Water dropping set up.

[Catshooter]

I had never done it before just lately. Doing it for the 9mm. Here's mine:

http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo235/Catshooter45/Misc/002_zps719c44bc.jpg

You can't see it, but there is a steel bar (about quarter inch) running across the middle/top of the bucket that the cotton (T-shirt) is clipped to.

http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo235/Catshooter45/Misc/003_zps98798bf1.jpg

Here's some of the result:

http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo235/Catshooter45/Misc/001_zps0aa0a47b.jpg

Interesting process. It actually speeds up my casting as there is no messing about with the boolit after it leaves the mould, it falls and you refill it.


Cat

[williamwaco]

Neat!

[reloader28]

Looks like it works great.

I like the Piggyback press. Mine looks just like it.:mrgreen:

[Wayne Smith]

I don't mess with the boolit in either condition, water dropped or air dropped. It's to darn hot! I let them cool and then sort.

Open mold, drop boolit, close mold, refill mold. The only fooling I do when I air drop is to periodically pick up the end of the towel I'm dropping them on so I don't drop soft boolits on a pile of harder ones.

[Taz700]

Nice set up, what hardness are you after for those? I've thought about casting 9mm as well.

[Shiloh]

Very nice. Mine is a towel with a slit in it over the bucket.
You made your bench. Is it pretty stout?? Mine has reached the limits of its area and structural capacity.

Shiloh

[Catshooter]

The water dropping has made me realize I was spending way to much time doing other things than pouring, emptying and repeating. Doing it this way makes me much more productive and is easier on my back & such.

The hardness I was looking for was enough to stop the leading I was getting in 9mm. Both the Glock barrel and the Lone Wolfe barrel were doing an excellent job of it with air cooled wheel weights.

Although I'm a bit suspisious of the accuracy of my LBT tester it says that the BNH has gone from 9-10 to 16-18. More importantly the leading has vanished.

The bench is stout enough. I put a Ammomaster handle on my Rockchucker for the added leverage. It's about six inches longer. And bench does flex a bit in use. But it's nothing that affects the work. I'll see about posting up some pics of my shop in the Loading Bench Pics thread in the next few days.


Cat

[lead4me]

Wow that bench is way to organized, how do you get anything:roll: done???

[Aunegl]

Fancy...

[mitchrm]

I too have a LBT tester and wondered the same thing. To compare mine to yours I just casted some Wheel weight bullets and they were 11-12 hardness air cooled and 19-20 water quenched. I tested this the same day they were cast.

[Smitty's Retired]

mitchrm.......... let them set for a week or so and go back and check them again. Air drop boolits, the Hardness will increase somewhat with age depending on type of alloy. Some of my water dropped have lost some hardness after three weeks.

[Pat I.]

I too have a LBT tester and wondered the same thing. To compare mine to yours I just casted some Wheel weight bullets and they were 11-12 hardness air cooled and 19-20 water quenched. I tested this the same day they were cast.

I get the exact same numbers as you testing around 12 hours later or the next day. I have both an LBT and a Saeco hardness tester and the results coincide with each other so either they're both right or they're both wrong. I have to believe they're right.

[hickfu]

Thats a nice setup! I just put a old shirt over my bucket and cut a slit in it with a big rubber band around it to hold the shirt. I like your idea better since I have to keep bending down to drop the boolits in.

Doc

[Catshooter]

Yah, I'm not real fond of bending over, especially a lot of it.

Seems to work ok, but it what I'd call fancy!


Cat

[reloader28]

You boys are checking your boolits to soon.
Like Smitty said, they need to set at least a week to get a hardness reading. Even the next day mine read pretty soft compared to 1 1/2 to 2 weeks. After that my air cooled WW will measure 13.5-14 according to my Lee tester (if its right) and 21-22 for water dropped. This is my results anyway.

I have heard there is different hardnesses of WW alloy too. That could be part of it.

[blueeyephil]

I have a media sifter that sits on a 5 gal bucket. I put a towel in that and fill the bucket up until there is 4 inches of water in the sifter. That way I don't have a splash problem. When I get a bunch of bullets, I can use the towel to fish them out or drop them in the bottom of the bucket. I don't have a hardness tester.

[brysongw]

Well aint that fancy!

[groovy mike]

I wouldn't recommend doing any casting indoors no matter what air flow system you have set up.

[runfiverun]

all my casting is done indoors.
the only air flow set-up I have is people opening/closing the door.

[Catshooter]

groovy mike,

Your concern for others' health is admirable, but when you learn more about lead, how it gets into the body and just how much it takes to really affect the body you might change your mind.

Certainly not all, but many, many health/hazard concerns are very overblown by the cowardly trend of our society these days.

Sad, really.


Cat

[trixter]

I sit to cast, and on a swivel desk chair, I just pour, cut the sprue, swivel to the right and open my 6 banger into a bucket of water, no t shirts no cover. The splash is so minuscule that it could never reach the pot to do any damage. I cast indoors too.

[Blackwater]

Cat, thanks for the pic and post. I just got my garage closed in to make a new reloading room, and I believe I'm going to set up very similar to what you have. I like it.

[alamogunr]

I wouldn't recommend doing any casting indoors no matter what air flow system you have set up.

My set up is worse than R5R's No one comes in and out of my shop while I'm casting. I open the door and let a fan run when I flux. If this kills me, I'll let you know.

[44man]

Kalifornafication would have you believe a WW on the side of the road will destroy the earth.
Casting is no danger at all, only handling lead and eating or smoking after handling. Ventilation is more for the fluxing. Dross can be hazardous so be careful with it. Dust ya know!
Now Kalifornia wants to regulate your grill, smoke from meat cooking is melting polar ice.
They want to do away with wood heat but why don't they regulate forest fires and volcanoes? Seems Kali burns every year.
But water dropping is all I do and I just set a 5 gal bucket on a short stool with about 4 gal in it. No towels, rags or anything. Turn, drop and cast. You don't need anything fancy.

[kryogen]

I wouldn't recommend doing any casting indoors no matter what air flow system you have set up.

I use a respirator in the garage. P100 multi gas. seems to work fine.

[detox]

I have read that sizing the bullet after water dropping makes bullet softer. Sizing and crimping on gas check before hardening works better (480 degree oven method). Then again isn't the bullet sized when it travels down barrel...making bullet surface soft again?

Harder bullet deforms less when fired.

[DrCaveman]

Detox

I had that same notion stored in my head. When someone here told me that the quenching hardens the entirety of the boolit, i willingly believed.

I dont suppose you have any evidence to support the 'surface hardening' angle, do you? Not challenging or arguing, i just want to find the wheat among this chaff...

[bobthenailer]

TIP ! Use a 5 gallon bucket or larger bucket , i use a 7 gallon bucket with the top half of another 5 gallon bucket cut off about 2 to 3 inches below the bottom reinforcement rib. and that slips inside of the full size bucket to give you a splash shield , and add enough shipping peanuts to cover the surface of the water and splashing is just about elimated !

[45-70 Chevroner]

I sit to cast, and on a swivel desk chair, I just pour, cut the sprue, swivel to the right and open my 6 banger into a bucket of water, no t shirts no cover. The splash is so minuscule that it could never reach the pot to do any damage. I cast indoors too.
I've been doing that same thing for at least 30 years, never a problem. If any water gets on or in the mold it " will evaporate" before you can refill it. I cast at the entrance of my garage with the garage door open.

[45-70 Chevroner]

Kalifornafication would have you believe a WW on the side of the road will destroy the earth.
Casting is no danger at all, only handling lead and eating or smoking after handling. Ventilation is more for the fluxing. Dross can be hazardous so be careful with it. Dust ya know!
Now Kalifornia wants to regulate your grill, smoke from meat cooking is melting polar ice.
They want to do away with wood heat but why don't they regulate forest fires and volcanoes? Seems Kali burns every year.
But water dropping is all I do and I just set a 5 gal bucket on a short stool with about 4 gal in it. No towels, rags or anything. Turn, drop and cast. You don't need anything fancy.
Ditto that.

[Moonie]

My 16 year old daughter wandered into my man cave a couple of days ago while I was casting .600" round balls for tri-ball 12 guage loads. She was eating something, finger food, candy or something. I told her she couldn't be in there while eating. She balked, I explained that NO ONE is allowed to eat in the cave, ever, no exceptions, and I explained why. Over paranoid, perhaps, but no smoking and no eating is allowed in there, ever.

[rintinglen]

The fear of lead poisoning is hugely overblown. The EPA, for reasons best known only to themselves, has decided that lead is a poison second only to Plutonium. This is fear not fact. There were, according to The National Center for Biotechnology Information studies, approximately 200 deaths in the USA from 1979-1998, with a peak early on and deaths decreasing in frequency as time went on. Moonshine consumption was the main vehicle of ingestion, with lead leaching from soldered condensing coils in stills the source of contamination. As non-lead solders become more widely available and new stills are built, such cases of poisoning become fewer and fewer.

Reasonable care prevents lead poisoning. Respirators are not essential unless you are casting in a basement closet, and probably not then.
Don't eat, drink, smoke or pick your nose until you have thoroughly washed your hands and you'll be safe from lead poisoning from casting and reloading.

My last BLL was 6.73, and I cast and load a lot. Be particularly careful with the dust from your tumbler when you clean cases though. There is a significant percentage of lead bound up in some of those dust particles that is easily aspirated and will poison you over time, but that is the key. A single exposure is not likely to ever be sufficiently acute to result in poisoning. Repeat exposures allow lead to accumulate in your blood and body. But the good news is that when exposure stops, your body stops accumulating lead and continues eliminating it, little by little, until even without chelation therapy, your BLL will drop back down to safe levels.

[Don Purcell]

I use a 5 gallon bucket with a wire mesh waste paper container that slips inside of the bucket. When I'm ready I pull the mesh container up out of the water bucket and just dump the bullets out on some towels and set the mesh container back in the water bucket ready to go again.

[Geezer in NH]

I wouldn't recommend doing any casting indoors no matter what air flow system you have set up.Then don't if you feel that way

[mongoose33]

My last BLL was 6.73, and I cast and load a lot. Be particularly careful with the dust from your tumbler when you clean cases though. There is a significant percentage of lead bound up in some of those dust particles that is easily aspirated and will poison you over time, but that is the key.

This is the biggest reason I switched to water tumbling w/ Stainless Steel media. No dust. A side benefit is the brass comes out stunningly clean.

[texaswoodworker]

Very nice set up. I just use a plastic tubaware thing (it's like a small shoe box) full of water, and a short piece of 2x4 to cut the sprue. I'm low tech. :o

[freebullet]

Aren't teeth the original hardness tester fer lead, gold, and other precious metals?

[texaswoodworker]

Aren't teeth the original hardness tester fer lead, gold, and other precious metals?

I don't think anyone wants to bite the bullet. :p

[freebullet]

I don't think anyone wants to bite the bullet. :p


Na you test the ingots for good luck.

[Doggonekid]

I have read on several occasions where people recommend not smoking while casting lead because it could be a potential health problem. "Really?"

[44man]

Could be if you caress the filter or dip in the pot! :bigsmyl2:.
I don't think fingers pick up much lead either. I have cast stuff, starting with sinkers for about 67 years and even fishing and handling sinkers all day never harmed me or BL. We ate our sandwiches after casting.
Ingesting shot or lead boolits does kill birds so you have to eat a few boolits, not recommended of course.
I still say the EPA is doing back door gun control since they discovered we shoot WW's.
They banned lead boolits in parts of the crazy state but they don't understand a good cast will not be in an animal for the birds to eat. I have never recovered a boolit or RB from any deer. Jacketed is the worst.
Now a shot from a bird or rabbit is found now and then and it is tough on teeth. Spit it out, you will not die!

[dg31872]

Back to the OP's thread, Catshooter, that is a nice setup.
I would like to borrow some of your ideas, but first, I need to locate the top of my work bench!

[1Shirt]

Good thread, good idea!
1Shirt!

[Geezer in NH]

I have read on several occasions where people recommend not smoking while casting lead because it could be a potential health problem. "Really?"
Maybe less than the smoking itself? But with all the stuff about smoking and some one still does who cares if they smoke while casting.

Personally I quit finely of smoking 15 years ago and it was the best thing I ever did, butt I never smoked while casting or reloading nor did I drink then either. When I needed a refreshment I would get out of my cave and wash hands and face then get what I needed.

I was a professional FF before SCBA was in use so I inhaled a lot of ****. I was glad when it came in and happy when we all got our own face piece. If a new guy was being careless he would get reamed by me big time. But I would never smoke and eat and cast at the same time.

Survival is on you. do dumb stuff don't complain when the piper wants his pay.

[Catshooter]

dg,

Borrow away! That's why I posted it. It ain't fancy, but it works for me.


Cat

[Ola]

Word of "warning": I borrowed this ingeniously simple innovation. It destroyed the quality of the bullets by making me faster. In the first batch 1/3 of the bullets were bend or had other damages.

I had never realized how slow it is to bend down and drop the bullets in the bucket. Obviously it is slow enough for the bullets to solidify. With "Water Dropping Set Up" I probably have to turn down the temp a bit and learn the art of keeping short pauses.. (Hmm, relaxed casting? Never tried that before)

I'm definitely going to keep the "WDSU". THANKS!