LEE Mini Bullet molds for my cva

[porkchop401]

Anybody have any experience with the lee minie 50 cal molds ? I see there are 2 styles (360 and 354 gr) both are .500 dia . One has micro groves and the other has 4 groves. If so I am interested in how they might shoot in a 1in 28" cva inline and any reports on game. I have never cast bullets for a muzzle loader other than a Lee REAL 320 gr. . My experience has mostly casting for a 44 mag and that was with about 5-10% tin anatomy that I feel will be too hard to make MZ slugs with . Any experience is appreciated.

 

[Mikeul50]

Porkchop,
Funny you should ask about the LeeMini....
Although I have little experience with mldrs...and pouring bullets...I collected a little information from Idahoron and off I went....that direction...
I believe the mold I bought was the Mini360...however I changed it up a touch...

That mold has a deep hollow butt to it...I didn't particularly like the looks of it so I cut off a section of the hollow butt and made the bullet a little more front of center weight forward....I haven't shot it alot...but I do enjoy shooting it at targets quite far...
I have a spot on my peep set to 250 yards and it likes to hit there quite well...
Be it more luck then anything...but that bullets gets to the target quite often...
From 50-100 yards there is maybe a 4" increase in height so that works for me...haven't had a 150 or 200 yard target set up yet but did play at a rock at 250 and am quite confident that a coyote wouldn't go far if anywhere....
Any way...I was shooting 90 grains v t72f, no.11, thick felt pad under paperpatched bullet resized to .501....thru my knight Ultralite....
The lead I use is 40:1, weights between 386-390....before I changed the HB the bullets weighed around 365 or so....
The odd part of shooting this bullet is that at 300 yards it is quite hi...I don't know why it was shooting like that as the peep was still set at 250 yards.....I was in the mountains while shooting the 300 yards but I can't see the reasoning for the bullet to stay hi.....I haven't been able to get to a range or even time to shoot the mzldr since last season.....I am perplexed....I need to figure out what's happening beyond the 250 range.........

 

[porkchop401]

I appreciate the info I am looking for a bullet I may cast my self for practice and possibly elk hunting .

 

[Mikeul50]

I was buying and shooting greatplains....they are a tapered body and i wasn't liking the extra effort to seat the bullets...caused alot of tip deformation...the paperpatched allows a person to fine tune the bullet to the barrel diameter....and if I'm a hurry for a second shot tearing a small piece of paper off the bullet allows the bullet to go down the barrel without running a cleaning patch....but I could usually get two or three shots before too much crud ring....
The greatplains were plenty soft....when shot into the dirt bank they usually came out about half weight....the 40:1 usually come out with top smashed over because it buried into the bank further and found extra rocks while doing so..it retained probably 85% weight....I did find a softer bank to shoot into and the 40:1 traveled about six feet into the softer soil....found most with a metal detector and cleaned them off and recast them....several times actually.....I think that the 40:1 hollow butt would be an even better bullet with a slight hollow point....that open point on the greatplains opened fast and blew off the bullet....with 40:1 that hollow point would be an excellent way to mushroom that tip for better expansion......I just haven't figured that part out yet.......someday...........
Thx Sabot for posting that pic....