Cast my first boolits today

[b money]

Well, after 2+ years of collecting stuff and saying I'm going to start casting I finally did it. Not very successfully but I got a few good boolits. I smelted once before today on a small scale but that was it. So today I figured I would try to cast a few while smelting just to make sure I could do it and it would be enjoyable before continuing to acquire unneeded stuff. I started with some WW's and a tiny bit of range scrap, well long story short I need more stuff haha. After fluxing I took the mold and set it on the side of the pot to heat it up, trying not to burn the handles in the flames from the turkey fryer. After realizing that doesn't work too good I decided to skip it and start pouring lead. After awhile the mold finally got up to temp but because I don't have a real ladle the lead was really hard to pour well. so I quite trying to fill both cavities and focused on one. After about an hour or so it seemed like the mold wouldn't fill at all and I already had a pile of what I thought where decent boolits so I poured the rest into muffin tins and called it quits. When all cooled I looked over the pile of boolits I had made and discarded all but 25 and even then only 4 had "sharp" bases, the rest were somewhat rounded. The mold I was using was a older lyman 358156 2cav that had a quark of its own, the spure plate would spring back a tad after reclosing, but I think I took care of that later when I readjusted the screw. Before sizing the boolits seemed to be out of round at .360-365 but I may have hit the seam. I sized them in a Lyman 45 down to .358-359 maybe off centered? I checked that multiple times. I had a few old gas checks that I picked up someplace so I decided to try them out even though I was only going to load them in .38spl for now. Not one gas check seated square out of the 5 or so I tried, is there a trick to this? So I ended up sizing them bare bottomed with lube in the GC shank, Lube groove, and partly in the lower crimp groove. Over all I'm not ecstatic with the results but I am no doubt going to keep casting because it was cool to know I made those boolits! Now I just need to get the right equipment.

[Hounddog]

Do you have a separate pot just for casting? I do all my smelting in a big steel pot on a turkey fryer then ladle it all into muffin tins to make ingots. I do all my casting out of a separate lee 4-20 bottom pour pot with a thermometer. I preheat all my moulds on an electric hot plate, and that alone has cut my rejects waaaayyyy down. Normally after just a few pours the mould is already dropping keepers. If you plan to keep ladle casting you'll probably want to pony up for a good ladle and a thermometer for your lead. That will help you keep an eye on things and take out some of the guesswork. Keep at it and you will have success in no time!

Good luck

Hounddog

[runfiverun]

next tim dip the corner of the mold in the alloy untill lead stops sticking to it.

hopefully you cleaned all the oil out of the mold too.
i tried casting the oil out of a couple of molds and it took something like 2 casting sessions and 3-400 pours each try before i got everything out.
i found it a lot easier to clean the oils out.

[b money]

Thanks for the advice! No I don't have a separate casting pot yet but I want to get a bottom pour soon. Hopefully that will help me out. I never thought about a hot plate, I'll have to keep my eyes open for one. Next time I will definitely take your advise rfr, and dip the mold in the pot. the cavities on this mold were clean so no worries there but I'll have to remember to clean my other molds before use.

[Charlie Two Tracks]

b money. I live in Geneseo. It is not too far from where you are. If you want, give me a PM and I'll give you my cell number. I may be able to help you out some.

[454PB]

Your crooked gas checks are caused by seating them while sizing. For a gas check to stay square, it has to be pushed onto the boolit base BEFORE it enters the sizing die. There are a couple of ways to do that, either place a dime on the die nut and use the nose punch to push them on, or grind the serrations off of a cheap pair of pliers and use the smooth jaws to squeeze the check in place.

[Hounddog]

Be sure to check the swapping and selling section on here to score some great deals on used gear. Better than Fleabay and no price gouging.

Hounddog

[b money]

Charlie, thank you for the offer! sent you a PM. 454, thank you so much, I had a few boolits left over and I tried the dime trick, that makes so much more sense haha. as far as finding stuff I'm always looking in the swapping and selling section! In fact this is about the only site I even look for stuff anymore because I feel I can trust the people on this site, and also the fact that everything is posted here exclusively.