A few years back I bought a couple Ruger 7.62x39 rifles. The intent was to have them share magazines and probably loads since my accuracy expectations were minimal. Reach wasn’t expected to exceed 100yds and if they could shoot 2.5” it would fit my needs. One was the Ruger Mini 30 (semi) and the other was a Ruger Ranch (bolt gun). Both were bought with the intention of shooting cast.
When I went to look for molds I found a lot of information coming from C.E. Harris. A portion of his prolific writhings described how he along with NEI’s Walt Melander, designed a mold, and as he put it, “…… with the intent to have the heaviest bullet which could be loaded without the GC poking into the powder space and which would be big enough on the forepart to fill the large throats on the AK and SKS, as well as in the 7.62x54R Russian, .303 British, 7.65 Argentine, 7.7 Jap, etc.” From their effort the NEI 52A was born. The next stretch of history is a little foggy. I believe Walt’s tooling was damaged and the NEI no longer produced the 52A. There was also a fire that disrupted Walt's production. And either before or after the 52A / shop fire I believe Walt cut a second mold that was sold under the description of NEI 72 which from the samples I've seen are nearly identical to the 52A.
With Walt’s passing and NEI no longer in production, Ed worked with Lee making some adaptions, and as he put it “….. of my original NEI with minor changes to suit Lee’s manufacturing process, and to change the appearance slightly so the Lee version would have a distinct product identity”. I believe Ed referred to the changes as their attempt to “Buck Rogers” the bullet appearance. Ed described the Lee deviation from the NEI 52A as not having a “….. a blunter noses shape”. He found no difference in accuracy between the original NEI 52A and the Lee 155-2R. And as a spoiler alert, if the Lee design fits your magazine, it's probably all you need.
While looking for the 52A someone on the CBA forum helped me out by send some samples of both the 52A and the 72 molds that had been produced by NEI. I apologize for not giving the gentleman credit, but the e mail string disappeared and I do not remember his name. From there I found and bought a mold from the NOE listings that Al was producing that seemed to be a close match. I bought a three cavity mold and bullets dropped like water with little variation in weight.
When NOE announced their closure I went back to just see what was still available. At the prices being offered by NOE in their “close out” sale it would be foolish not to buy up as many as I could afford. As it turned out he still had the NOE .311-158-FN-GC-I2 available and he even had a couple that he had cut from steel. I bought one of the steel molds he had “just because” I prefer steel.
Neither the NOE or the Lee duplicate the Lee .312-155-2R one for one. The ogive on the NOE extends .050 to .055 further than the NEI, it's BOAL is about .030 shorter and it's meplat is about 30% larger than the NEI. One could argue the pro and cons of the difference both ways. The Lee front driving band is what we commonly see while the NOE and NEI have a narrower band with a substantial ~.030 crimp groove. Both the NOE and the NEI have a blunt meplate while the Lee has a smaller .055, almost pointed tip.
The NOE fit my needs better because because I could reach the lands with the extended bearing surface and the greater bearing surface and the shorter OAL. Reaching the leade with the Lee required COAL longer than would fit in the Ruger magazine. At a length of 2.020 the NOE fit the Ruger magazine the allowed me to reach the lands where the Lee did not. As loaded the gas check is just below the case neck. Both Ruger rifles were new and as such had a short free bore length (Ruger Mini 30; .104 free bore length, Ruger Ranch .125” free bore length). There haven’t been enough rounds shot to smooth/wear down the leade.
Alloy’s of the samples provided by the good Samaritan is unknown. The NOE and Lee were cast with #2 alloy.
If you have a need for a mold for the 7.62 or probably even the 300 blackout I’d recommend buying what NOE has available before its no longer available. Thanks, Bill C.
Bill
