Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Lee 358-158-RF

I've no experience with these, but cast a few up this afternoon. Hoping they will work in a 3.5" 27-2.

Your castings look great. I shoot a similar design from NOE & have zero complaints.

Ditto. Alloy?

Thank you, gents.

Gnoahhh, this is 3:1, lead to lino. It's interesting when I blow these pics up... I can see little defects I miss with the naked eye. The bullet on its side has a little chip out of the forward drive band. Anyway, I'm always trying to get better with casting. Will pay closer attention.

Creeker, from what I've read these do best at mag velocity. Have you found the same to be true?

Like I said never used that bullet but the similar NOE bullet loves 1250 FPS.

Good looking bullet Longarm. What diameter are they dropping from the mold at?

Cheers!



Thanks RB. These are dropping at .360

Have you fired these yet longarm? I was considering that mold as well for 38 target loads.

Funflyer,
No sir I have not. Been casting all day! Really need to knock it off for a while and shoot some..

I have poured these with wheel weights for 6+ yrs now in 38 Special and 357....both pistols and levers. Use mostly Titegroup and AA9(max 357 loads) powders. Coat with Lee ALox. Great bullet. I am able to use the same load in either pistol or rifle. I use 3.5 grains of Titegroup for 38's and 4.5 for 357.

I cast these and the tumble lube design of the same weight. These have proven to be easier to get good groups with than the tumble lube design.

I wish Lee made a 180 grain version of this mold!

I've shot over a metric ton of those. I've been casting them for 20 or so years. Wonderful bullet.

Dave, care to share a revolver load?
Today I tried Unique, TiteGroup, and Green Dot - the latter provided the best groups in both this and the Arsenal 358-158 KT

4.5grs of Unique, 38 special. 5 grains works well too.

I like that bullet in my Rossi 357 at moderate velocities in 38 cases. It shoots well.
Rick

You might see if you can find some Herco. It meters horribly, but judging from the pics, a fluffy, bulky powder might be best, even for lighter loads, as there would appear to be a lot of space in the case. Most of the weight appears to be forward of the crimp groove, which gives you a lot of powder capacity over a typical SWC.

I'd be looking for a bulkier powder, personally.

Zombie thread...I cast a bunch of these from some mystery alloy which, when water dropped, I can barely dent a bullet corner with my fingernail. Lubed with a mix of moly grease and beeswax...might lighten up on the grease as this batch is a bit sticky. Loaded over a win sp primer and, um, more blue dot than is currently recommended in starline brass. Will check velocity at next opportunity, fired from a 4" service six. Made a nice volleyball size fireball when test fired at night into my bullet catching ditch.

Seems like the bullet checks most of the WFN boxes aside from heavyweight, but I'm not sure a 180gr is going to be a big benefit over a 160gr in 357. I like it. Well proportioned. But I'm not super picky...if they're all staying on a paper plate at 25yds offhand, I'm good, because I'm not that good. High volume plinking inventory is the order of the day when teenage boys are in the house.

My ‘15 and Det. Special love them over Unique or True Blue. Around 830fps out of the 4” 15.
Looking hard at the Arsenal 162 and Accurate 165 versions, just because I have a tough time loving a heeled bullet.

I have a 23/64 fluted reamer on order from fleabay...will chuck that up in a drill press, center it on the holes (reamer end is tapered and should self-center), and see if I can ream away the bevel base feature.

I love these, the only issue I had was when lubing and sizing, i'd have to wipe the bases all the time from my Lyman lubrisizer, then I decided to make a sizer die push rod with a matching bullet base, taaa daaa no more base wiping.