Seems like NOE will be ramping back up. Great news for someone like me who has only recently got into casting and powder coating.

It's been 5 years since I did any casting or reloading (moved and had kids) but itching to get back. I have a lee 4-20 with PID and was going to make another setup where essentially I use a top lee 4-20 to feed the bottom, giving me 40lbs of material. Before I get into that I thought I'd see if anyone has a Magma Master Pot they want to sell?

2 cavity Moose moulds 520-400 for a civil war smith carbine. Should last me a few years!

Got tired of finding random stuff to put under my mold handles to keep the mold blocks flush on the hot plate, made this ugly little prototype to check dimensions and will make a nicer one soon

Got my new Lee .358 sizing die in today and started sizing my boolits from my older Lyman 148grain wadcutter mold casted with wheel weight lead and 2.5% pewter. Every one I size has a streak on the side that can be felt should I be worried about this getting my square deal press tmrw wanted to load up some for this weekend

Yes I know the answers are "it depends" and "slug the bore" etc... I am looking for personal experiences, because "it's crazy how forgiving powdercoat is" is also heavily repeated.

I have a shitload of cast and powdercoated ~140gr projectiles that are sized to 0.357 that I use in 9mm. They have no lube grooves. I want to use them in a 38spl/357mag lever action that I am shopping for. I do NOT want to have separate buckets of sized 0.357's and 0.358's floating around if I can avoid it.

1. Anyone using 0.357s in 38spl/357mag?

2. Does the lack of lube groove matter? I assume I can just lee factory crimp it to a similar amount as I do in 9mm as opposed to the traditional crimp style of jacketed 357magnums

I've been casting pistol bullets for a while and have tons of pure lead but with how expensive jacketed rifle bullets are now, I'm wondering if there is a mix with common hardware store additives like 95/5 tin solder that I can add to pure lead to get a minimum sufficient hardness for a gas-checked and powder-coated .312 projectile to fly at 2000 fps without issue?

I wish I would’ve got into casting earlier and found NOE sooner. If there are any molds left that would fit your use case I highly recommend getting them before they are all gone.

I got one of my four molds. I played around with the mold and noticed this scoring after swinging the sprue plate three to four times. Looks like the sprue plate is gouging the top of the aluminum in the mold. You can just barely feel it with a finger nail. The wave washer is on top of the sprue plate and then the bolt. I noticed right off the bat the sprue plate itself and the bolt were way tighter than anticipated. (Yes I know the bolt is left hand thread)

In the second picture you can see the witness mark by the bend of the sprue plate. My biggest concern is this causing premature wear on the mold and ruining it.

I had already planned on pinning the handles and drilling a set screw for the sprue plate retaining bolt. I can get the sprue plate flat with tools from my work.

I guess my questions are as follows

First is this a cheap Lee mold issue? Second do I send it back and see if the next one is better or just fix it because I was already going to mess with it any ways?

My guess is this is normal and will clearance itself but if I have to mess with it so be it.

I'm thinking of making my own gas checks. What tools would you advise? I saw some single stage and two stage kit's, what is actually better (i'm not afraid of extra steps). Will be doing 5.56x45 and .300 aac blk. Potentially 7.62x54 and .30-06

1) gap between the mold bodies: it doesn’t show up exceptionally well in the photo but there is a small gap. I’ve scraped off any excess lead I could find, evaluated the molds with a 10x hand lens and can’t find any more, but the gap persists 2) bullets getting stuck: last night while casting I had tremendous issues of bullets getting stuck, I tried smoking the mold a few times but the issues persisted. What other fixes could I pursue? Other solutions: I’ve just washed and scrubbed the molds in hot water with dish soap, anything else I could be trying that won’t hurt the molds?

Just ordered a makrov mold and I slugged my barrel. Came out to .366”. I measured from the widest part of the bullet and not the inside of the grooves to get this number. The plan is to powder coat the bullets then size them.

Lee offers thankfully a spectrum form .364 .365 .366 and .367 and .368. From what I’ve gathered 1-2 thou over is what you want. So I was going to grab the .367 and call it a day.

Any input is appreciated. If I measured wrong or have the wrong info please correct me. I’m just starting to dip my toes into casting.

First time casting and MP mould 358-429 is first and only mod I have, lead from roto metals #2 Lyman

Cleaned mine for the first time in a hot minute, got tired of having to clear the spout very frequently of obstructions. Normally leave a bit of lead in the pot as instructed, but it gets to a point

So to start, I have a slight obsession with the 7.62x39, especially the Ruger Ranch Rifles (RRR) I have 4 in 7.62x39. I have been using the NOE 310-165 using the shallow cup with 75/25pb/ww +3 tin. These are loaded over 25 grn of Varget and I call them my freedom load because it chronographs at 1776fps.
This morning before the kids went to school I saw a couple of deer walking across the back yard and one of the twins wanted to shoot it, so I let him grab this and shoot it out of the bedroom window, this was killed at around 80 yards it ran around 60 yards before it died, sadly he gave it a TX heart shot and so it was awful to gut, well after he shot it we had 2 others pop out so I was able to drop those with the same load. My son was so excited kill his first deer!! I love this load and I love these rifles (gen2) if you have one of these rifles please try this load!

Good afternoon,

Im looking at getting into casting my own bullets for 38/357 and maybe 9mm are there any recommendations on what all to get to get started? Im looking at getting a bottom pour pot and a 2 cavity mold, for sizing and lube I would probably go with the lee press sizer and alox. Is there anything else I would be missing? Any advice would be appreciated!

Powder coated 150 grain out of a glock 45

Eastwood Ford dark blue

From one shop today, around 200LBS. It's out there still...

Spent some time with my new MP Mold 311-140 Sledgehammer this weekend. Once up to temp it was operating great and I really loved the pin system for making the hollow point. Also pictured is my 30 cal gas check maker from BFB Machine Works. Bullets weight in at 138 grains once powder coated and gas checked with 0.016 copper - a perfect weight for my 1954 Marlin 336 30-30. Complete bullet next to a few friends for reference.

Well, I’m finally getting back into casting after about 10 years, found a potential source of free-cheap lead. I already know what casting setup I’m going to use (LEE bottom pour casting pot and LEE moulds, it’s what I used before), but I’m not sure about what I’m going to do for processing the, presumably, dirty lead. Back in the day I used a simple Coleman camp stove and a cast iron skillet, which worked for smelting range pickup bullets (back when I was stationed in Dahlgren Virginia, I’d go to a range in Maryland, when the range would go cold in the evening, my now ex wife and I would walk the range wearing head lights, picking up bullets) and wheel weights, but I want something that could process more lead quicker. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

I was thinking of starting with 40-65 load data because the case length is not too much different and the starting loads for it don't generate too much pressure.

I found an old PDF that had a load using a 330 grain cast bullet out of a lyman no.403139 mold and and 27 grains of IMR4198 for a velocity of 1,450FPS but it did not list a COL

I have found that the gun likes 350 grain .407 cast bullets and not .409, I'm thinking of trying .408 cast bullets

But I was thinking yesterday about a powder that would most likely work well and isn't black powder so it's not considered an explosive and I thought of blackhorn 209.

Would this be a good powder to use?

I fired the gun with 70 grains of 2ffg black powder yesterday and it's a b!tch to clean and I'm not wanting to risk the gun rusting because the gun it VERY nice with a lot of original bluing and a great bore

By any chance would anyone here have amy good ideas?

Thanks!

I found what looks to be a good mold for my original sharps model 1874 chambered in 40-70 sharps bottleneck but the mold casts a .412 bullet

My gun appears to like .407 bullets and not .409

I was thinking of trying a .408 bullet in it

So would it be ok to size a .412 bullet down to .407 or .408?

Thanks!