My modified Lee 350gr 56-50 molds... tips and tricks...

[Dakota Widowmaker]

Folks,

I have sold over a dozen of these things and just recently had 2 of them come back after some use by good  shooters I know.

I stand behind my work, so, here is some things that will give you REALLY good results in the future.

1) These are single cavity Lee molds, and as such, they suffer from inadequate gas vents. All future modified molds from me will have "enhanced" vents. (I simply take a carbide scribe and open up a dozen of these vents going away from the cavities on each half of the mold )

2) USE MOLD RELEASE STUFF!!! match smoke is not good enough for 30:1 alloy... Use the stuff from Foresterl.

3) Pour in the alloy SLOWLY... I can't stresss this enough.

4) A clean mold is a happy mold. (it even says to clean the molds in the instructions I provide as part of the Lee kit)

Do these steps and you should have a mold block that will last you YEARS and THOUSANDS of bullets.

I still have 2 mold blocks for folks looking for some.

Take care!!!

[Hell-Er High Water]

Dakota,

When I first designed this bullet (modified my mould) a couple of years ago I noticed that the mould was very sensitive to alignment when closing.  After machining, the handles are no longer in the center of the mould blocks but are now nearer the top of the mould.  This seems to throw them out of ballance and when closing, the blocks they tend to mis-align vertically.  I have solved the problem by tapping the blocks lightly on the bottom edges, with my sprue cutting mallet, while closing them.

You might want to add this tip to your other casting instructions.

My original mold has literally cast thousands of bullets and is still going strong.

HHW

[Ed Clintwood]

Dakota,
I was having fits trying to get a nice shiny bullet from you mold.  I was holding it tight against my bottom pour pot - WRONG thing to do.  I now hold the mold about 3/4" below the pour spout and slowly (well sorta) drizzle the lead in.  Now it's a rare cast that goes bad.  I'm very happy with the mold  and it shoots great with either smokeless or 777.