Lee 6 cavity molds.

Smoke & Recoil. I have several and been fairly pleased with them. I pour 38's up to 45's. They do take a little break in. Read The Lee reloading book for VERY specific details. No oil and smoke them with a wooden match. The sprue cutter is easy to work. Don't need to "rap" them with a mallet like the double dies do. I think you will be happy. Oh and check your lead melt temperatures. I just did a batch of 300 45's at just above "eutectic" temp. They came out a little frosty and crystalline; but still usable.
 
I like the Lee 6 cavity molds, The sprue cutter is easy to use by hand and no hammering tool is necessary. I generally cast Lyman #2 alloy in them with no trouble. I have a couple older molds and 2 that are pretty new, IMO the newer molds are better quality than the older ones.
 
A friend has one that throws 160LRNs, and he cranks out the bullets by that BUSHEL with the thing. His bullets shoot like a charm, too. MY experience with Lee molds is that if I can't cast good bullets with them, it's something that I'M not doing. Just follow the break-in instructions religiously, and you should be in high cotton pretty quick.
 
I got two 6- bangers, and you talk about droppin' some bullets!!!! I can run through a 20# pot in NO time! Those things will flat-out produce some bullets! I wish I had discovered the 6-cav way a long time ago!
 
I prefer the lee 6 cavity sprue cutter over any of my other molds. It works well and you aren't beating on your mold. I wish others would use this method of cutting.
 
I use two six cavities at the same casting session. I keep one on a hot plate to keep its temperature up when pouring the other. Two identical six cavities makes bullets faster. I have found that despite the identical molds, they each have their own characteristics. In one of the several bullets I cast for, one particular mold sheds bullets effortlessly, the other has a cavity that always sticks, no matter what I have tried. Also, with the Lee six bangers, the screws on the sprue plates like to work loose and need to be tightened frequently. Also, the wooden handles frequently become loose on the sprue cutter. Lee molds are not without their problems.
 
I love the Lee Six Cavity molds. Best way to sit and cast a hundred or two bullets. It works easy with no problem cutting off the sprue. I use them for 9mm and .38s as well as .45s.
 
Only bad thing I have about Lee 6 cavity molds are that they warp. I've gone thru 3 of the 148gr WC. My 44 and 45 Colt 6 cavity molds are holding up. Maybe it's just with the 148gr WC. Could be why they're "cheap". Use them once, throw them away.
 
Could be why they're "cheap". Use them once, throw them away.
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My attitude is that they are so inexpensive (cheap), that I buy two of each six cavity for each of my calibers and they are still cheaper than a single iron mold. With 12 bullets at a time, casting really goes fast.
 
I borrowed a friend's six cav 9mm and 2-3 bullets dropped at a different diameter. It cranked out some serious amounts but a third were unuseable.

I would rather see Lee make a 4 cavity.
 
Up date on the Lee 6 cavity mold.
I am very happy with the Lee 6 cavity mold. I went with all the
positive opinions and tried one, it's great, and I wish that I had
bought one years ago.
As dahermit mentioned, I placed the mold on a hot plate
for the preheat session after smoking the cavitys. To smoke the
cavitys, I found it much easier to remove the pivot bolt from the
mold. I poured a little over a thousand rounds in just a short time.
A big thank you to all.
 
Very encouraging. I just aquired a group buy, custom 6 cavity .452- .45 -230gr. SWC mold. I'm waiting for the handles and I'll be in bussiness.
 
Lee six cavity molds

Correction:
They turned out to be 200gr swc. instead of 230 as I was told. Custom mold has no markings for some reason. Any how, I'm very pleased with the mold and the bullets. They drop right at 210grs. with coww alloy. Here's 6 of the little buggers....water dropped, sized to .452, twice tumbled in 60/40 and ready to load.

20160101_074619.jpg
 
tips

A couple of tips for the Lee 6 cavs. If you're going to pre-heat the whole mold, you must NOT place the bottom of the mold directly on the coils of the hot plate. That WILL warp it. So will placing it across the top-of-the-pot. A favorite of some guys is to place an old circular saw blade on the coils, then put the mold on that.

if you're not going to pre-heat on a hot plate, then begin at the front cavity, just cast one boolit. Let it stay in there for 30 secs. Then cast 2, letting the mold soak the heat from those as well. Then 3, 4, 5, and finally all six. The reason for this is; if you cast al 6 in a cold mold, the SPRUE will be very hard to cut. This puts a lot of stress on the cam lever, it can and does break in half. It's made of sintered steel, not too strong. DO NOT USE A TORCH! It can really mess up a long mold like that.

Some of the 6 bangers are very small boolits, like a 105 .358 SWC, these small boolits in the huge mold blocks take a long time to get the whole mold hot.

I do NOT smoke the cavities of any mold! Yeah, I know the Lee destruction sheet says to. The smoke reduces the as cast diameter of the boolit. I don't know why Lee insists on doing that, the only thing I can figure is he's worried that inadequate finish in the cavities will cause some boolits to not drop free. Smoking can temporally fix that, but it must be repeated often as the carbon coating from the smoke wears off as you cast. using a match introduces wax into the cavities, that's paraffin, or petroleum oil. That causes wrinkled boolits until it burns off.

Don't grasp all three of the handles! A common mistake of first time users of the 6 bangers. Just hold the 2 that have the mold halves on them. holding the third handle makes the sprue cam force the mold halves open, giving the boolits fins and oval diameters
 
Yes...I placed a 1/4" thick steel plate on the hot plate first. I was using a Lee
90295 mold TL358-158-SWC. I finished with 1509 bullets in short order, that equals out to nearly 34 lbs of bullets.
My next mold will be the 90350 TL452-230-2R
 
I preheat by casting and dumping the cold wrinkled bullets. This is pretty fast and also gets the mold broken in quickly.
I smoke the moulds heavily with a candle, rub a little graphite pencil across the mold top/sprue plate, and then start pouring quickly, dumping the wrinkled bullets back into the pot immediately. Don't hesitate-as stated above, cold bullets are hard to cut with the sprue cutter. After just a few cycles of these bad bullets, the mold is well and evenly heated with no warping concerns.
To quickly check for sufficient mold temperature, dip the mold (corner only) into your melt. If the alloy sticks, it's too cold. If it drops right off, you're at least close to casting temp.
Smoking is usually not needed after several casting sessions with a mold. I don't do it with my old molds, but it helps quite a bit with a new, sticky mold.
Keep the screws tight, and only tap the mold or sprue handles when the mold is tightly closed. They're pretty robust as long as they're not smacked around when the handles are open.
 
Scroll down on this forum and read my experience with Lee six cavity molds.
I have a couple of decent Lee two cavity molds, other then that I'm not to impressed with Lee Bullet molds I've had to many bad experiences with them.

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
 
I received my Lee 6 cavity, 40 cal, mold last Saturday, (Jan 30, 2016), and I have been pleasantly surprised. I was able to ladle cast about 50 good bullets before quitting for the day. My old Lyman bottom pour would not get hot enough, so I had to start over with the other pot. It was a new experience for me, the only other molds I have are 2 cavity. Most, if not all the bad pours I made were because of operator error. Shot 25 of them this morning as a function test and they shot great. The bullets are round, needed very little, if any, sizing.

Was going to pour today, but something came up.

My first opinion is a favorable one. Time will tell.

Have a blessed day.
 
Speaking of "NEW" molds....

I just got done with a clean up and first pour with my new Lee 356124 RN 6 banger.

OMG I just remembered how frustrating they can be, nothing I did made a good bullet. :eek:

I don't blame it on the mold though, they were shaped like they should be, just wrinkled all over. Still need to get the goop outta the pores I reckon.

To be honest I wasn't totally disappointed as I had a MP 4C brass mold of almost the same bullet doing exactly the same thing.

Sometimes I just get in a hurry and try and get things going before they are ready. Oh well, I got plenty of other stuff to do...
 
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