First try at casting was not a success

[BMWrider]

Smelted a bunch of wheel weights and cast/sized/lubed hundreds of 9mm 124 LRN boolits last week. I slugged my barrel at .354 - .3545 and sized the boolits to .356, so I figured I was good to go. Plus, I've been shooting commercially cast 124 LRN boolits sized at .356 with great results. So, when I shot the home grown boolits at the range, it looked like I was shooting a shotgun. The barrel was heavily streaked and EXTREMELY difficult to clean. I suspect I have a ton of zinc in the mix. Would that explain the garbage in my barrel? I'll try the sulphur "trick" to clean up my lead and start over.

[btroj]

Zinc would cause poor mould fill out, not leading. You have serious lead it sounds.
Could be a loading issue if you are getting bullets sized by the case or taper crimp.
Could be a powder/pressure/velocity problem.
Could be a lube issue.
Face it, you have a problem that has many potential causes. If the commercial cast and your were loaded using the same setup then it most likely isn't the loading system.
Did you verify that the commercial cast and your actually are .356? Not everything is as advertised.
What bullet and what lube? More info could help.

Brad

[BMWrider]

i did experience poor mold fill-out on a number of boolits and the alloy in the pot seemed to need fairly high heat to flow (I don't yet have a thermometer). The alloy also had a "spongy" behavior until the pot was fully heated. Boolits were cast with a Lee 6-Cavity Mold TL356-124-2R 9mm Luger, (356 Diameter) 124 Grain Tumble Lube 2 Ogive Radius, tumble lubed in the 45/45/10 "recipe" and loaded exactly as I have been doing with the commercial cast boolits (same powder - WSF, powder charge - 4.5 Gr, overall cartridge length and crimp). i also tried a number of rounds with various powders/charges (Bullseye and Power Pistol) to see if one load was more accurate than another.

[prickett]

Few people have success with TL 9mm's. Some do, but most don't. If you are new to casting, you might want to try pan lubing (and, if successful, buy a Lubrisizer - assuming you shoot any volume of rounds). 9mm is a difficult caliber to start with.

I'd suggest you beagle your mold (or buy a .358" mold). Then, starting at .358" sizing. If that fits your chamber and feeds ok, stop. You are good to go. If not, try .357".

I too slugged my barrel (.355") and sized according to that. But, I too got leading. Every size up to .358" leaded. Once I hit .358" the problem went away.

Good luck!

Oh, BTW, I too can shoot commercial .356" lead bullets without leading. Never figured why. Accuracy of the .358" will probably blow away the .356" commercial boolits.

[noylj]

Many people slug with a lead "ball" that is too small and they get low numbers for the groove diameter. I have NEVER seen a 9mm barrel less than 0.355 and most are several thousandths larger.
I too have found that cast bullets 0.358" tend to perform the best (much larger and they don't fit the chamber) from barrels with tight chambers and WWI and WWII guns with "make 'em as fast as possible" barrels. They all shoot lead really well, as long as the bullets are 0.358" (the custom tight barrel and my two CZ75s, with barrels of 0.355-0.3555", will handle bullets as small as 0.357"). They also handle jacketed bullets of 0.357-0.358" better than 0.355".

[btroj]

The poor fill out is also common with cold moulds and oil in the mould.
Try some bullets un sized and see if they are any better. If they will chamber ok they barrel will size them just fine.
Keep trying different things, don't ever give up. I was recently frustrated with my first 1911. Poor feeding and leading drove me nuts. Once I found what worked I have never looked back. It was a good learning experience overall.

[462]

Chances are that the commercial boolits were quite hard, especially compared to your cast boolits, and they were swaged down upon loading. Load a dummy round, pull it and measure it. If it's skinnier than when it went into the case, that may well be your leading cause.

Are you using the Lee Carbide Factory Crimp Die?

Just my two-cents.

[RobS]

BMWrider has a base point with commercial cast at .356 and if loaded the same way (same powder/powder charge, same reloading dies, etc) and now has problems with leading and accuracy with his home grown then a few possiblities.

1. Case swage down and do as 462 mentioned and pull a boolit.

2. The lube is failing.

There is the possiblity of both happening as well.

I would start with boolit fit and pull a round. Leading happens more often from undersized boolits.

[BMWrider]

Thanks all for the ideas! Forums like this (and 1911) are full of people just ready to help.

I measured (again) the commercial cast boolits (from Bootheel) and they are all exactly 0.356. I'm using the Dillon dies in an RL-550B and changed nothing but the boolit, so perhaps it was either a lube failure or these are much softer than the commercial ones. I re-smelted the remaining lead from wheel weights plus the remaining previously cast boolits (about 25 pounds). I added sulfur, and as I thought, the alloy was loaded with zinc - I tossed about 5 pounds of dross from the sulfur treatment. Not sure if I got it all out, but additional treatments with sulfur weren't generating the large, heavy globs of dross it did initially. I'll try re-casting tomorrow and try the dummy round recommendation from 462.

[BMWrider]

I was recently frustrated with my first 1911. Poor feeding and leading drove me nuts. Once I found what worked I have never looked back. It was a good learning experience overall.

This is my first 1911 in 9mm (all the others - Colt Gold Cup and two Kimbers - have been in .45 ACP). After experimenting with various loads (and experiencing some super frustrating FTFs during a couple of IPSC/Steel Plate matches), I settled on 124 Gr LRN with a 1.165" COAL. It will eat them all day long without any issues. So, I've made the journey from the j-word to commercial cast and now want to make my own boolits.

[RobS]

BMWrider:

If you have some of the commercial cast left I would pull one of them as well for a comparison. A lot of commercial casters use harder alloy so the boolits don't look all dinged when a person opens up the box. I bet if you take the two and put them together base to base and put them in a bench vise slowly tightening it down the commercial cast will smash your own cast boolits. If your boolits are swaged down then you have some options.

1. Use a case expander that will open the case up the length of the boolit so seating won't swage it; usually .001-.002 under boolit diameter expander plug will work for alloys similar in BHN to air cooled wheel weight alloy.

2. Cast a harder boolit to withstand the stress the brass is putting on the base of the boolit.

or

3. Cast a larger diameter bullet to off set the case swage down i.e. a .358 boolit that swages down to .356-.357 if you are so lucky.

It doesn't matter which way a person goes or what a person believes is best, it helps a great deal if the boolit leaves the case at the intended diameter.

[prickett]

This is my first 1911 in 9mm (all the others - Colt Gold Cup and two Kimbers - have been in .45 ACP). After experimenting with various loads (and experiencing some super frustrating FTFs during a couple of IPSC/Steel Plate matches), I settled on 124 Gr LRN with a 1.165" COAL. It will eat them all day long without any issues. So, I've made the journey from the j-word to commercial cast and now want to make my own boolits.

Have your tried casting .45's? If not, I HIGHLY suggest starting with it, rather than the 9mm. It is a low pressure load meaning you can use softer alloy. And, most people are able to load .452" and be fine (i.e. no need to oversize). I AM able to tumbler lube my .45's (whereas I haven't had any success with the 9mm).

[Echo]

Chances are that the commercial boolits were quite hard, especially compared to your cast boolits, and they were swaged down upon loading. Load a dummy round, pull it and measure it. If it's skinnier than when it went into the case, that may well be your leading cause.

Are you using the Lee Carbide Factory Crimp Die?

Just my two-cents.

+1 - The commercial boolits were hard-cast, and - What are yours? What alloy are you using? I'm betting that your home-cast boolits are being sized down on seating, and therefore lead like a champ.

[geargnasher]

That sucks about the zink, it would seem that you certainly did have contamination, but I've shot quite a few zink-tinged boolits and didn't find them to be particularly prone to leading the bore all things being equal.

I'm thinking along the lines of all those above who said your boolits are too soft. Are you familiar with the factor of age-hardening? If you shot them a day or two after casting, they will likely be very soft. Straight, clip-on wheel weight alloy takes at least a week to get 90% of it's final hardness, and an hour after cooling can be in the 8-9 bhn range, maybe only 10 the next day, so if you didn't wait they are likely FAR softer than your commercial cast which is probably in the 16 bhn range. Here is where the case-swaging effect can bite you in the butt. That's what .462 and Echo are driving at. You might wait a week for your homade boolits to harden some, do everything else the same, and have fine results even with tumble-lube. You might need to add some linotype or other source of high-antimony alloy to harden your boolits some, or water-quench them since a rapid cooling right out of the mould will make wheel weight alloy much, much harder than it otherwise would be. You might also have a machinist turn a slightly larger and longer expander plug for your expander die that will stretch the case mouth a little more than the one you have now (which was no doubt designed for the much harder, smaller jacketed bullets) and reduce the amount that the boolit itself has to stretch the brass. A .002" interference fit with cast will be plenty to retain the boolit in the case and should drastically reduce the effect of the hard, undersized brass squeezing your boolits down when you seat them.

Undersized boolits tend to lead due to sealing poorly in the barrel and allowing the leaking gas jets to etch metal from the boolits surface, and this metal dust gets blown ahead of the boolit and then ironed on the bore where it accumulates with each succesive shot.

One more thing, if you mixed stick-on weights with clip-ons when you smelted, you might have a softer alloy than you need because most stick-ons are nearly pure lead which reduces the amount of antimony and tin in the total mix. Don't get us wrong about "going harder" with your alloy being a cure-all for leading, it IS NOT, but no matter what you need to balance the alloy hardness/toughness to the stresses being placed upon it, and in your particular case here with your success shooting commercial cast, it seems your load needs just a little bit harder boolit to work.

You might also end up having to use a very good, high-viscocity lube and a conventional lube-sizer to fix the whole problem, so keep that in the back of your mind.

Gear

[BMWrider]

With the alloy pretty much rid of the zink, I fired up the melting pot and tried my hand at casting again. The results were much better (filled out all around). I water quenched to get some increased hardness and for grins pushed a dozen or so through the Lee (0.356") sizer so I could see if they changed size as they "aged". I measured the sized boolits and to my surprise (horror), they were all a perfect 0.355" - the same size as my slugged barrel. I'll wager that's 95% of the reason for the heavy leading. I verified the sizer is stamped 0.356", so I guess it's time to return it to Midway and return the sized boolits to the pot.