I'm stumped

[snuffy]

Last night's casting session was a real flop!:( I was making some .458 405 RNFP-HP using a lee mold. Lead I was using is the mix I came up with in this thread from the archives;
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=13300

It consists of 15 pounds of that weight metal, alloyed with 5 pounds of linotype. The weight metal is nearly pure lead.

The problem was/is I had to wait for several minutes for the boolit to cool, or it would crumble where the hollow point pin would try to push sideways on the boolit. The sprue froze in about 5 seconds and cut cleanly.

Another problem was with fill-out. The driving bands and base would NOT fill out using the bottom pour of the lee pro-20 pot. So I switched to a lyman bottom pour ladle. That gave me better fill-out of the driving bands/lube grooves, but the base still had one corner that refused to fill in. I resorted to filling the ladle all the way up, then allowing the lead to spill onto the top of the sprue plate after separating the ladle from the sprue hole. That seemed to solve the base fill-out. I varied the temp from 690 to 800 degrees,(lyman thermometer), temp didn't seem to make much difference, other than taking longer to solidify. I even added several 6 inch chunks of 95 tin 5% antimony solder, it didn't make any difference.

I've cast a bunch of 45 acp 200 RNFP with this alloy, with great success. I also tried a few .224,(225462), these also did not fill-out without using the lyman ladle. BHN today shows at 14 from the lee tester.

I've run into lead behaving like this in the distant past. Bullets crumbling if I dumped them too soon after they seemingly solidifying. I don't remember what I did, possibly made fishing weights out of it.[smilie=1:

Anybody else have this kind of problem? If so how did you handle it?

[MGySgt]

Snuffy,

Base fill out is usually a venting problem between the Sprue Plate and top of the mold. No place for the air to go to so you don't get good fill out. You added more heat to get the fill out and used the slop method (which I always use) to keep the base molten longer.

Question - Has this mold produced good bullets in the past?

If so is there lead splatter or build up in the venting of the mold?

The 45 acp 's cast well out of the same aloy so I don't think it is contaminated.

The crumbling bullet is the high heat and cool down. The hotter the melt, the longer it will stay just below melt freeze point - been there too.

Check the mold real close for clogged vents - clean it out and try again.

I may also have been one of those times when no matter what you do you just can not get a good bullet cast to save your butt with that mold. Put it down and use another one, or just quit. I have on more ocassions then I care to think about only cast 20 or 30 bullets before turning the pot off and going back in the house after being out there a short time because no matrter what I tried - it didn't work!

Drew

[Blammer]

ditto on checking the vents.

[singleshotbuff]

Ditto on somedays it's just not your day to cast boolits. LOL

I've been there a time or two, it is extremely frustrating, especially when the exact same mold and alloy casts perfectly beautiful boolits the next time.

Not saying that there may not be a mechanical or alloy reason for your troubles, but you might try again before you start changing things.

Just my $0.02

SSB

[snuffy]

Thanks for the ideas. It has been a problem mold before when casting alloy lead. With pure it makes beautiful boolits. It tried to deepen the vent lines with an engraving tool, a close examination shows I didn't go deep enough. I'll try to deepen the vent lines, that should help with fill out. I cast around 50 boolits that passed the first eyeball out of the mold hot. Today I got 13 that passed a closer look! Ain't this fun!?:twisted:

The 22 boolits I cast ALL failed a detailed look see today! Clearly I was not nearly hot enough for those iron blocks and those little boolits. I'll try those again someday with harder alloy. I doubt those would have done well at 14 BHN.


I may also have been one of those times when no matter what you do you just can not get a good bullet cast to save your butt with that mold. Put it down and use another one, or just quit. I have on more ocassions then I care to think about only cast 20 or 30 bullets before turning the pot off and going back in the house after being out there a short time because no matter what I tried - it didn't work!

Drew, that's just how I felt, but I'm to damned stubborn to give up!:roll: I keep thinking about the energy I already expended to heat it up, I want to make it pay? Guess I wasn't holding my mouth right?![smilie=1:

[blysmelter]

.458 405 RNFP-HP using a lee mold.


Kind of OT, but does Lee make HP-molds?

[45nut]

They used to. now you can only get hb molds from them. shame too, because the pin system is nice and it's much easier to get a quantity of hp's fast from a lee than from a loose pin lyman.

[snuffy]

They used to. now you can only get hb molds from them. shame too, because the pin system is nice and it's much easier to get a quantity of hp's fast from a lee than from a loose pin lyman.

Huh, didn't know that, must be a lot of people have had trouble with them. I was thinking of just getting another one, maybe have better luck with a new one.

Well, I got out the 20x magnifier goggles and a sharp engraver, went over the vent lines again. I tried the same lead alloy, THIS time I got well filled out boolits. However, now I must have created some burrs on the edges of the cavity, they don't want to release! I'll take another look-see at the cavity edges, that should help.

Oh, and that alloy seemed to work better this time!

I got another lee mold, this one a 340 RNFP. It's SUPPOSED to cast at .457. Gawd, it drops boolits at .465! No mistake, both cavities, they're round too! I miked the ID at the top of the cavity,( used inside feature of dial calipers, .465). They fill out well, the same alloy as used in the 405 hp's. I went ahead and sized some DIPPED in LLA, they sized down to .457 in a lee push through die.

I loaded some in brand new starline 45/70 nickel plated brass. These were for my new H&R buffalo classic. It slugs at .457, I used pull-down 4895 from Jeff Bartlet. 52.0, 53.0, 54.0 yielded poor,(best was 6" @ 50 yds.), groups and 1860, 1920 and 1950 fps respectively. With enough leading to need several passes with a bronze brush and butches solvent/patches.

If these cast as they were intended to, I believe they would have shot better. I intend to contact Midway by phone to ask whether to return the mold to them, or go direct to Lee?

[45nut]

Some days you are better just walking away before you break something,,a couple days later sometimes everything just works like it was destiny.