Has any one used the Lee 459-500-3R mould

[Ace Lungger]

  Good morning Pards,
i am looking at that mould and also a single cav lee mould with a hollow base! Although I am new to this type of shooting, i am not new to long range shooting, and My prefernce is a long pointed bullet! I don't spell very good and I am sorry about that! when I was long range shooting years ago before all the health and old age problems, I work hard on my hand loads, allways used IMR 3031, H-110, H-335, I would take a scapel from a Doctor office, and had containers, that I would cut the pellets 3/4, 1/2, 1/3,1/4,1/8, 1/16ths, and the misc. pieces Used my Bleeding Mull powder dump to get close and then scale to perfect (as close as I could do) allways starting with new brass all shot and marked what rifle, what load, load data, ect.. But I was young and very important to me, to be the best I could be! On a new gun, wheter it be a factory or custom built rifle, I wond clean every part, then I never ran a brush threw the barrel ever again, I would use a rigging that I used for 20 years. I used the very fine plastic coated dyamite wire, put my patch in the slot used Hopes solvent's several patches then dry patches and then a light coated patch with Free Breeze.
I allways used boat tail bullets!

But since I am dumb as a stump in this area, I could use all the help I can get!

ACE

[wwpete52]

I use both Lee molds that you reference. They work just fine however I only use black powder.  I can't give you any info on smoke-less powder loads.
I really like Lee molds. They heat up fast, they don't cost much, they come with handles and they don't rust.

[Ranch 13]

I've used it, and its a good bullet out to 400 yds, fair to 500, and beyond that it can have some serious stablility problems, so much so that a load that will shoot moa at 200 will be lucky to land 1 in 10 on a 1000yd target.
I also find fault with the skimpy amount of material lee uses for that big bullet. The mold will not stand up for casting large quantities of bullets, if you need a 1000 bullets a year, that mold won't take the strain, and the next one you get may or may not cast to the same diameter.
If you're planning to shoot many rounds I'ld suggest you look to other molds.

The Lyman postell, and the 500 gr round nose both shoot very well to 1000 and beyond, as does the RCBS 82084 bullet.

[Ace Lungger]

Ranch, Thanks for the reply and the good advice, i have not made my mine up onn anything yet, i won't shoot 300 rounds a year!
Here in Kansas, when the temp goes to 40 degrees the humidity will be 45% my back will put me in bed for 3-4 months.
Thank you!
ACE

[Ranch 13]

Ace I have shot the Lyman 485 gr spire pointed bullet some, and it did work well to 1000, got 7 of 10 straight hits with the ladder sights on my 74 , but I really don't care much for that bullet. The RCBS 500 gr bullet is ok, but I've not shot it to 1000.
The Lyamn version of the 405 gr bullet will shoot pretty well to 800, but has some troubles getting to 1000.
Good luck with your quest for a long range bullet.