Ready to start casting

[sven556]

Ok, I finally got my hands on some ingots made from wheel weights and I have a lee 308-170gr rnfp mould, and lee 20lb bottom pour pot. Any tips on using this equipment for the first time? I still need to get some gas checks and lube. I'm looking for a full power 30-30 load. I have some 2400 to try first and I might pick up a pound of 3031 also.

What would you recommend for a lube? I see lots of homemade recipes on this site but I'm not sure how to pick out a good one. Where can you buy beeswax?

How often should I flux the pot?

I'm hoping to cast my first boolits in the next couple days! At least with this hobby when I screw up I can melt it down and try again!

Thanks,
Sven

[sisiphunter]

Good to meet ya Sven, I'm sure more informed and experienced guys will key in soon, but here are my two cents. I started 1.5yrs ago. BUY THE LYMAN CAST BULLET HANDBOOK.....very good resource in my opinion. the third edition is fine and the new 4th edition is good too.

Never used 2400 myself, 3031 in the 30-30 is good, I have limited experience with 30-30 though.

I use Lee Liquid Alox, and works fine for my needs so far. I would like a lubrisizer someday, but cant afford it right now. Also size with Lee push thru sizers. BIG SUGGESTION is to slug your bore, shoot for .001 to .002 over groove diameter for a good start point.

Flux when needed. You will figure it out more or less.....I keep a VERY DRY old wooden dowel to flux with and a candle. I've tried using waxy style lube to flux with too, but never too impressed. Ya know what just try it out, see how it goes, like ya say melt it down if it is no good.

Good luck, Matt

[Bret4207]

Sven, when you get that alloy to a liquid state you want to flux it good. I prefer using a simple dry wood stick or scrap of lumber about the size of a carpenters pencil, only LONGER of course. Stir it around, scrape the sides and bottom of the pot, agitate the mix gently, that is, don't splash about in the mix, but get it moving. You'll find a bunch of "dross" floating to the top, stir this back into the mix a bit to reduce any alloy in the dross back into the mix if you can. This will take maybe 2 minutes or so with a 20 lbs pot. At the end you should have a mess of charcoal and grey looking garbage floating on top. Remove that to a metal can of some sort, but don't toss it. You can collect that and when you "smelt" some more alloy try adding that to reduce more alloy trapped in it out. It's always better to flux a little more than a little less.

When you first start casting into the mould take my advice and just start moving right along. The mould should be pre-warmed before casting by resting it on the edge of the pot or even dipping a corner of the mould in the hot alloy for a minute or so- long enough so that the alloy doesn't cling to the mould (it WILL adhere to the mould, don't panic, just let it remain in the mix till it melts back off. Once the mould is warmed just start filling and emptying he mould. Don't stand there staring at the wrinkled little deformed raisins you will produce, just get a good rhythm going and before long you'll see boolity looking boolits starting to drop. Make sure you give the sprue adequate time to harden, then drop and fill the mould. Every second the mould is empty it's cooling down. As the boolits start to fill out nicely you can slow down and work on perfecting your filling the mould movements. It'll be clumsy at first. Don't worry about quantity, you want quality- complete fillout is your goal. Make 1/2 again as many boolits as you think you need, you'll end up culling a mess of them.

After you're done casting and the boolits have cooled you can start inspecting them. Incomplete fillout, wrinkles, big honkin' voids int he base, etc. you toss those back in the pot. What your quality control minimums and maximums are will change as you gain experience. I suggest you keep the ones that look "good enough for plinkers" at the start. Don't do like I did and assume every tiny flaw means the boolit has to be recast. Gather up a good amount of decent boolits and save them.

With a GC mould you really do need to GC them till you get some time under your belt, and even then GC's make life a whole lot easier. Lee sells a sizing kit that mounts to your standard press easily and works very well. It will apply the GC as you size and is quite reasonable in price- something under $20.00 per die kit. For a 30-30 Winchester I'd suggest at least a .310 die, if not .311. For a Marlin with Micro groove go a bit larger, .311 for sure. The Lee kit includes a tube of their Lee Liquid Alox, aka- Mule Snot. (Once you see it you'll understand the nick name!) Follow the application instructions, it doesn't take a lot. Let them dry.

I'd suggest starting out low and slow at first. Something along the lines of 10.0-12.0 gr 2400 should get you in the 12-1400 fps range from a 30-30. After you get some quality castings falling from the moulds you can work up to full power. The 30-30/30WCF is rather easy to get up into, if not exceeding, factory jacketed load power with cast. 30.0 3031 will give you well over 2K fps with a 170ish gr boolit. BUT- work up slowly and most importantly OBSERVE and WRITE DOWN what you see. Change one thing at a time, don't change powder charge and sizing diameter at once because you'll never know which one contributed tot he success/failure. And WRITE IT DOWN!

Did I mention your should WRITE DOWN your thoughts and observations? Well, I think you ought to WRITE IT DOWN in case I didn't.

BTW- have fun, that's what this is all about.

[Doby45]

I concur with Bret on everything he said. The only thing I would add is that the "magical" 30cal plinker load is 10gr of Unique. That works with most any 30cal rifle, be it a 30-30, 308 or 30-06. I use the exact boolit you are talking about casting in my 308 with 10gr of Unique and no GC and it makes a FINE plinkin load, great for punching holes in paper. For a plinker I would say the mule snot would be more than adequete but once you start working your loads up some and GCing them I would say move to a more robust solid lube. You can pan lube the boolit, push it from the cake of lube or cut it out with a cutter, pop a GC on the butt of it and punch it through your Lee sizer. I do that for my higher end 308s and it works great too.

[runfiverun]

if you are looking for full power loads in the 30-30 then use the loads for jaxketed.
3031 will work as will h-414 ,4895 is also a good one when you want to back it down a notch.
also you might want to waterdrop.
i'd start by just figuring out how to clean and heat the mold and go from there.

[sven556]

I went ahead and cast 80-90 boolits tonight. Most were wrinkled. So I tried turning up the temp and started getting frosty boolits. Would having the valve turned down too much cause wrinkled boolits, I had a pretty small stream? I did keep about 10 of them for plinkin use.

What should I use for lubing the sprue plate bushing and alignment pins? I would rather not order something for this.

How long do you wait before cutting the sprues?

[targetshootr]

Wrinkles are from your mold being too cool. Need to pre-heat it. I lay mine on the gas stove burner. Check out this tutorial:

http://goatlipstips.cas-town.com/casting2.html

[Bret4207]

Moderate frosting is okay as long as it's even around the boolit and you get complete fillout. Heavy frosting results in an undersized boolit. Your MOULD is too cool, POT TEMP and MOULD TEMP are two different things. You can cast perfect boolits with the alloy 75 or 100 degrees above the liquid point, but only if you can keep your mould temp up. You control mould temp mostly by casting speed. The faster you cast, the hotter the mould stays, every second the mould is empty and not getting a fresh charge of hot alloy it's cooling down. You turn the pot temp up when you can't get enough heat by casting fast, but those temps are all relative and I don't imagine any 2 people use the same exact temp in a given year. You can try opening your stream a bit, it may help or not, only one way to find out!

Wrinkles can also be caused by contaminants in the mould cavity. Oil from manufacturing for instance can be a bear to get out. Many folks here use very hot water and dish detergent to clean them (use a toothbrush in the cavity), I tend to gravitate more towards chemical cleaners like starting fluid (I know, dangerous in the wrong situation), brake or carb cleaners or PVC pipe cleaner. In addition, I've found many moulds need 2-3 casting sessions to shape up. I don't know why, but the heat/cool cycle seems to provide some benefit to the cavity surfaces, like when a polished iron mould from lapping blues from heat and casts better. Same thing with aluminum, only I don't know exactly what the heating/cooling does.

For your lube something as simple as a carpenters pencil rubbed on the wear points can work as can a tiny bit of boolit lube or even high temp greases. DO NOT get the lube in the cavity. Bad ju-ju that! For me, the old carpenters pencil works as good as anything else. Bullplate lube is supposed to be THE STUFF but I can't seem to remember to order it. CRS syndrome!

Sprue cooling- watch the color of the sprue, it will change from shiny liquid looking to shiny firm looking and then it will "flash over" and become dull and solid looking. Give it a count of maybe 3 "Mississippis" and try cutting it. If there is ANY smearing of the boolit or showing on the mould or bottom of the sprue plate then you need to wait longer, and immediately remove any smearing on the mould top or sprue bottom with a coarse cotton cloth, 4/0 steel wool or a stick of wood. You do not want an alloy build up on wearing surfaces, especially with an aluminum mould, that can gouge a mould in no time and ruin it.

Craters in the bottom of the boolit can be from cutting to soon and they can be from a dull spure plate. Giving it a couple extra seconds will help you determine which is your issue. Small craters in the center bottom aren't good, but they aren't ground for automatic culling either. Off center craters are "more worser" (my father in laws phrase) and can throw things way off balance.

Give it another try, get the mould HOT, play with things a bit.

[oldhickory]

One very important thing is mold prep, like Bret said. You need the mold clean and oil free to start. Make sure the blocks are aligned and close properly, no drag on the sprue plate. Once it's ready a drop of Kroil on a cotton swab treat the cavities and sprue plate-Just a little dab'll do ya.

[sven556]

Thanks for the help everyone. I'll give it another try when I get some time. I might try cleaning the mold better this time.