Having a fit with several molds...

[41mag]

Ok, like Texaslawman, I have been working HARD to pour up some decent bullets. from SEVERAL different molds. [smilie=b:

All have been scrubbed clean using both brake cleaner followed by dish washing soap. None of them have been smoked.

I have used two different alloys simply TRYING to get a decent pour.

Here's the mold list,

Lyman's,
452374FV - Devastator
429640 - Devastator
287346U - 130gr HP

NEI
264 160GC

I have tried my standard WW alloy a couple of weeks ago, then today, after another cycle of cleaning, I went with a an alloy which I made up expressly for the HP's. I noted it in the Fryxell notes and it is 19# of WW, 2# pure lead, and 2% tin. Pot temp was running right at 750 and the molds were throwing frosty bullets after about 10 throws. Out of half a 20# pot of lead using either alloy, I got MAYBE a half dozen I might consider shooting. The rest all looked like those posted by Texaslawman. I know that the mold is up to temp as the darned spru was still wet on a few as I was cutting and dumping.

I tried fast until they frosted and I tried it slow and swirling as it hit the spru at an angle. I can live with ugly boolits, but I cannot shoot ones that don't fill out properly, or that have wrinkles in them which run through the gooves.

I have seven other molds which haven't had NEAR the prep on them as these have and all throw the purtiest boolits. I got so darned frustrated I poured them all back in the pot, then made it all back into ingots, before I picked up my hammer and made fishin weights out of it all. [smilie=b:

Ideas would be appreciated, as I have done the scrubbing, the hot temps, and the fast pouring. Hell I was pouring so fast earlier, I forgot to close the spru gate twice, and didn't put the HP pin in once. Funny how you notice those things right as the lead starts to flow into the mold. I have to say that right now I am pretty well frustrated with the whole process, and after another cold drink or two, (only ice tea), I am going to simply load up some of my already cast boolits just so I have the satisfaction of some sort of accomplishment.

[docone31]

Your molds are too cool. Heat them up, the wrinkles and rounded corners go away.

[Blammer]

have the lead flow faster out of the pot or put the nozzle closer to the mould, get a "pressure" pour on it., plus get your moulds hotter.

[41mag]

Your molds are too cool. Heat them up, the wrinkles and rounded corners go away.

Don't know how much hotter they can get than they were. Had them on a hot plate to start with then like I said I poured at least half a Lee Pro 4 20 of 750 degree lead through them, just as fast as I could pour, cut, pull the pin and dump. I had one set of handles seize up as the heat migrated up through the hinge. They were plenty hot enough that none of the pins ever was hard to even turn much less pull out. When the pot got too low for me to see the level, just past half way, I quite and then inspected what I had poured up. Poured those back into the pot, and when it got back up to temp, I grabbed another mold and tried it. I repeated until I had enough and then set things aside and poured up some REALLY nice ingots.


have the lead flow faster out of the pot or put the nozzle closer to the mould, get a "pressure" pour on it., plus get your moulds hotter.

Blammer, man I was there I had the darn things sitting under the nozzle so close I could hardly see a gap, and lead squirting out the sides. I had the valve stem opened up about as wide as it would go and not leak out when I released the handle. I tried it pouring fast, slow, and in between.

The good news is those ingot molds got broken in, and they fit JUST right under that spout. LOL

Hey guys, please don't get the wrong idea here, I REALLY appreciate the ideas, thing is after the first time of this same thing, a few weeks ago, I went back to the drawing board and read all I could scrounge up just this sort of issues. Everything I read said to pour hot and fast, keep the molds hot as they would operate. Well that is what I tried today. Like I said I really don't know how to get the molds any hotter than I had them short of a rose bud in between pours. I can still crank up the heat on the alloy but I don't want to cook out the tin. With the WW I have already had it right on the verge of turning into a rainbow.

If thats what it takes I can get-r-done but something just ain't goin my way here at all. I'm going to wait till this weekend to crank it all back up. Going to clean the molds ONE more time this time with comet and a brass brush. Already done it with a nylon brush, dish washing soap and brake cleaner both. I'll run the lead on up to 800, and if that doesn't produce something shootable, there might be a sale coming along pretty soon.

I REALLY want to be able to pour up some HP's, and also some of those 264's for the daughters 96. I am sure it will come to me if I screw with it long enough but sheesh, when I see how many folks are pouring perfect looking HP's and telling how they do it, then I follow the guidelines so close that any closer someone else would have to be pouring it gets under my skin pretty quick, and I am pretty hard to get upset.

[white eagle]

If you are using a bottom pour ditch it and try a ladle
sounds like the lead aint gittin where if spoze to
then try holdin yer mold at a slight angle that may hep too

[zomby woof]

None of them have been smoked.

OK now try smoking them with a lighter

[MT Gianni]

I have had one that gave me fits until I kept a small, steady, stream over the sprue for 15 seconds after it was full. If I don't do that my base will not fill out. I added vent lines, tried ladles, ran it as hot as could be but finially tried that. Write it down when you figure it out.

[mooman76]

A couple things you could try. Ladle casting like White Eagle stated. Try cranking the heat up all the way until it is too hot. Then back down on the heat slowly til you get where it works. Some moulds just take lots of heat, lots more than what seems reasonable. HP moulds can bedifficult because of the HP pin. If all this doesn't work then you probably have a venting problem. Sometimes loosening the sprue plate will take care of that.

[Alchemist]

I would also suggest ladle pouring, at least with the hollow point mould. Put the ladle spout in full contact with the sprue plate hole, then tip the mould vertically and hold it for a second or two. Then break contact and put a generous sprue on the plate. I use a can of Sterno when I use my HP mould...put the pin over the Sterno flame while you dump the boolit to keep the pin nice and hot.

HTH

[MtGun44]

Add some tin. If you are hot enough and clean and still not getting good fill out, you probably
are short on tin. A 1" long piece of bar 50-50 solder (about 1/2" x 1/4" in cross section) will
make a HUGE difference in fill out in a pot of metal.

Don't bother with the smoking.

Bill

[41mag]

I will give the ladle pour a try this weekend.

On the tipping to an angle yep tried that, but you did hit on something with the sprue plate being tight, and venting. These could both easily be issues. I will play with that also. I don't know how anything could be left inside the vent lines but I will be scrubbing the faces down again just to be sure. :idea:

See, now that I have had a nice big cup of tea, listened to some pounding Molly Hatchet while I knocked out the dishes for the sweetie, I feel SO much better. LOL Oh and also decided to forgo the other loading, and simply kick back with a icy topped adult malt and hops beverage after the dishes, and while firing up the pit for steaks. Man sometimes life is just better than you think huh. :bigsmyl2:

I'll give everything a once over again first thing Friday evening after work, then Saturday morning I'm firing up the pot again for another round. I'm determined that I can pour just as purdy a boolit as anyone, ya'll just got more years of being aggravated than I do. :mrgreen:

Ya slipped that in before I could finish, but yea I thought about adding a bit more tin as well. I have something like 16 rolls of tin solder so a little more isn't going to hurt me much. I think it weighs around and ounce per 2' last I weighed. I'll slip another strip into the mix Saturday morning.

[sig2009]

I have the same problem with a 9mm Saeco 4 cavity mold. I've also about given up on this mold and am either going back to a 2 cavity or just buy FMJ bullets and just cast lead for 38/40/45 bullets. I've tried cold mold,hot mold,slow pour,fast pour,high lead temp,colder lead temp. My last casting session I think I threw most of the bullets back into the pot after going through 20lbs.

[shooting on a shoestring]

My take is your mould might not be venting good enough. You've got tin and temperature. That usually does it. Since it didn't, I suggest you gently and barely break the top corner of the mating surfaces so there is a tiny channel running under the sprue plate to let the air out. Its made a difference on a couple of my moulds. A few others didn't matter. Give it a shot.

[Dennis Eugene]

One other thing,maybe, might try enlarging the fill hole in the sprue plate. Sometimes they are a little bit on the small side and mold doesn't fill fast enough or properly. Dennis

[SciFiJim]

I was thinking venting as well. Use magnification to examine the edges of the cavities and make sure that the vent lines are open.

[beagle]

Some good advice here. The tin idea is good and also the venting never hurts. You're getting plenty of heat if they're frosting....too much in fact.

And, I've had one that had to tilt before it would cast good bullets as has been suggested.

Next time, cast until you get frosting and then slow down your casting tempo until you get good, filled out bullets. Vent first.

Occasionally, I'll get a mould that balks on me. Set it aside for a while and come back to it and it may cast all right. I've had that happen several times./beagle

[MikeS]

41mag: Make sure you have the HP pin HOT. with that style HP mould (the single cavity removable pin old style) some folks here make a holder so that whenever the pin is out of the mould it's in the flame of a propane torch!

sig2009: Is the SAECO mould you're talking about the one I sold you? If so, did you give it a good cleaning? On iron moulds I use LLA as a rust preventative, and as I was shipping that mould I gave it an extra coating. That stuff when dry can be hard to see, and can be hard to get off. If there's still any in the cavities I would think it would cause trouble. The mould can make good boolits , as you can see from the boolits I sent along with the mould, if it's preped properly. I never like hearing somebody having trouble with a mould, and it bothers me even more when it's a mould I've sold them!

[41mag]

Thanks a heap folks for the input. I am going to go back at it again this weekend, take my time, and hit them one at a time instead of trying them all.

The ideas have already been noted on what to look for on the molds.

I am going to look them over really well this evening with my "big eye" magnifying glass, and see if there is anything that jumps out, and will then look at the sprue plate areas good also. That was something that was working in my head, but didn't jump until mentioned. I initially thought that it might have been the Bull Plate Lube, but heck, I didn't have enough on there to even see, just touched the tip of the q-tip in the cap and smeared it around on the plate. You could hardly see any at all going on, but it sure does work.

Like I mentioned, it's not like I just purchased these and decide to pour up a couple hundred boolits and expect them to be perfect immediately. I have read up on this since the first of the year when I initially got the itch. Then after working with the regular PB and GC versions for my handguns and being able to start getting good to great boolits within the first couple of pours I figured I was ready to try out the HP's. This was a couple months back. I studied up on them as well for well over a month reading about the issues, alloy's, and temps, making notes and going back through it all again and again. Then a couple of weeks back I decided to give it a try and got similar results, but had sticking pins, and such. I played it off as a learning experience and figured that the next time I would get it right.

This time going into it I made sure the molds were hot, had the pin's sitting in the alloy ahead of time, and after the first pot of shriveled up mess I figured I might not have gotten the mold clean. After three more molds though, I knew they ALL weren't still dirty.

So I'm back to square one and will start anew on Saturday morning with some freshly cleaned molds, with the suggestions noted here all been adhered to, and we'll see how it goes.

Thanks.

[sig2009]

sig2009: Is the SAECO mould you're talking about the one I sold you? If so, did you give it a good cleaning? On iron moulds I use LLA as a rust preventative, and as I was shipping that mould I gave it an extra coating. That stuff when dry can be hard to see, and can be hard to get off. If there's still any in the cavities I would think it would cause trouble. The mould can make good boolits , as you can see from the boolits I sent along with the mould, if it's preped properly. I never like hearing somebody having trouble with a mould, and it bothers me even more when it's a mould I've sold them!

Mike,
I have cleaned the mold with break cleaner 3 or 4 times and scrubbed it with a soft brass brush numerous times after applying break cleaner. The difference between your cast and mine is that you cast with Lyman #2 alloy and I am using pure range lead without adding anything else. I have 3 other Lyman molds which are 2 cavity molds for 38/40/45 and do not have any problem casting with my lead. I am planning to order a couple Lee 6 cavity molds and try those. At this point I am tired of wasting 3 to 4 hours casting with the Saeco and getting less than expected results. Also I have noticed that the mold is not closing fully and I am getting some light through on the nose end so it looks like this mold may have seen it's day. I will not be buying any Saeco products again anytime soon.

[geargnasher]

You've been given some good advice, and some bad advice.

First the bad advice: DO NOT crank up your pot temperature to a zillion degrees. What happens to a ternary alloy when the temps approach 750F is and beneficial effect of the tin as far as helping fillout goes IS TOTALLY NEGATED. If you need the detailed metallurgical eexplanation why, I can give it to you, but for now just take my advice and never run your pot hotter than about 700-725. Something else that I disagree with is trying to make HP boolits with a ladle. Unless you're very good and very efficient time-wise with a ladle, you won't be able to keep the mould and pin hot enough for good fillout, meaning you can't maintain the four-pours-per-minute pace that you will probably need to maintain to keep the mould going at the right temp for good boolits. If you're a whiz at ladling, go for it, but if you're not, it will slow you down and cause even more issues than you have now.

I have the 452374HP Devastator also, and like Dennis Eugene said enlarging the sprue hole made a WORLD of difference in the way it cast. It sounds to me that your alloy stream is too small, and trickling the alloy in there will cause fillout problems when all else is correct, so look into that. If you need tips on how to make the hole bigger we can help with that too, it might be worth a try, but try adjusting your bottom-pour valve to get a larger stream in there first.

Remember that alloy temperature means nothing when it comes to boolit quality, MOULD TEMPERATURE means EVERYTHING, and mould temperature is determined by casting pace. IF YOU CAN'T MAINTAIN FOUR POURS A MINUTE FOR 20 POURS WITH 700 DEGREE WW ALLOY YOU MIGHT NEVER GET THE MOULD HOT ENOUGH TO CAST GOOD BOOLITS.

Alloy or pot temperature is best maintained at a point about 100 degrees over full-liquidus state (full-liquidus is the point at which the last visages of grainy slush disappear, somewhere between 550 and 575 for most WW alloy with a little tin added). This protects the alloy from excessive oxidation, and lets the tin form a protective oxide barrier on the surface of your molten stream, which has the perceived effect of reducing the surface tension of the alloy and "wetting" it so it flows better, and fills out the nooks, crannies, and edges of the mould.

I really think there is something going on involving user technique rather than mould malfunctions, since you're having the same issue with multiple moulds. I can pour perfect boolits from tight-fitting moulds that have NO venting, and lock up like Fort Knox, by keeping the alloy temps about 100 above full-liquidus and casting briskly to keep the mould temp up hot enough for good fillout. Opinions vary, but for me, a light, even, satin frost on WW-type alloy means the temp is perfect for best fillout, I never had much luck getting consistently perfect boolits while the mould was cool enough for them to be shiny all over. By light, satin frost, I mean the kind that starts to show up on the boolits after they've cooled for a couple of minutes and wipes off with a twist of a dry rag when they are cool, leaving a bright, smooth, shiny surface behind. If you boolits are dropping shiny, then start to frost heavily on just the edges of the bands, KEEP GETTING THE MOULD HOTTER. As the temperature evens-out, the severe frost on the edges will blend with the shiny parts and the edges will start to fill out sharply again, and a light frost overall will form on the boolits after they've cooled a bit on the towel.

Hope this helps some,

Gear

[41mag]

Well I got busy yesterday smelting, blending up lead batches, and pouring up ingots, and didn't get round to trying out the HP molds with the advice given.

This said, I just got through inspecting two of them and both have got several vent lines which do not make it to the cavity. On the .287 one, it has over half of them not connected to the cavity at all, they simply get somewhere about .005" or so from it and stop.

On the .452 200gr Devastator, I found it had five total right down on the nose area which would at least help explain why they all come out looking like they have been mushed.

As for the wrinkles, well I am warming up the pot right now with a different alloy to see if that helps out. I also have the molds sitting atop my hot plate set to 350 to start off at. Hopefully today I will make a few decent boolits. I have printed out the suggestions which seem to apply the most, and will be following them accordingly, starting with a lower pot temp and working up to see if and where they start to fill out the best.

Well just got done sorting out bout 60 or so that I poured up in the Lyman 200gr Devastator. Most of them had issues as I was working up the temp from around 630 up to about 690. In about the 675'ish range they started to fall almost perfect. Nice fill, nice HP's with only a bit of fringe around the lip. Note sure just how to rid them of this as most all of them had it to some extent. The keepers of which there are about 20 were all easily cleaned up just pulling the fringe off with my thumbnail. Now to get them, lubed up, and sized for a trial run next weekend.

Now on to the others.....

[Bret4207]

Mike, I've read through this and I'm coming to the conclusion that you seem to be doing a lot of work you may not need to. Were it me, I'd mix up one big batch (if I could) of alloy and learn to use it for what I want. I'm not a big believer in magic alloy, but it's your choice. If you get your mould working you might well find that altering loads is far more effective for getting HP expansion than seeking a magic alloy. Understanding I'm not a huge believer in HP's from handguns, you may want to discard my advice i that line entirely. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. If you want to use them and have expansion then IMO it's best to use as soft an alloy as you can live with, drive them hard and spend a lot of time looking for a workable load. If you can't reliably break 1K fps, if not 1100 fps, then expansion becomes an iffy thing IME. HP's have their own set of issues in hunting/SD applications and a good FN negates 99% of them, but that's just my opinion and worth just what you paid for it.

The venting issues you found are probably a large part of your problem but the bigger part is probably mould temp. The HP spud is a heat sink, pure and simple. Think about how you are doing things and see if there is a way you can keep the spud up to temp, even if it takes rigging a wire holder in front of a propane torch flame, I've seen it done and it works. You simply have to keep the mould temp up to snuff, no way around it. Every second the mould is empty and the spud is out of the mould they are cooling rapidly. If you can find a way to lessen the "empty time" you slow your heat loss. Think of it this way- alloy inside the mold that doesn't have time to flow into the nooks and crannies before solidifying is bound to give you incomplete fillout. So even if it takes a mould that drops frosty boolits, you have to do it if that what it takes to get complete fillout. Venting is an issue, but the basic time frame for solidification demands the mould be hot enough in the first place. IOW, it's not just trapped air that can cause wrinkles and poor fillout.

[41mag]

Hey Bret,

Your exactly right on most of what you posted. The alloy I blended up was a consolidation of six different batches I had purchased from others here on CB's and some I had from a friend. I set it all in equal piles and then melted it together in 50"ish pound batches into ingots. I threw in 2oz of tin in each batch just for grins, and this is what I was using today.

Your right the HP deal is simply to use for hunting, and driving them to extreme velocities isn't going to happen. My initial alloy was softer in comparison to this one I can tell already with out even testing it. I could at least bend the ingots by hand. That said, I might have been running it too hot as well and with other issues, it simply wasn't working out.

I cleaned the molds up REALLY well this morning, once again, before I got started, and then inspected them under my "big eye", and could easily see with it where the vent lines stopped on the one mold, and some on the other. I managed to use a jewelers needle file to dress up the few in the .452 mold but didn't even want to get started on those in the other one.

The NEI in .264 cast almost perfect boolits from the get go this morning. I am pretty happy with it, I let my pot temp get up a bit higher than I wanted as well as the mold temp and they got pretty frosty pretty quick, but they were all filled out nicely and no wrinkles. Right now I am waiting for the pot to heat back up for a pour of my Lee 300gr for the 454 to see how well this ally compares agains my other batch of straight WW.

Thanks for the help I DO appreciate the thoughts. I'll holler back later on when I get to a couple of the other molds.

[mooman76]

Sounds like you are getting it worked out good. Glad things are turning out for you!

[Beagler]

If you are using a bottom pour ditch it and try a ladle
sounds like the lead aint gittin where if spoze to
then try holdin yer mold at a slight angle that may hep too

Had to do the same thing with a couple of my mold to. Ya have to learn how the mold likes to be filled

[Larry Gibson]

Just a thought or two; sometimes with WW alloys some zinc can sneak in and cause such problems. I've had to trade one batch of alloy to use as sinkers because of such, got some decent pure lead for it. If there isn't any zinc in the mix then the alloy should be good but a little hard for HPs in my opinion. I use WW's + 2% tin and then ad lead at 50/50 to that WW + tin mix. Some times, depending on cartridge and velocity, I add lead at 60 - 70%. Also I cast many HPs, including the .44 Devastator, using a bottom pour Lyman Mag 20. I keep the moulds hot by casting in a pretty fast rhythm, keep the HP pin hot (see photo) and open the pour spout so the alloy comes out fast. I hold the mould about ½ - ¾” below the spout to allow for a solid sprue. I also let the sprue run over a bit to ensure fill out in the mould.

Larry Gibson

[Bret4207]

Glad it's working better for you Mike. If your NEI is an older Walt Melander made mould they are usually very nice to work with IME.

BTW- would you be willing to repeat that part about me being right to my wife?

[41mag]

Sounds like you are getting it worked out good. Glad things are turning out for you!

Well I have to admit that when you follow the most prevalent directions and procedures, and you end up with what you started out with, it gets pretty frustrating the first time, but when you go back and repeat everything not only once but several times, and still end up at the beginning it gets to you a bit.

Luckily there are many here who are helpful, and have shown me several items to look for and to repeat, and it seems to be working this time around.


Had to do the same thing with a couple of my mold to. Ya have to learn how the mold likes to be filled

I think this is another thing which has helped as well. I tried several methods the other day, but none wored out like I had hoped. I think bringing the temp down considerably was a big part of it, and also slowing my throw rate as well. I checked the temp on my mold today with an infrared and it was right at the 280'ish degree mark. When I was throwing junk the other day I know it was WAY hotter than that.

I also played with different distances from the spout, but left the pour rate alone. I wanted to be able to keep it set to close to one setting so I could swap out molds and pour up other boolits while letting one cool off a bit. This said, the hot plate really brought up the temp a bit more in my area and I had worked up a pretty decent sweat before calling it a day today. I haven't been using it to keep molds warm in the past as I usually simply pour out boolits from one or two molds, and they are the 6 bangers which burn right through a pot pretty quick. Usually I am heating up the next one while I am waiting on the newer ingots to melt in and come up to temp.


Glad it's working better for you Mike. If your NEI is an older Walt Melander made mould they are usually very nice to work with IME.

BTW- would you be willing to repeat that part about me being right to my wife?

Not sure when it was made but it looks to be fairly new if not new. I got it second hand and after getting things set up today I managed close to a hundred that I would easily shoot. They might not make a BR boolit, but they will do what I need done. They came out at 170grs with the alloy I used, and the mold is stamped 160gr. Not that this is an issue in any way with me, these will probably only be used by the grandkids for target practice and possibly a feral hog if one happens along.

Also, I would be happy to discuss with your wife the part about you being right, however, it would only be proper that you discuss with mine how important it is for one to stockpile lead, and other tools for casting boolits. To be honest, I am thinking for some weird reason you would probably end up with the easier end of that bargain.

Again thanks to all who have posted up suggestions. Hopefully I have things headed in the right direction for now.