New cast bullet flaw

[williamwaco]

I have never seen this before. Any ideas what caused it?

A little background.
The bullet is the Lee T-358-158-SWC
It drops at .359-.360
The alloy is 80% Clip on WW and 20% Linotype.
This is slightly harder than my usual alloy I added the Lino to get the tin for better fillout.
Alloy temperature was 650-700.

The sizing die is a lee .357 that I have used to size around 10,000 of this same bullet ( same exact mold ).
They were sized nose first.

These were inspected before sizing but not after.
They were lubed after sizing.
The flaw was discovered during the load-time reinspection.
I do not rush any reloading operations. I put them in the die and align them carefully. I raise the ram slowly and carefully.
There were 7 of them out of a batch of 300.

[shredder]

WOW! No idea as to the cause but you have my attention! Very curious what others will say.

[popper]

Both sides of CB? My 40 SWC T/L tends to do the same thing on large or out of round CBs, grooves almost disappear(Lee push-thru). Other choice is that some crud got in the sizer, eventually got pushed out.

[williamwaco]

Both sides of CB? My 40 SWC T/L tends to do the same thing on large or out of round CBs, grooves almost disappear(Lee push-thru). Other choice is that some crud got in the sizer, eventually got pushed out.


No only on one side.


I have seen the problem you describe with oversized bullets where the lube rings almost completely disappear. AND they are noticably harder to push through the sizind die.

This is something different. In that case they are "wiped" all the way around the bullet. These are only "wiped" on one side and I did not notice any of them being hard to size.

My testing shows a bullet needs to be around.364 before sizing to "erase" the lube rings. These were around .359-.360

[Junior1942]

From the looks of the two holes in the top band, I'd say crud got in the mold.

[popper]

The CB looks like it has an accumulation of gunk at the forward band, then the lube grooves are completely ripped away. What is your melt? A glob of oatmeal there? Are you ladle pouring? Sure looks like a chunk of something got in the sizer when you weren't looking. Unless it is your melt, it probably isn't repeatable.

[mooman76]

I was kind of thinkin they were dropped out of the mould before the leas solidified completely. I had some 45s that looked a little like that but not as bad.

[BulletFactory]

looks like zinc to me.

If not, its probably crud that had been accumulating, and dumped through the nozzle all at once.

[Bob Krack]

Dumb me, looks to me like problems inside the sizing die or an un-even base on the boolit (tall or off center sprue?).

Bob

[geargnasher]

Leaded sizer die? You would have caught that on at least one if you QC'd before sizing, so I assume the sizer did it, maybe the last seven out of your batch? Check the sizer.

Gear

[Bulltipper]

Is it possible that you did not get the lino mixed and fluxed completely? Very interesting, looking forward to finding out why this happened.
Bulltipper

[williamwaco]

Leaded sizer die? You would have caught that on at least one if you QC'd before sizing, so I assume the sizer did it, maybe the last seven out of your batch? Check the sizer.

Gear

Yes they were perfects before sizing. At that point they had been viewed 360 degrees once by eyeballs and the second time after they cooled with my 2.5x binocular visor and rotated in my fingers.

I never doubted that it happened in the sizing operation. I did look through the sizer body. It was clean, bright and shiny. I checked them all for lumpy sprue cuts that could have tipped the bullet. The bases were perfect.

Your agreement that it must be the sizer die prompted me to redouble my efforts on the die. Guess what I found?

Take a look at the 'mouth' of that die. You can even see lead clinging to it. The question now is why didn't it happen sooner, AND, why can't I reproduce it now that I know what caused it?

[xfoxofshogo]

lol hade some thing like this hapen one time and i was useing a lee 10lb pot the pot was geting to hot and messing up the lead buy the spout and win i size the ones i hade made that day i hade to junk a lot of them that look fine for they came a part or mest up in sizeing them just like yous did

if a lead pot gets to hot is will brun the lead i guss that what you would call it olny hapens win i work with hard lead for some reson mabe its some thing in the lead that burns off i to was working with a ww and Linotype mix as well

[stubshaft]

I can see where that would have wiped away some of the loob grooves but like Junior said there is a hole in the first band. Could have been a combination of issues.

[44man]

Looks like LLA is not only a good way to lead barrels but also a size die! :groner::groner:

[geargnasher]

Looks like LLA is not only a good way to lead barrels but also a size die! :groner::groner:

That's pretty bad, ain't it!

I'll never forget what you told me whe I first joined and aske for some help with my Kimber .45 that was leading, you said "LLA works best under your fenders". That was all. Sometimes that's true!

Gear

[williamwaco]

Looks like LLA is not only a good way to lead barrels but also a size die! :groner::groner:



Be Nice! :rolleyes:

Those bullets were sized before they were lubed. Can't blame LLA for this one.

[Jeffrey]

Looks like Waksupi sent you some bad loob grooves.

[Gtek]

What is your fix attempt going to be? Polish throat area and remove that lip I think I see? Clean and move on? I will now have to go check all of mine. Gtek

[MikeS]

Maybe I'm looking at them wrong, but is it possible that you placed those 7 boolits too close to a source of heat (like a hot plate on full blast, or a lead pot) after sizing them? To me it looks more like the boolits melted slightly, as I can't imagine the TL grooves slumping like that just from a sizing die. But what do I know?

[afish4570]

Could it be slag from surface got mixed into pour and managed to get past nozzle????? If being cast from a bottom pour pot. If cast from a dipper, slag is easier to get into a bullet. A good scrubbing of dipper, clean nozzle if its the pot and dump the lead out of the pot and make sure there is no caking of junk on sides of all tools used in this operation......A start by removing all possibilities. Then a search for zinc, copper or contaminates in the lead itself.For a start. Afish4570

[MT Gianni]

Could a piece of crud have been picked up by a boolit and wiped off or stuck to the die? Then it took the next 6 boolits to dislodge it.

[popper]

Is that a lube/sizer? I think MT Gianni got it, something HARD got picked up by the bullet, lodged in the die and messed em up. A chunk of casting lead would just get swaged into a blob. Those lube grooves look like the got sheared. A column of antimony in the bullet could cause that but I have no idea what it would look like when cast.

[williamwaco]

Well, None of the above.

Keep guessing.
It is not related to the casting.
They were perfect when cast.
As stated, they were inspected 360 degrees - TWICE before sizing.
It is not related to storage after casting. There was no heat source
It was a Lee sizing die, not a luberi-sizer.

I am working on reproducing it now with a new batch of bullets from the same pot.

More in a couple of days.

[MT Chambers]

An "out of round" bullet, or one with uneven base or imperfections on base could do that when the bullet enters sizing die.

[DLCTEX]

Looks like a Lee die in a Lok -n-load adapter. The mouth of the size die seems to have a sharp edge that could shave lead. I'd break that edge if that's the case. Boolits need lube of some kind to be sized in the Lee die, be it soap or some other form of lubrication. Did you run them dry?

[williamwaco]

Well here is the final word. ( Probably not.)

It is not related to casting temprature. Same results with bullets cast at 500,550,600,650,700,750,800, and 850. Whew, that was a mess to cast those and keep them separated but it provides data for a completely different expirement. How does bullet hardness vary with casting temprature? How does bullet diameter vary with casting temperature? That is for another chapter.

It is related to bullet hardness. Cast a batch of new bullets today from the same cavity of the same mold but BNH 10. The first bullets were BNH 21.

The softer bullets still show the same effect but to a vastly lower degree. See thumbnails below. ( I don't know how to place the photos where I want them. )

It is also related to that sharp edge on the resizing die. When I removed that lip it was possible to size hard or soft bullets with no deformation.

It is also related to the style of the bullet. It only happens with flat base bullets. It does not occur with bevel based bullets.

AND:

The part nobody is going to believe. It only happens when bullets are sized base first. With the sharp edge on the die, it was not possible to start the bullet into the die without catching the edge of the bullet on the edge of the die and canting it sideways.

Sizing bullets nose first, it appears that the SWC part of the nose guides it close enough to center the first driving band. I miked the drive bands. The base band is exactly the same size as the front drive band. It looks like the front band would catch too but it doesn't.




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