45ACP Cast Bullet Imperfections ok?

[Joe216]

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q535/Joe21682/SampleBoolits.jpg


Hello everyone, the link above shows a pic of 5 sample cast bullets with imperfections.

Are these bullets ok to load?

I've cast bullets for the past 2 weeks now so I'm just a new guy. I've been extremely critical starting out so all the bullets above I've considered rejects, however some might be acceptable, I'm just not sure.

Thank you very much for your time and advice, I understand opinions expressed are just that and hold myself competely liable.

Tnanks,
Joe

[Moondawg]

Depends on what you want to do with them. For serious 25 and 50 yard bullseye competition I would not shoot them. But then you would probably not be shooting a lead RN in Bullseye anyway. For plinking and maybe IPSC or IDPA club matchs where the emphisis is on speed and the range is anywhere from muzzle blast to maybe 25 yards, they ought to do fine. I doubt they are going to hurt your pistol. With practice and more experience you will learn to cast pretty bullets.

[Joe216]

Good advice! That should get me started.

Yea for now I'll just be shooting for fun, so that should greatly minimize my rejects.

So as far as safety/pressure conditions etc, in your opinion, good to go? Understanding accuracy will be the only thing that suffers.

Thank you very much,
Joe

[Wayne Smith]

All except #2 are good to go. Flaws on the edges of the base allow gas to escape as the boolit leaves the muzzle, steering the boolit off target. Dr. Mann demonstrated this conclusively at the turn of the last century.

[geargnasher]

#1 has a void in the base. If it isn't larger than a pinhead, shoot it, you won't be able to tell the difference in balance or accuracy at less than 25 yards. If the voids are too big, they can cause a gas channel to cut through the boolit and it might lead, but that's the worst that will happen.

#2 Cull it, base damage, especially on tumble lube boolits with weak intermediate bands, will gas leak, lead, and tip on muzzle exit causing a flyer.

#3 Then nose ding means nothing. It will look far worse than that on the nose area after being jacked through the magazine and action and still shoot just fine.

#4 Lube it and shoot it.

#5 Cull it. A wrinkle on either side of the parting line (common on Lee two-cavity moulds, check the vent lines and re-scribe them if necessary) can cause a massive gas leak as pressure finds its way up the channel. Often a leaded barrel will result. Not the end of the world, lead fouling is fairly easy to remove, but can be prevented.

None of these imperfections are inherently unsafe, and all would function reasonably well, but probably not as well as you'd like in all instances. I cull all base imperfections including visible voids, and any major band imperfections.

Gear

[Lizard333]

#2 is the only one I wouldn't shoot. All the rest would be fine IMO. I've shot worse. You'll get better.

[littlejack]

Hey Joe:
Welcome to the CastBoolits.
Good information from these fellow casters/members.
Jack

[fredj338]

I only cull bad bases. Any little imperfections in the nose just doesn't matter but for extreme precision @ 25yds & beyond. One of these days I'll set up a test to see the diff but I know a bad base is a flyer @ even 50ft.

[Bula]

For busting rocks and killing cans/reactive targets (as long as these 5 are a VERY small representative group of the whole batch), you'd probably never notice a thing shooting these.

#2 looks a little goofed, but these are beveled base-tough to tell how bad it really is.

Me, I'm a picky bast**d. I'd throw them back in the pot and consider them practice. Beauty is, no wasted lead. Once you get rhythm right, you'll see very few redo's. Otherwise-lookin' good.

[milprileb]

My vote is on Gear for toss or shoot criteria.

If one is shooting angle of man at 25 yds, they all
probably will hit the target. Shooting groups...
cull them certainly.

[geargnasher]

BTW, I forgot to mention the little rough craters in the bases on the two showing indicate TO ME that you cut the sprue just at the right time, before it set up solid but after the lead set enough not to smear. I cut sprues by hand before the set up so much they have to be whacked with a mallet. Good job.

Obviously with pure lead or eutectic alloys that go from molten to frozen instantly, this isn't possible, but with most alloys there is a mush phase and about a half-second window for cutting the sprue witha gloved thumb.

Gear

[Inkman]

So far i only cast LSWC with a traditional lube groove (H&G#68 style) but i do simply tuble lube them and shoot the spit out of them. Shot ones that looked way worse than yours as far as the base goes.

My 2 cents is load em and shoot em, unless you're loading for extreme accuracy.

Al

[MBTcustom]

Just my two cents, a boolit is nothing more than a gas seal that must be strong enough by itself (if not under pressure) to engage the rifling long enough to exit the barrel. Finally, it is an aerodynamic, ballisticly stable projectile that must be stable long enough to meat with obstruction. Those are a boolits three main jobs for a target shooter, in the order of importance.
I have more experience with this cartridge than any other and I have fired many, many, many boolits in exactly the condition that you are showing.
1. Gas seal being of most importance, I would cull #5 because its seal is compromised on all the grooves from top to bottom. (45ACP is a low pressure cartridge and as long as you have one solid groove, that criteria will be met.)
2. Because 45ACP is a low pressure cartidge, almost any alloy will be hard enough to do the job so those boolits should be fine on point #2.
3. Since voids and inclusions produce a balisticly unstable projectile, (yank the wheel weights off your tires and tell me how you like the drive.) I would cull out all but boolit #3.
Besides being obviously uneven in weight, another consideration to this aspect of boolit making, is giving a boolit (that has a good seal and is hard enough) a consistent push by the forces of the powder behind it. For this reason I would cull out all of those that have messed up bases. I disagree with geargnasher about boolits #1 and #2. I think you cut them too quickly and you got serious base plucking on #1 (a sign of cutting while the sprue is still a little hot) and you got base smearing and plucking on #2 ( a sign of the sprue and the boolit/mold being way too hot). #4 will not be consistent in flight because of the void in the side, even though it should make a good gas seal.
All that being said, if you are just getting started and all of your boolits look like these, (or at least most of them?) dont sweat it! shoot them babies! Just be sure to think about what you see when you shoot them so that you can learn from them. If you are paying attention to what you are doing and are trying to learn and improve, there is no such thing as a bad reload. You will learn from what you do and get better and more proficient. If I had a nickle for every boolit I have shot that looks like those in your picture, I could get a new rifle. However, in the last few years, I have become much more discriminating (mainly because I have had a real good taste of what it is like when everything goes right.) because I want to have perfect results that I can count on every time.
Enjoy your shooting and reloading and dont hesitate to ask any question that you have. I was timid as heck about actualy posting a question when I first started here, but I have learned since that I can save myself years of wondering and experimenting, if I just ask in open forum what I want to know. No matter how obscure or specific these guys always deliver!
Welcome to Castboolits!

[Walter Laich]

why not load all of them and see how they shoot in your gun?

Advice above is good but the proof is in what they will do for you.

[Shiloh]

I'd shoot #'s 3, 4, 5,

Number one as well if it has a base. Can't tell from the photo

SHiloh

[bruce drake]

I'd shoot 1, 3 and 4.

2 has a obvious flaw on the base.

5 has a gap in an almost straight line on the side to allow gas blowby as well.

[geargnasher]

Goodsteel, not everyone sees things the same, but here's a little explanation of my stand on cratered bases, let this sit in the back of your mind and stew on it a bit: When you're water-quenching your boolits, the base crater is a fine indicator of boolit temperature, and a good signpost for consistent boolits, provided you follow through by making the time from sprue cut to water consistent. In the actual shooting, they hurt nothing even on rifle boolits as long as they're consistent. You also never get the "bump" from a cold sprue to interfere with gas check squareness. I'll give you that boolit #1 was a bit too hot when the sprue was struck, but the "smears" on #2 look like burrs on the sprue plate hole to me, very common with Lee two-bangers, a little 400-grit emery paper takes care of it. The "crater" is absolutely perfect to my eyes, and I wanted to point out that, while it isn't commonly accepted, this new caster shouln't necesssarily worry about it being a defect if the weights are fairly consistent and the alloy is set up enough not to smear.

Gear

[D Crockett]

you might want to try some bull plate lube on your spew plate you might get a good supprise as to the results D Crockett

[odfairfaxsub]

use it use it use it load em all

[runfiverun]

i have been watching this thread for a bit wanting to see what would develop.
i most likely would only shoot number three.
possibly number one depending on the depth of the hole.
it's too easy to make some more boolits out of them.
not only that but i am thinking i would clean the mold again,and get another heat cycle or two into the mold before i made a good pile of boolits.
i think you have a good tempo going and are opening the mold at just about the right time.

J.M.O.

[MBTcustom]

the "smears" on #2 look like burrs on the sprue plate hole to me, very common with Lee two-bangers
Aha, you could be right. Those boolits arnt frosty at all so his mold temp/pot temp is just about perfect. Its either timing, or a burr on the sprue plate.
I have never been able to get consistent weights out of my boolits when the base is plucked like that.
But thinking about it, base form and flatness is more important than perfectly consistent weight. I'll play with it some and see what happens.:brokenima

[bobthenailer]

IMO i would shoot 1 & 3 but as you are just starting to cast bullets its frustrating to make not so perfect bullets ! as time goes on and you prefect the art of bullet casting you will learn how to make a batch of bullets with about 1% or less defects. it takes less time to make a good bullet than it does to have to visually inspect every bullet for defects after casting but that is what you have to do when starting out .
It looks as your problem may be alloy not hot enough lee moulds usually require 750 to 800 degrees to fill out correctly
Mould not hot enough preheat mould to 450 to 500 degrees
Mould not vented enough to let trapped air out of the mould cavity .

[odfairfaxsub]

well to be honest i would prob re melt number 2 but i shoot alot of bullets i hae cranked or my dad has cranked out way way to fast and have some of the bottom missing but thats ok, they still shoot a fist out of the paper 15 yards away or even 25 last week. i find colder days i always get better bottoms prob with my hold time and the weather cooling my mold for me all at the same time works well but i have shot alot of slightly blemeshed self casted 45s' now the 9mm im real picky about since it has alot working against it

[Calamity Jake]

Shoot 1 and 3, cull the rest.

[dnotarianni]

They would have all been flying at 700FPS by now. Load them and shoot them and save the target. Later on when you get better casting do it again and compare the targets for a comparison. When it comes to plinking this ain't brain surgery, as opposed to long range sniping.

Dave

[geargnasher]

IMO i would shoot 1 & 3 but as you are just starting to cast bullets its frustrating to make not so perfect bullets ! as time goes on and you prefect the art of bullet casting you will learn how to make a batch of bullets with about 1% or less defects. it takes less time to make a good bullet than it does to have to visually inspect every bullet for defects after casting but that is what you have to do when starting out .
It looks as your problem may be alloy not hot enough lee moulds usually require 750 to 800 degrees to fill out correctly
Mould not hot enough preheat mould to 450 to 500 degrees
Mould not vented enough to let trapped air out of the mould cavity .

Bob, this is not a flame, but since we have a newbie here I feel compelled to point out that one piece advice you've given may not be entirely accurate. I don't know if you realize it or not, but at pot temperatures of 750 and above you completely mitigate the beneficial effects of tin as a surface oxide barrier (aids fillout by protecting the surface of the molten lead lead stream from flash-oxidation, thus having the effect of reducing "surface tension"). Heating any alloy containing tin above 750 actually makes the alloy less "liquid", and also makes tin oxidize out of the melt at the surface of the pot at a very hight rate unless you use a layer of oxide barrier like sawdust, MarvaKrap, or kitty litter. Like you said, mould temperature and proper venting is key to good boolits, I'd like to add for the OP's benefit that proper fillout is contingent upon venting, cleanliness, fill technique and speed, tin content, mould block and sprue plate temperature(probably the most important), and consistent temperature throughout the cavities. "Frosting" is totally a product of mould temperature, not alloy temperature, and also that pour technique has a lot to do with how a mould vents. If your mould won't fill with a swirl-pour technique using wheel-weight alloy at 700 degrees, it's a moult temperature issue, not a pot temperature issue. I, too, like to preheat most of my moulds to an honest 450 before casting, I use an open-coil hot plate with an enclosed steel box "oven" on top with a thermometer attached, and it takes about 15-20 minutes for a good heat soak to occur. The first pour is usually too hot, it takes 10 seconds or so for the sprue to set, then after about the third pour I'm where I want to be and pick up the casting rhythm to maintain mould temperature at that point.

Gear

[Joe216]

You guys are amazing and your experience shows. Excellent explanations!!! I suppose a little trial and error wouldn't hurt.

Hoping to shoot my first reload next weekend, can't wait! Ill let you guys know how it goes.

Again, thank you all very much,
Joe

[Joe216]

Just made my first 50 reloads. The first 40 bullets were as close to perfect as possible with no visible defects. Then I made 5 with ring/groove defects and 5 with base defects. Time to see for myself.