Tell me what I'm doing wrong, please :)

[wbwilly]

Hi all,

I just made 20 pounds of Big Lube J/P 45-200's from some Ebay purchased wheel weight lead. I use these boolits for Cowboy Action Shooting so I know that they're fine for that but I'd like my next batch to be better. I will sort out any obviously bad ones when I lube them.

Cam you tell what I'm doing wrong here? The mold is a six cavity aluminum mold. The pot temp varied between 700 and 775°. Does this WW alloy need more pure lead or more tin or is it just me and my process?

Thanks
Bill

Randomly picked from my batch of 700+ boolits
54433

[1Shirt]

They look shootable to me, but suggest hotter mold. Strange looking boolits however!
1Shirt!

[edler7]

I agree with 1shirt...get the mold a little hotter and see what happens. A foot or so of solder for a little extra tin might not hurt the next batch, too.

Interesting boolit. If they don't shoot, you can always use them for pawns on a chess board :kidding:

What mold are they from ?

[wbwilly]

Heheh, thanks. I know they'll shoot I just think that the lines could be crisper. I think the mold was pretty hot, or at least the spru plate was because it cut like butter. When I think the mold was it's hottest the boolits fell right out of the mold and were nice and shinny, but when they cooled they frosted.

What kind of solder are you talking about?

This is a black powder bullet designed to carry a lot of lube...works great.

[williamwaco]

The bases seem to be uneven. Is your sprue cutoff plate loose?
They should be almost perfectly flat on the base. There may be a tiny rough spot where the sprue was cut off but there must not be any raised bump where the cut occurred.

The seam appears to be too pronounced. I wonder if something is preventing the mold from closing completely?

[tomme boy]

The bases are all bent up. What are you dropping them on. Also I think you need a little tin in your mix. Let them cool a little longer before you drop them out of the mold. That might help with the beat up bases.

[OnHoPr]

I'd have to agree a bit with Will. As for the bases you might be put different pressures on the sprue plate when cutting, creating high sprue bumps and flat sprue bumps. If that is all that is creating seemingly uneven bases you might not need to worry about it for your shooting style. The irregular part lines may be indicative of not lubing the lock v's or pins to where your mold is not closing properly all the time or possibly when you are opening the mold with hot boolits you are twisting the mold halves or putting irregular pressure on them, (this could possibly happen when you are cutting the sprues also). Just possible thoughts.

[edler7]

What kind of solder are you talking about?

Plumbing solder...50/50, 60/40/ or lead free. It's about 1/8 inch in diameter and comes on a spool. Usually in 1/2 or pound rolls. You can get it at Home Depot, Lowe's...anywhere that sells plumbing stuff. Look for solid core solder. They used to make acid core solder, still might- I'm not sure....but it isn't what you want.

[Bullshop]

Two things I think I see. One is an inconsistant mold temp. To correct that you need a timed temo. I use a large clock with a sweeping second hand at eye level. Most molds will work best at 4 casts per minute with a timed sprue cut anywhere between 3 to 7 seconds depending on the type of sprue plate used and the volume of the cavities.
The other thing I think I see but cant be sure unless I get more visual angles of the bases but I am going to say inadiquate venting at the base. To correct that I use a small 3 corner file to break the top edges of the blocks at the parting line. I put spacer about 1/16" thick between the blocks then set the three corner file in the gap at the top. A few strokes will put a bevel on the top edges and allow much improved venting and works wonders for improving base fill out.
If the air can not vent quickley enough the base can not fill evenly. ALL my molds either new or even new to me get this treatment.
Inadiquate venting is a major reason for many uneven fill issues and not just at the base. Most battle it by adding tin so the alloy becomes more fluid but the tin is a bandaid to aid in the problem but not a fix for the problem. If a mold has adiquate venting the addition of tin is not neaded. If correctly vented a mold will cast perfectly filled cavities without adding tin to any alloy that could be concevably used for boolit casting or pure lead if other factors such as tempo are correct.

[wbwilly]

Thanks for all the comments, much of what you've mentioned happened during this casting session. I know my mold temp was inconsistent, I did have a lose sprue cutter bolt, I drop the bullets onto a towel and was experimenting with cooling times thus my tempo was inconsistent. I'm going to say that this was mostly a problem with my process because of inexperience. I will take your advice and try to improve upon it during the next session.

Thanks.

Bullshop, would you have a pic showing the relief's cut on a mold?

[Wayne Smith]

The one on the far right is inadequately filled. Could be poor venting, could be one cavity is not cut right, could be that you had some gassing of oil or something in one cavity. Could simply be too cool a mold or alloy when poured.

[wbwilly]

I had lots of issues during this session including some oil that I put on the sprue plate bolt that worked it's way into a couple of cavities and I had a bunch of bad bullets which I thought I culled out....might have missed one or two.

Thanks for all this advise, I will try to heed it all during the next session.

[Lefty SRH]

I tend to run two molds at once when casting. It really helps me with timing and rythem. Next time try runing 2 molds, keep your melt at 700*, no reason to go higher, personally I wouldn't add TIN til I see how 2 molds helps you with timing. Heat your mold on a hot plate on medium to medium high.
Thats my .02 cents!
Good luck.

[rintinglen]

One other possible culprit--one that I am currently battling--is that your Ebay WW may have a smidge of Zinc. I got a batch like that, and it has pretty well cured me of buying wheel weight ingots. I get useable alloy only by adding 3 good ingots to the pot for each one of the bad ones. Some of the other guys have already named most of the other likely suspects, but being currently about a third of the way through a 60 pound box, I thought I'd mention this.

[Bullshop]

Sorry but I lack the ability to post pictures. It can be done if I get help from my kids or wife but I cant do it.
The best way I can describe it is that the slight bevel you would apply to the top edge of the blocks at the parting line would look like and be the proportion of the rest of the vent lines on the blocks.
Even if slightly over done it would leave a wisker on each side of the base that will simply rub off when checking or sizing and cause no harm. I would much prefer the wiskers and a well filled base than a poorly filled base.
You mentioned possibly having some oil contamination in the cavities and that can cause poor fill but still the reason for the poor fill is poor venting. The oil will give off a volume of gas when heated by the alloy but the mold can not vent the increased volume of gas and air so some is trapped causing poor fill. You see the root problem is still poor or inadiquate venting.
If you look at some of the more expensive custom molds you will see that they add machining steps to thier production to ensure adiquate venting. I have a Victory mold that is the best vented mold I have ever seen but it was also the most expensive.
This is the reason I am so opposed to smoking mold cavities because the smoke tends to plug the barely adiquat vent lines on some of the lesser quality molds. I use those type molds too but I do try to open the vent line to improve venting. I do this using an exacto knife to slightly open and slightly deepen the vent lines. I use the exacto knife with the cutting edge up away from the blocks and just use the tip at a low angle to trace the vent line. I start from the middle of each line and push to the inner (cavity) and outer edges. If you have a mold that always seems to have a void of some sort at the same spot in the casting improving the vent line this way at the point where the void consistantly occures this will almost always fix it.
Sorry for rambling and really its easier to do than to say.

[montana_charlie]

A foot or so of solder for a little extra tin might not hurt the next batch, too.
How much does a foot of 50/50 solder weigh ... maybe an ounce?
That would provide a half-ounce of tin going into twenty pounds of lead.
One half-ounce of tin in 320 ounces of lead is a ratio of 640:1.

Do you really think that's enough tin to make any difference at all?

If a foot of 50/50 weighs an ounce, 6.4 ounces of tin (thirteen feet of solder) would give you an alloy with 2% tin in a twenty pound pot.

CM

[Jim]

The one pound rolls of 50/50 I used in piping had about 20 ft. of wire on the spool.

[Bob Krack]

The seam appears to be too pronounced. I wonder if something is preventing the mold from closing completely?
6 cavity mold? hard to keep cavities uniformly closed (tiny speck of lead stuck?) - 'specially with Lee three handle mold.

Bob