Ah! A wise man! I shoot practice rounds loaded with lead all the time. This constant and inexpensive "trigger time" makes for supreme confidence in the field. It is absolute tripe that you need to practice with full powder loads: sight alignment and trigger control are what matters... especially with modern rifles that have a reasonable point-blank range. (Trajectory Window)
Red Dot is a great powder for cast lead. One of the directors for the Cast Bullet Association (US) wrote a fine article on that he calls "The Load" which basically says that in any rifle of roughly 30-06 capacity, 14 grains of Red Dot will always work, with any bullet weight. I have used it in my Springfield 03-A3 National Match with good results but not as good as 18.5 grains of Accurate Arms 5744 (very similar to IMR 4198) which will deliver groups as tight as I can hold. I shoot out to 200M using this load and have gone out on rock busting expeditions (shooting rocks in a box-canyon in Cuba, New Mexico) out to 400M with such loads. You learn a lot about trajectory and wind drift shooting such loads.
Yes, $52 is a good price but that is only for the blocks. Six Cavity Commercial handles are about $23 US. My custom 6 cavity .303 mold from Lee will make a HECK of a lot of bullets in a hurry. Once hot, and allowing a slight extension of time in between casts to adequately cool the extra bulk of the mold- I can still make about 180 bullets an hour. Of course, I just fill a different mold (s) between filling the 6 cavity. You can go through a 20 pound pot of alloy in short order.
You know? That mold I tried to send you is still sitting on the shelf in my loading room, unused. If you want to PM me your address again, I'll take another stab at it. It's your mold and I have an identical one of my own that I have yet to use... in fact, I'd about forgotten about that mold (mine) entirely. I am willing to give it a shot as the Feds seem to have lightened up a bit with regards to what are really terrorist tools. If I get that 9.3 going with Lee (after I pay for the kids wedding) I'll be able to pick up the molds for standard cost anytime. If the 8mm Karabiner mold makes it, I can get you a 9.3 at some point. The 9.3mm, like so many other fine cartridges, is a natural for cast bullets. There are some that I never shoot jacketed bullets in, such as 30-30, 32 Winchester, 25-20, 30-40, 45-70, etal. No point in it.
Sorry your hunting situations are curtailed with that double gun of yours. Killing a deer with a home cast bullet is so very satisfying.~Muir