2 cavity or 4 cavity

[bigarm]

I made my choice. I went with the 130 grain 4 cavity mold.

[fredj338]

I started my pre winter casting. I did over 700 9mm 124 gr Lyman boolits with a four cavity mold in about 1.5 hrs. That does not include melt time and heating the mold on a hot plate(About 30-40 minutes). I used four cavity for my most common boolits including 150-.357 and 452 185, 200 and 230gr boolits.
4 cavity in al is really light.
Leadmelter
MI

A 4cav alum is really light. Iron, gets heavy after an hour. With everything heated up, I can do right at 500 per hour on my Magma MC. With a 6cav Lee, 1000 per hour using a fan to help cool the mold. A 4cav should be in the middle, I would expect 700+ per hour. Then throw back any with base deformations, about 2% rejection rate, but I am picky.

[rintinglen]

4 cavity iron or brass molds will get you the most good boolits per cast. Aluminum 5 or 6 cavity molds will out produce them, but the percentage of bad boolits will be higher. If you held a gun to my head, I'd say get an NOE 4-5 cavity and a set of Lee handles and live happily ever after. If you have less money, look for a good used Lyman mold. If even less, buy a Lee 6 cavity. All of them will get you good boolits if you use them right.

If you do go large, you need to pre-heat your ingots if you want to maximize your out put. Use the long, corn-cob style for best results and lay them across the pot after you get the mold up to temperature. They will heat up as the casting progresses and allow you push one in every 5 minutes or so which will greatly extend the casting session without having to stop every 30 minutes to wait for the pot to come back to temperature. To avoid over flow, never have more pre-heating than will fit in the pot. Sooner our later, you will get distracted and they will soften and fall in.

[tazman]

I have a ledge under my pot to rest the mold on so I don't have to hold the weight while I cast. I adjust the alignment ledge so the mold is right where it needs to be left and right. I only need to line it up on the first cavity then lift the lever and push the mold as the cavities fill( I always start with the hole nearest the hinge).
I can use 4 cavity steel molds with little if any more effort than 6 cavity aluminum molds.
This ledge came standard with my new Lee 4-20 pot.

[dkf]

Split the difference and buy a 3 cavity mold from Accurate. I have one of their 3 cav aluminum molds and it works well.

[Moonie]

I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 cavity molds. Nothing over 2C is iron or brass. I rarely cast using my 1 or 2 cavity molds anymore as I've replaced most of them with larger cavity molds in the same calibers.

[casterofboolits]

Not only do I prefer four cavity moulds, I like to buy them in pairs at the same time to get a matched set. My last eight pairs of Lyman four cavity moulds were within +/- one grain for all eight cavities.

I have two RCBS ProMelt pots so I don't have to wait for a pot to recycle. This way, I can turn out a couple thousand boolits in four to six hours of casting. That's as much time as I can spend in the casting shop anymore. Then I go take a loooong nap!

[Leadmelter]

More bounce per ounce.
Four cavity for sure, put on some familiar tunes and you will empty a pot in less than 2 hrs.
Get in flow, go with flow.
Leadmelter
MI

[triggerhappy243]

this is a good thread. gettin me motor-vated

[bobthenailer]

For pistol calibers i try to get 4 or more cavity's moulds

[bigarm]

More bounce per ounce.
Four cavity for sure, put on some familiar tunes and you will empty a pot in less than 2 hrs.
Get in flow, go with flow.
Leadmelter
MI

Just updated my ipod yesterday. When I tried to sync it, I got a message that it needed to have something done. Took a couple of hours, all the music was deleted, but when all was done I found that there was a lot of music missing on it. Whenever I work in the man cave I have the ipod on through the speakers (unless there is a football game). Now I will have new tunes or at least missing tunes to listen to.

[CGT80]

5 cavity NOE aluminum

I have one for my 30-30/30-06 in plain base and just got one in 40 cal pistol. I shoot the pistol and 30-30 a lot. The other custom quality mold I have is a 4 cavity brass, but it is too heavy for me to use for hours on end. The latest NOE worked great and the second session with it was even better.