OK, Silly Question

[Hondo 60]

I'm fairly new to casting so please be patient.

I've been quenching my casts in a skillet filled with water, with a rag at the bottom.

This is workin GREAT in my Single Six in 32 H&R Magnum.

Not workin so hot for a SAA in 45 Colt.
I'm gettin a bit of leading.
I don't "think" size is the issue, I'm thinkin they're too hard.

What do you drop 'em on that doesn't burn & doesn't dent 'em? :confused:
They aren't falling out of the mold, I gotta tap the handle bolt to get 'em to fall out.

[siamese4570]

Hondo: Some molds stick some don't. I have several that I have to encourage to release the boolit. There have been reams of material written on the correct boolit size for the 45 colt. Have you slugged your barrel? Do that first. Then size your boolit .001-.002 larger that the bore dia. Next see if that boolit will drop or can be pushed thru the cylinder. If not, the mouth (front) of the cylinder is sizing down your boolit when fired resulting in an undersized boolit hitting the rifling which results in the boolit skidding on the lands and leading. Your right about the hardness, softer is usually better at lower pistol velocities. I shoot straight wheel weight 44s at 1200 fps without a gas check with no leading. I drop my boolits onto a folded towel. Hope thsi helps.
Siamese 4570

[Green Lizzard]

siam is right about the cyl sometimes the throat will need honed or reamed to at least groove size

[Gtek]

+1 on all above, also threaded area rear barrel (forcing cone) sometimes ID is reduced during machine work. Where is the leading? Gtek

[williamwaco]

I'm fairly new to casting so please be patient.

I've been quenching my casts in a skillet filled with water, with a rag at the bottom.

This is workin GREAT in my Single Six in 32 H&R Magnum.

Not workin so hot for a SAA in 45 Colt.
I'm gettin a bit of leading.
I don't "think" size is the issue, I'm thinkin they're too hard.

What do you drop 'em on that doesn't burn & doesn't dent 'em? :confused:
They aren't falling out of the mold, I gotta tap the handle bolt to get 'em to fall out.


Hard undersized bullets are the perfect storm for leading.

1) Try them air cooled.

2) Drop them on a pad, any pad, folded old towel ( you will ruin a good one ) Piece of old carpet. A piece of corrugated cardboard.

3) Size them at least .002 over bore diameter. .003 is ok too if the loaded cartridges are not too large to chamber.

4) If this doesn't fix it pull a loaded bullet and mike it to be sure it is not getting sized down in the seating operation.

[noylj]

Why the heck are you water-quenching? It just is not needed. Do you even have a hardness tester to verify that your alloy will quench harden?
Next, if you are sizing your bullets (something I stopped doing in the late '70s and never looked back), then (last time I checked) the sizing operation itself "softens" the bearing area that the water quench hardened.
Finally, where is the leading at?
If you know where the leading is, you will know what is most likely causing it.
1) undersized bullets, even those that are undersized by only 0.001" will very often allow serious leading and its associated loss of accuracy.
2) hard bullets are not necessarily desirable for your own particular loads - sometimes softer, even much softer bullet alloy, will work better. The reason is that the softer alloys are more easily bumped up to fill the throat (obturate) when the powder is ignited. While depending upon bump-up of soft bullets cannot ever be as dependable as correct bullet fitting, it can often help. The lower the pressure, the lower the hardness that is needed or wanted.
3) for revolvers, you have fit the cylinder's throats and the barrel groove diameter. Immediately ahead of the case neck is the chamber throat. This throat has also been called the ball seat or bullet seat. The throat is either straight or has a very slight taper leading to the forcing cone. The forcing cone is tapered from the end of the throat to the rifling origin. It is the diameter of the throat that is all important in choosing the proper bullet diameter.
4) When fired, if the bullet is not a tight fit in the cylinder throat, you will get gas cutting and lead being blown out and onto the forcing cone and bore. If leading is apparent there, it is from gas cutting. If the leading occurs down the barrel the problem could be a bullet that is too soft or the velocity is too high for that bullet. Near the muzzle, it is a bullet lube problem; either not enough lube or one that is not up to the challenges of high velocity shooting. Lube failures are rare in handgun loads because of the relatively low velocities--unless a hard brittle lube is used (such as the Blue s**t used by many commercial casting companies.
Thus, the bullet must be no smaller than 0.0005" less than than the throat diameter, and larger is often better as long as the cartridge chambers easily. Bullets may be as much as 0.007" larger than throat diameter and work great if the chamber permits.

Measure the throat diameters and slug the barrel. If you have a gun that has throats smaller than the groove diameter, (fortunately, an infrequent condition) there is not much hope for reasonable accuracy with any lead bullet. From an accuracy standpoint, revolvers will not tolerate an undersize lead bullet rattling down the bore.
When you slug your barrel, note if there is a tight spot or area anywhere in the barrel. Pay particular attention to the back of the barrel where it enters the frame. A tight spot here is common and can size down your bullet. This situation can be remedied by lapping the bore.
Proper bullet fit in a revolver can do wonders. Some revolver chambers have all six throats that are virtually identical, while some vary 0.0006 - 0.0007". Most hold 0.0003 - 0.0004" variation which is good enough, in my experience. Very carefully running an oversize soft slug through all six throats will give one the diameter of the smallest throat. This diameter is optimum for bullets fired in that gun.
You may very well find that your bullets shoot better with no sizing. My bullet sizer was retired back in the late'70s. Many bullets from old molds, as they fall from the mold, are already undersized for many modern production revolvers.
Tip - I fit most of my revolver bullets so that they will be a push fit into the throats and then load the cartridges so that bullets reach way out into the throats for good initial guidance; that is, with the bullet and bore axes perfectly collinear.