Designing your own mold

[458winshooter]

Has anyone tried to design their own molds working with Lee Precision?I am very curious about trying to come up with a 300gr 44 bullet and a 180 gr 357 bullet in a tumble lube design.Why Lee doesn't offer such molds is a mistry to me.It seems like a no brainer.I first got interested in the idea reading something on the "Ranchdog" mold for a 444 Marlin.Anybody have some input please chime in.I will be calling Lee to see if they have anything like this but don't list it in their product line.

[trip_sticker]

Lee Precision has a section on its web site for custom designed molds. If they don't carry what you want, maybe you could follow these steps to get one made for you? This is from their site:


Molds
We make custom bullet molds to your specifications. Maximum bullet mold dimensions for standard mold blocks; (all dimensions in inches) single cavity, .580 diameter, 1.250 length; double cavity, .685* diameter, .900 length; six cavity, .520 diameter, 1.000 length; *for single cavity mold in double cavity blocks, like our slug mold. For two cavities in the double cavity blocks, max. diameter is .600 inch. Click here for a mold design assistance sheet.

We need:

Payment ($150 set-up and tooling fee plus the cost of the mold )
Double cavity molds would be $26.00 each, six cavity would be $52.00 each.
Add $4.00 to your order for order processing fee
The above set-up and tooling fee will be waived on orders of 25 pieces or more. For orders over 100 pieces regular dealer/distributor prices apply to mold prices, in addition to elimination of the set-up and tooling fee.

http://www.leeprecision.com/cgi/cata...ml#CUSTOMMOLDS

They also have a custom mold design sheet to use.

http://www.leeprecision.com/cgi-data...Assistance.pdf

[GP100man]

go to castboolits.gunloads & look at the group buy section .

[snuffy]

You won't see any mold you want from lee for at least 8 months, be prepared for up to a year!

The last group buy,(well the ONLY 1), I participated in took 10 months! I had forgotten why I wanted it by then.

Why a tumble lube? You can use lee liquid alox on regular style lube grooves, ya know? I do it all the time.

[458winshooter]

The biggest reason is that nobody has a mold like I want.The Lee 310gr 44 mold is a gas check and I want a plain base design but I do like its large meplat.The same about the Lee 158 gr rnfp I would like it in a 180 gr.

[azjohn]

You might try this company.
http://www.castbulletengineering.com/default.htm

[Unclenick]

Snuffy,

The reason for the TL design is it is successful. I'm not clear what the magic is? I got hooked on them when I got a six-cavity mold from Lee for their .38 wadcutter TL design. That bullet, fired as-cast, cut group size in half in my K-frame Smith revolver. I then got three of their .45 molds, RN and TC full weight, and the 200 grain SWC. Again, they outshot the other cast bullets I'd been using of the same respective shapes, though not nearly as dramatically as that first experience. And, this is just in two guns, so I don't know how universally true it is? I just know the design does really well for my target guns.

I did get one mold design of my own made by Lee and it worked out fine. This was about three years ago when the backlog wasn't so extreme. I wanted a heavy weight that would fit the .45 ACP, the .45 Colt, and could be paper patched as a light .45-70 bullet. To fit in the short .45 ACP case, it had to have a boattail to get past the part of the case that gets thicker near the head. If I had it to do over I would have increased the radius off the meplat. As it is, it has to be seated a little shorter than I like in order to feed properly in my 1911's, despite their modified feed ramps.

I did not specify the microgrooves, though I drew them from Lee's information sheet on them, Lee knew how to make those themselves. I also made no mold allowance. I told them to use their standard gauge diameter for .45's.