7mm LBT mold (thoughts and results)
Ok, Ok, so judging by the title you would think I have groups to go with this post. I DON’T yet but groups are coming soon! But, I have had the pleasure of casting with this mold for the 1st time. For years now, I’ve heard and read of Veral Smith (LBT MOLDS) and what I heard, or heard of, was nothing but good news. Friends of mine have owned his molds and I’ve shot a couple of his bullets through my very own gun. So I got to see for myself (pre mold purchase) how accurate his bullets/molds could be. His 257 caliber version of the Lyman 257420 was just a tad more accurate than the original mold itself. At least in the 1 and only testing of the 2 molds side by side. The group with the 257 LBT bullets in my TD257 at 160 yards can be seen here:
Anyways, getting back to the current (my 1st) LBT 7mm mold, it was a pure “PLEASURE” to cast with it. WHY?! What makes it a “PLEASURE” to cast with? Why was it so FUN? What’s the big deal?! Well, here is the answer, or shall I say, a bunch of answers. #1, after following the very well written instructions on prepping and casting with the mold, I cleaned it with soapy hot water to remove all the cutting fluid/debris (very little if at all) from the mold and quickly dried it. With this mold, after heating it up, I did not use was any sort or carbon from a burning match to aide in the release of the bullets but, I did apply a DAB worth of mold lube to all the lube points on the mold as per LBT’s instructions. The mold lube was supplied with the mold and instructions. MAN, WAS THIS MOLD SIMPLE TO CAST WITH. The mold released the bullets and cut the sprue with ease. #2, the mold heated up very nicely and evenly with only a couple of wrinkled bullets on the first couple of cast. #3, what I like most was that the mold required no “FIDDLING” of any of the adjustment points to get it to cast, cut and release the bullets well. This thing simply cast and dropped bullets with no pre-prep or adjustments (serious preparation). #4, another good trait and this trait is what every manufacturer strives for is that the bullets come out A-Z exactly (or near perfectly) the way the owner/designer tells you they will. That means LOOKS, WEIGHT, LENGTH and instructions being very accurate. And that’s a huge plus when you compare this mold especially to the likes of LEE and a few others reputable manufacturers. #5, I actually appreciate Veral asking me to give him my honest opinion of his product. His words assured me that I was dealing with a guy that cares about getting it right and trying to make it right if he doesn’t. And that means a lot, especially in this day and age. I honestly can’t wait to cast with this mold again.
The LBT 7mm bullet is on the far right! Notice the OGIVE?
l-r, LEE rn (132 gr), LEE Soup Can (135 gr), LBT (125+ gr)
**********THE LBT MOLDS GETS MY “APPROVAL”**********
Tofazfou
All Replies
Ced; I know that I should try the cast bullets out first before having Erik HP them. The problem is that my cut down cast bullets were still too heavy for what I want. I want them to be in the 46-48 grain weight.
I just heard back from Veral. He can make the .250” bullet in any driving band size that I want. I have to slug my barrels and send the slugs to him along with USPS payment. He said that he could cut down the boat tail and reduce the weight of the bullet.
Veral also told me that he offers a .258” bullet that is more accurate than the bullet that I want to order. I’ve wasted 2 years on trying to come up with a stupid accurate .257” bullet. My $1800 spent on a RCE swaging press and dies was a total loss! Oh Well: I now know that swaging an air gun bullet doesn’t work.
I emailed Veral back asking him for some pictures of his super accurate .257” cast bullet. If it looks good, I will order one of them also.
I ordered a 30 cal JSB pellet shooting.294”bore -.300 groove hammer forged barrel from TJs today and it is being sent to Sean for threading, chamber and crown work.
I am a widowed oldgoat that has a limited income but, I don’t want to waste another year trying to come up with something that shoots lights out. Who knows, I might not be able to do this next year! 😯
I’m just going to throw money at it and see what I can come up with this year.
Yep! Cedric, the last time I talked to NOE, they were VERY interested in what we were doing and want to hear out results. Especially on our cut down NOE Molds. They are thinking of venturing into more offerings for us! :8:
Knife
RC – And as for speeds, well, here is the thing. The current spring has long taken a very CONSISTENT “SEAT” or “SET”. I also have a brand new spring from Dan McVey which is the original Corsair spring BTW. The “SET” spring shoots the LEE 132 gr RN (BC .305) at 870 fps for 2 shots (3600 psi) and then drops about 30-35 fps on the 3rd shot or so. Something like that. The NEW spring will shoot the same bullet at 905 FPS from the same 3600 psi fill. BUT, and i say BUT, the new spring can also take higher fill pressures like up to 4000 psi. So the FPS of this gun in the new caliber is UNDISCOVERED! Now, the “SET” spring which is what i’m currently running shoots the LBT bullets at 901 fps with the same 3600 psi fill. So that’s 30 fps faster between the 2 bullets that only weight 7 grs difference (125+ vs 132 grs). But the LBT bullet has a much sharper OGIVE which creates LESS friction between the bullet and the bore. The LBT bullets do 901 fps then 899.8 fps then drop down to about 866+- fps on the 3rd shot from a 3600 psi fill. So i’ve tuned the Corsair+ 7mm to give me 2 really consistent shots and that’s from a TEENY WEENY 7/8″ O.D. air tube which is the worst part of the Corsair (volume-cc’s).
OG – Good to see you doing all that testing/tinkering as it will become great info in the future. We need more people like you doing all that testing. The one thing i would give though as far as advice is, i would test the bullets for accuracy before i send the molds to Eric. Sometimes, we buy molds just off of faith and we don’t really know how they will shoot in our guns till we cast with them and test the bullets. My 7mm LBT mold has enough meat in it for Eric to HP it but, i won’t even waste $106.00 if the bullets don’t shoot well in original form.
BUTCHER – what’s up buddy? Yes, the 7mm LFN bullet/mold is Verals orginal bullet listed on his page. He has different weights (of course) in both LFN (long flat nose) and the Sptzr (Spitzer) design. At some point after my 1-10 twist barrel is installed, i will probably buy another LBT mold in 7mm but at a heavier weight. I really LOVE the fact that we airgunners have someone like Veral who actually takes the time or event wants to create mold designs for us. Its rare. SUPER RARE that we have that. NOE seems to be another mold maker who give us guys the time of day. And to me they should. Our dollar is the same green as the PB guys.
I took a look at your numbers Doug. Un-Real!!! This just keeps getting better and better!
P.S., ssssshhh, don’t tell N Claug, He’ll shit! :rofl:
This will be sweet! You know how I feel about 7mm…….is this one of his regular firearm designs?
I had the privilege of informing Veral as to the existence of these large-caliber air rifles back in 2007 or so, and got him excited about creating some new designs for the first time in many years. Great to see him catering to airgunners, as well as firearm shooters over the past several years.
His Displacement Velocity Formula has always made the most sense to me when evaluating an airguns suitability for hunting big game……that formula is what really got my attention afa LBT is concerned. Has his own Q@A forum on the Graybeards Outdoors site……a valuable resource!
I posted some numbers in my 25/257 thread I got yesterday.
It is close on the numbers but the big advantage is shot count. I got 10 shots with 20 fps spread on my first attempt. I only did it once and I know I could get it tighter on a higher fill pressure.
I have shot 4000 psi through my breech. With the way I did my guns I can run a aluminum breech. The .308 has aluminum breech.
Ced; it is pretty quiet on the testing of that .250 bullet.
I think that it is like me right now, everybody is waiting for the weather to get better and stuff to come in.
I’ve got 3, .257” molds out to Erik for HPs to be added, I need to call Veral and see if he can make a .257” version of his .250” mold, if he can, I will need to send it out to Erik for some HPs to be added, I need to have Mike at TJs send a 30 cal 1 in 26” twist pellet shooting barrel to Sean Pero for threading and chamber and crown work and I have 2 Hart .257” barrels and a TJs .257” barrel that I need to send to Sean for chamber and crown work.
It could be early/mid April before I get all of my stuff back and ready to go. That’s OK; it won’t start to be half way decent shooting weather here until then.
I’ve got a bunch of irons in the fire this year and I hope that at least one of them gets hot!
Doug,
I have always thought that if you had a 36 inch barrel on your creations that you would have beaten the Haley I had. I am also watching this 4500 PSI tank thread with great anticipation to see what happens with the AF platform, that tank and your valve, but I fear that the breech will be the weakest link.
You don’t want one. They bond the barrels in. Plus they only are getting 220 fpe on 4000 psi with 34″ barrel.
This is what was posted on GTA shooting 85 gr.
1080 fps
1020 fps
990 fps
Tof,
What sort of speeds and FPE are you getting with that 7mm?
On another note,
Has anyone heard if the Extreme can be ordered in 257?
O.G., hows the testing going over on the GTA? I don’t see much as far as results.
BOGMAN, thanx man. Veral knows his stuff as I’ve always heard. Now I have a chance to actually see if for myself. This bullet will be shot in a 1-10 twist in the future and currently in a 1-14. So you guys will get a chance to see how ONE bullet performs in 2 different twist rates. SOON!
RC, I definitely like the mold and I really love his bullet. Well, so far. I’m hoping for the best in accuracy in my barrel (s). I will shoot this bullet in a 1-14 and in the near future in a 1-10 twist. The other difference between the 2 barrels besides twist is the bore diameters. The current 1-14 twist barrel runs a LITTLE BIG for caliber. So I have to shoot a few makes of bullets “UNSIZED”. LBT’s is one of them that doesn’t need to be sized for the current barrel (due to bore oversize). But the 1-10 is guaranteed to have a tighter more and closer to 284″.
Mike, What’s up buddy? Yeah, this mold has some nice features for sure and the venting grooves is just one. They really look good on film for sure (as well as the naked eye). And yes, the one pour hole is for sure off center but it doesn’t do anything more than place the RED CUNT HAIR sprue dimple just offcenter of the base of the bullet. But its so flat along the base that there should be no OFFSET weight. Of course, if it presents a future accuracy problem, I can just sent the plate back to Veral or I can beg the hell out of Doug to make me a new one…..lol!
Bogman; here you go for a .250 bullet for the TJs 25 auto (.250) barrel
Thanks for the write up and pics, Tof. Man, you don’t see that kind of craftsmanship and service often! Beauty.
Now if we can just get a .251. .252 for the TJs…
They are good molds, do cast good bullets and they are very reasonable in price compared to other molds on the market.
Mike, I wondered about the sprue plate design also when I got mine, it looked rather light in construction and stamped out of sheet steel. After using it a lot and the fact it never warped like a lot of other molds have had their sprue plates warp, and the mold makers do sell replacements for that very reason, I tend to wonder if the design resists warping like a fluted barrel does, at least mine sure passed the test of time or at least the test of casting a but load of bullets.
The sprue plate catch, that little spring steel finger that catches the plate when closed, on mine stumped me for a while, it got softer each time I heated it up to cast, but at the same time, I could also adjust it for sprue plate tension.
Then it broke.
I called Veral and was informed that he must have forgot to add more of them as he does when he ships new molds, he sent them right out and I easily removed the broken one and replaced it with no problem.
I sold that mold when I sold my 25LBT rifle, at times I wished I still had it, but he has a pretty good turn around time if I need another and he is a great guy to talk to, really interesting fellow.
Enjoy that mold Cedric.
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Let take a look at the pic when you get it Tedd. Sounds like a winner!!!
Put the 500cc 4500 psi bottle on teh Talon/Dor this afternoon. So far, interesting results. Only got to test for about an hour, but really looking Good!
Mike