I was trying some lee REAL bullets and it is near impossible to get the top driving band in the muzzle, to the point where I whacked it with a screwdriver handle a couple of times, once it was in, it loaded nicely and shot well, but getting it in was a bugger. Is this normal?

I never had that problem with any of the 50 caliber REAL bullets I shot, but I used a short starter that was easy to whack with the palm of your hand.

It's normal to need a starter, they won't usually just push in with your thumb.

I am using a short starter as well, though I wasn't really whacking it as hard as I could have

Yup REAL means Rifling Engraved At Loading and they take a pretty good whack to do that.

Your lead is not pure enough. I am betting it is got some hardness there. I have made them soft and hard and the soft ones go in very nice. The hard ones put up a good fight. Ron

I agree your lead is not pure. I have cast some you had to drive down with a hammer when there was alloy in the lead, but boy were they accurate! REAL bullets cast with pure lead load easy and shoot fine.

The thought of not using pure lead never crossed my mind, but yes if you've got any alloy's at all they will load a bunch harder. I've got about a hundred pound block of pure lead just for the muzzle loaders, though Mine is gone, my old hunting partner still has a couple of 50's left. When Idaho changed the rules and the inlines were eliminated from the muzzle loader hunts my Rem 700 Muzzle loader got traded for a new turkey shotgun.