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Yup. Pan lubing at the moment. Until I find a better way.

Nothing wrong with doing that, especially if your bullets drop from the mold at desired diameter. In fact, a lot of serious cast bullet accuracy buffs buy custom molds (Accurate Molds is a good source) that drop their bullets at a diameter pre-ordained for the exact alloy being used. Tom at Accurate Molds is a master at creating that phenomenon. Doing that, and merely pan lubing guarantees a bullet that isn't conflicted by passing it through a sizing die.

One way to skin the pan lubing cat: set bullets in the tray, pour molten lube to desired depth (don't ever get the lube so hot that it smokes - that messes with its viability), let cool until solid. Then set the tray in the freezer for a half hour-45 minutes. Remove from freezer, turn upside down, and coax the whole shebang out of the tray - bullets, wax, and all. Then merely press the bullets out of the wax with your thumb. Done. Put the empty cake of lube back in the tray and insert the next batch of bullets into the empty holes, re-melt, repeat. The bullets end up with perfectly filled lube grooves.

Edit: don't set the bullets so close together that they impinge on their neighbors. It makes re-using the lube cake easier for the next go-around.

I ordered some tin and did another casting session today. Mixed up 10 lbs of lead and managed to cast about 250 bullets and got most of them lubed. The addition of the tin seemed to make a difference, as the shoulders were much sharper. These are two I plucked out of the batch.



Now, I have replaced the older Blackhawk with a newer 5 1/2" stainless Bisley. The older Blackhawk had really loose cylinder/throats. This newer revolver has much tighter chambers and the throats seem to be right at 0.451. I am considering sending it off to a gunsmith for an accuracy job, but want to shoot it a little more first. The mold is casting these bullets at about 0.454, but are not concentric. Will I need to size these for best accuracy?

"Seem to be right at .451?" Best make sure. Push a bullet through the throat(s) and mic it. If indeed it's .451 then yes, I would plan on sizing them down. .003" oversize is quite an unnecessary squeeze. Rule of thumb (literally) is the bullet should be able to be pushed through the throat with but slight resistance. A thousandth oversize is ok, but a thou undersize really isn't.

My friend gnoahhh gives good advice as always. But you can shoot them at .454" but like he says, that's a lot of squeeze. I had a 45 ACP cylinder with .448 throats. I also had an oddball Lyman mould for the 45ACP which dropped a bullet at .457" which I sized .454" & shot using that cylinder. While it did lead some it lacked nothing for accuracy. So, so figure.

Good thing is that last batch I made did not seem to lead up the barrel at all. I did run a bullet through one of the cylinders and it took some pressure to get it through. It measured right at 0.451.

What would be a good sizing setup to begin with? The lee kit that mounts on top of a press?

Just ordered a 6 cavity mold, 358-158-RP for the 38 spc/357 mag.

The Lee push through die is just fine, especially if you are pan lubing the bullets. (As it appears you are?) Were it me I would try sizing at .452 initially.

Of course we're assuming the barrel's groove diameter is the same as or smaller than the throats. If the opposite is true (not farfetched) then run your bullets as large as you can conveniently get them through your throats. Or better yet have the throats reamed to a bit larger diameter - not expensive and any good pistolsmith can do it.

Getting hooked, arentcha?!

Curious as to what ratio tin/lead you settled on.

I had some 70/30 and tin from Rotometal and lead from another source. Tried to get the 2% tin, 6% antimony, and the rest lead ratio. I would like to think I got in the neighborhood of that.

Definitely be shooting more, which I need. I admit I need lots of practice with revolvers.

The Lee 6 cavity 38/357 mold came in today. I cleaned, and smoked it and tried it out. With the RCBD iron mold, keeping the lead right around 700 seemed to work best. With the Lee aluminum mold, I had to keep the lead at 800+ deg to get good bullets. The first couple dozen went back in the pot until I git the temps worked out. I would get on a roll, then the bullets would come out extra frosty so I had to let the mold cool a bit.

Quite a few of the bullets would have a section of frostiness on one side only.

I ordered the Lee sizer kit for the 45 cal bullets. In the interim, I loaded up some of the bullets ahead of 8.5 grains of Shooters World Ultimate Pistol. It is a nice accurate easy shooting load, but I have to crank down the Lee FCD to get them to chamber completely and allow the cylinder to rotate. I am hoping the sizer kit will ease the loading issues. Didn't have the problem with the older Blackhawk with the looser chambers.

That frostiness won't hurt a thing. Shoot 'em! (At least you know you're getting optimal mold fill-out when that happens.)

The Lee sizing kit came in and it makes a big difference in loading.

The two on the left were unsized, I had to turn down the Lee Factory Crimp die quite a bit until the rounds would fit in the chamber. Crimp looks pretty mangled.

After sizing the bullets, four on the right, I was able to seat and crimp with a RCBS seating die with no issues. Hoping to test these out on Thursday.

Going to order the Lee sizing kit for 38/357 bullets and try powder coating.

Curious as to why your goal is to powder coat? No doubt it's good, and no doubt it's all the rage now, but not really necessary (especially at the velocities you're playing with). If you dislike your current setup and wish to upgrade for speed of production, perhaps a good old used lubrisizer may be for you. You can chunk out a lot of bullets with one and be loading/shooting them while the guy next to you is still flutzing around with powder coating. (Although for sure PC'ing isn't deathly slow to do, speed in the process doesn't come until you have all the bugs worked out and have an efficient system in place.)

Just dislike working with the wax, plus I am always on the lookout for another slippery slopes to slide down. The lube does seem to work well and there was no leading after the last range session, but would like to play around with different methods. The current batches are all lubed so I have a lot of shooting to do before starting with the powder coat stuff.

Main hobby used to be woodworking and making custom furniture as a side gig. This reloading stuff has taken center stage and the woodshop is only collecting dust at the moment.