks.

Also, I never tried it on an aluminum mold either. Just the iron varieties.

I would take a guess and say that the Clover compound might get embedded in aluminum. That would not be good.

 

[sundog]

5Whiskey, check out the special order molds at Midsouth. Scroll down and find the 8mmn Karabiner and 8mm Maximum.

 

[5whiskey]

Sundog thanks for that. Might just be my solution for 8mm.

 

[Barr]

The custom molds look like the ticket. I have tried swaging bullets down and 0.003” seems to be the limit. Any more and the lubrisizer struggles and lead features start to smear a lot.

 

[res45]

The Lee .312" 185 gr. RN shoots great in my Mosins and SKS rifles, my molds drops just a bit over .313" using wheel weight alloy, if you PC them you can get it up to .314" with no issues but I can run it PC'ed or not, I size an gas check through a Lee .314" push through sizer.

First test load in the 91/30 with the Lee 185 gr. RN. It shoots just as well in my M44.

I bought a custom mold from Tom over at Accurate Molds last year under $100 shipped as well for my 91/30 which has a long throat. It's a 215 gr. FN that I had Tom size it up to .315" so I could size it down to .314" with no problems.

Most all the custom mold makers have nice two cavity or in some cases 4 cavity molds for under $100 shipped.

http://noebulletmoulds.com/NV/
http://arsenalmolds.com/index.php?route=common/home

 

[FrankenMauser]

It looks like the internet ate my post yesterday. (Not surprising, I was ... and still am ... having internet issues.)

Short version:
I think the best answer here is a single mold from Accurate, with two different cavities. You can get exactly the bullet that you want for each caliber, in the same mold, for about $105.
If there's nothing in the catalog that is an exact fit, find something close and ask Tom to tweak it to meet your needs.

 

[5whiskey]

^^^ thanks for the advice with accurate molds I think I may do just that. Frankenmauser I like your idea. I will probably go with that. I have definitely decided against the 8mm karabiner or maximum, as I’ve read elsewhere that fresh barrels (really the throat) doesn’t care for those particular boolits. My 24/47 is in quite good shape so I don’t want to deal with the hassle of swaging the nose of the bullets.

Accurate molds sounds like it may be a winner if he will make me one with two different cavities.

Edit: Res those are some fine shooting boolits my brother. I would love to come close to that. I probably won’t get quite that good, trying to push these closer to 1900 or 2000 FPS. That 500 yard gong and all

 

[FrankenMauser]

Don't be afraid to email Tom at Accurate Molds, to discuss changes to a particular bullet or submitting your own design.
That's what his business is based around.
His entire catalog, other than a few "seed" designs he added in the very beginning, is exclusively custom designs or variants.

I have designs in there dating from when the catalog was just 3 pages long, to a couple years ago when it was 17 pages. (Now, it's over 20.) Some were designed for my own use (such as the 43-425M). Some were designed for other people (that wanted a variant of my bullet, or just didn't know how to go about designing for themselves - such as what became the 48-395BG). A couple were nothing more than experiments (such as the 43-390W [hollow base wadcutter] and 43-90W [stackable wadcutter])

 

[res45]

When you a order a mold from Tom over at Accurate you have a good bit of customization options to choose from, so you are building your mold to order as you go through the steps of the ordering process.

 

[res45]

Edit: Res those are some fine shooting boolits my brother. I would love to come close to that. I probably won’t get quite that good, trying to push these closer to 1900 or 2000 FPS. That 500 yard gong and all

None of those targets I posted were with Max. loads an both are pretty close to 1700 fps. already and I still have room to go powder wise. I have lots of testing still to do with both bullets an hope to get the velocity up close to 2K as well but I'm more interested in accuracy than velocity. I wish I had a place I could shoot out to 500 yds. that would be fun.