SWIRLED and SMILEY FACED

[CAROCON]

Hello,
This is my first thread on the site and I am brand new at casting.

I have been trying for a couple of weeks to get some decent boolits casted but all seem to come out ugly. I've read about lead and mold temp, and have tried different ways of changing that, but still can't get rid of the swirl and smiley faces on the majority of the cast. The mold is a lee 6 cavity for 9mm 124gr rn. The mold is clean and doesn't seem to have any burrs on it. I have gotten my best results at 720 degrees but there seems to be an overwhelming number of rejects. Can anyone point me in the right direction or maybe someone has seen a similar thread here that they can pass on to me? Any guidance will be greatly appreciated.

[buckwheatpaul]

Are you preheating the mold on a hot plate or on the pot? Aluminum heats up quickly but also cools off real quickly....

[DrCaveman]

Hmm, lots and lots of threads have dealt with this, so it is hard to pick one.

For starters, check out 'from ingot to target' sticky. It should provide waaay more info than youre currently looking for, and maybe help you to ask more questions or use the search function here to find your answers

A lot of it is about learning terminology, so you know what words to enter into a search

From what i gather you are experiencing, it sounds like the mold is not hot enough. That seems to be mistake #1 made by nearly ALL new casters. I certainly made that mistake. Blamed the wrinkles/dimples/smily faces on oil in the mold, dirty alloy, bad mold...

Nope, it was too cool of a mold. Try dipping a corner of the mold in the hot alloy for maybe 20-30 seconds, then try pouring. Also try setting the melt temp higher. Everyone (and almost every mold) seems to work best at slightly different temps. Ive seen no major consensus

Also, welcome aboard! Great hobby, great site, and great people. Prepare to learn a lot!

[waksupi]

Yep, gotta cast fast with a 6 cavity mold.

Welcome aboard!

[runfiverun]

alloy temp is best left at 100-f over the alloy's melt temp.
now your mold temp is critical, aluminum does it's best in the 425-f area.
maintaining the mold and alloy temp in a small zone will produce your best results.
try dunking the corner of your mold in the alloy until the lead doesn't stick to it then cast about 5 quick casts opening and dumping the boolits out as quick as you can without smearing the lead on top of the mold.
set those off to the side then switch over to where you will be dumping your boolits for real and cast a normal cadence, fill, count 1-5, open and dump, close and fill, and count again.
repeat for the next 45 minutes.
now look at your work.

[CAROCON]

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions. Haven't tried the hotplate, been using a torch to get the temp up quickly on the mold. I will try again tomorrow and work on speed as well as dipping my mold in the pot. Looks like I got some reading to do tonight also. Hopefully Run's strategy will maybe eliminate all my whining. Thanks again guys...I will report back tomorrow with results.

[historicfirearms]

Also, make sure you have all oil cleaned off the mold. You said the mold was clean, but make sure. I use dish soap, hot water and scrub with a tooth brush. Also blast it with brake cleaner or another cleaning solvent. It just takes a tiny amount of lube for the sprue plate pivot and alignment pins. Too much and it will migrate into the cavities and give wrinkled boolits.

[DrCaveman]

Yep listen to Run, his words are concise and effective. Never led me wrong yet

A further tip, kind of for drill, (and please chime in, anyone, if this is bad for a mold!) is to heat that mold in the melt until the sprue seems to take FOREVER to solidify. This is when i know my mold is HOT! Too hot, indeed, for production. But the boolit that drops after maybe 45-60 seconds of cooling should be perfect...albeit a bit frosty. Then you can slow things back down, or use the damp cloth method to normalize things. And the most important benefit here, for me, has been that ALL oil has been burned from the cavities, so that can be totally ruled out

Once the balance point is reached where you are following Run's cadence, you are rocking. Of course you can just follow that cadence right off the bat (after his described mold-heating routine) and probably be sitting in a good spot

Whining? Hardly! Id consider it whining when you just cant for the life of you get that 170 grain boolit plowing along at 2300 fps from your 30-30 to print sub-moa at 200 yds and you cant figure out why...

Nah, even that wouldnt be whining...just a good goal for everyone to help you reach

I really think that most people are here to help, and to learn a little something while doing so

[gray wolf]

This is not a slam, but, Unfortunately some new casters think that the more holes in a mold simply mean more bullets in less time. Just let the lead go in and out come the shiny bullets. To an extent that is very true.
But casting is not plug and play, difficult ? not really, but there is a learning curve. It's kinda like an intuitive thing that you get a feel for.
Do you use a thermometer for your lead pot ? or the numbers on the pot dial.
As been said a good place to start is about 100* above full liquid of the metal.
Like a stop light don't get no more greener, lead don't get no more liquid.
For WW metal I find that temp to be about 650* to 675* with the metal being slush at about 450* 475* and liquid at about 550* and cast-able at the above temps, 650 to 675*
with pure lead being an exception in that it has a higher melt temp to begin with.
You can stay with the mold you have and try the great advise that will be given you here, You will probably figure it out with some trial and error.
Or you could look for a two cavity mold for your learning curve and things may go easier for you. Some Lee 6 cavity molds are a bitccch to cast with.
The folks that have been casting for a while have a bag of tricks they dig into,
at times we don't even know we are doing it. we see a problem and the old brain kicks in as to what the remedy is.
Just saying and just trying to help.

[mikeym1a]

One of the problems I've had with the new Lee moulds is the sprue plate holes. They seem to have a lip on them, and the lead puddles on them, and that seems to slow the flow of the alloy into the cavity, allowing them to cool too quickly. Those aluminum molds do need to be really warm to cast and fill out properly. What I did to mine was to take a pointed grinding stone from a drimel kit, which was about the profile of the hole, and polish away the 'lip'. This also made the hole just a tad bigger. After I did this, I took a fine file to the back side of the sprue plate, and took off the raised edges that resulted from my polishing. If you do this, just be very gentle with that file. I've done this to two new moulds, one a 2 cavity, and the other a 6 cavity, and the result was to get rid of the 'smiley faces' and 'swirls', once the mould was up to heat. For that six cavity, I used a propane torch to warm it. I have an old hot-plate, but it's buried in the back room. I'll get it out one day. This worked for me. It might not work for you! :holysheep

[runfiverun]

all the above is good too.
I have resorted to the too hot and come back down to temp thing a time or two.
in fact I have a 4 cavity walt melander mold, and a 2 cavity lee 45/70 mold that wants to be run this way.
on the flip side I run my hm-2 223 6 cavity mold, and a 2 cavity 30 cal accurate mold on the just barely hot enough end of the temp spectrum.
most lee molds like the hot side to perform.

[292]

When I first started casting, not too long ago. I had read on here not to admire my work, just keep casting. That has worked for me. Slowing down to check out your new boolits will let the mold cool. Hope this helps.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

If the mold cavities are clean and free of oil, then you are casting too slow. even if you mold is not up to temp on the first pour, if you cast fast enough, the mold will catch up to temperature in about 20 pours, depending on boolit weight. cast as fast as you can til the boolits look frosty, then work on your rhythm/speed of casting to maintain constant mold temp. the more consistant you are in your casting, the more consistant your boolits will be, making them more accurate...that'd be the end goal, IMHO.

[41 mag fan]

One thing about this is...ask the questions on why, then go out and practice, practice, practice. Vary everything and make a mental or paper note on what you did and what the results were.
Casting is not hard, its a learning curve. Some molds cast easy, some hard.
I've got molds that require pressure casting to fill out, others that require 710* temps, others that like 700* temps, some that require a tilt to fill out correctly, others that like to be poured 1/2" from the bottom spout.
I've got some molds I can only cast 2-3 casts per minute, or they'll shoot up in temp and cast nothing but frosted.
One good thing about lead, you get a reject...back in the pot it can go and try again.

[rsrocket1]

I don't think the torch is a good idea. You can melt the mold a little too easy by applying the excessive heat too long in one spot.
If you sit the mold on the pot as it warms up, it is pretty hot by the time the lead is nice and liquid. Dip the corner of the mold in the liquid lead and hold it there for 10-15 seconds and pull it out. There should be no lead sticking to the mold if it is hot enough. Dip only the corner and don't dip too deep or else any sticking lead will foul up the mold and be a pain to remove.

When you pour, make a big puddle of lead on the sprue plate joining all the holes together and about twice as wide as the holes. This big puddle helps to heat up the sprue plate. It should take about 5 seconds before you see the lead "freeze over" on the puddle. Wait another 5 seconds before you cut the sprue off. I dump my sprue back into the pot before opening up the mold and dumping the bullets. I use a Lee 4-20 pot and start with it 7/8 full and refill when it gets down to 1/4.

The smaller the bullet, the longer it takes to get the first casts up to temperature. 230g 45ACP bullets heat the mold quickly and the trick is cooling the mold down a little so it doesn't overheat. 9mm is the opposite, don't wait too long between dumping and recasting or it cools down too quickly. If you get frosted bullets, your mold is too hot, but the bullets are OK to shoot, just let the mold cool down a bit or lower the pot temperature. Wrinkled bullets are no good. Heat up the mold or turn up the pot temp. If the sprue is difficult to cut, you may have waited too long, cut sooner. Just don't cut too soon or you'll get lead smearing on the top of the mold which is bad, bad, bad.

Good luck.

[Walter Laich]

on a slight tangent when starting I cast one cavity, then two, up to all 6 as the Lee sprue handle is known to break if you cast all six on a cool mold. This gets this up to temp without too much force on handle.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I don't think the torch is a good idea. You can melt the mold a little too easy by applying the excessive heat too long in one spot.
If you sit the mold on the pot as it warms up, it is pretty hot by the time the lead is nice and liquid. Dip the corner of the mold in the liquid lead and hold it there for 10-15 seconds and pull it out.

If you can find one, a cheapo thrift store Hotplate is the cats meow to preheating a mold. I tried all of the above before I got a Hotplate for $1 at a thrift store...with setting just above 'low' and I use a 'metal' coffee can to hold in the heat the mold is up to casting temp in about 20 minutes...the same amount of time that the alloy pot takes to heat up :)

[CAROCON]

Thanks to everyone for all the great info! There were similarities that most shared and the one I took to heart was "not to give up-time would equate into experience and experience would eventually lead into casting better boolits." As for an update: spent a few hours today casting, using a higher temp in melting pot. After heating the mold I kept casting until there was about an inch of lead left in the pot. I didn't stop to look at the product until I was finished with the run. On my last run something amazing happened-no swirls or smiley faces, no divots and no pits....I was ecstatic!!!
I looked at the thermometer before the run and it was at 800. I poured from the spout every time from a half inch or less into the mold. I snapped the spruce when the last cavity wouldn't run or smear. I counted to five and popped them into the water. And repeated this quickly until the lead in the pot was at the one inch stopping point.
A majority of the boolits seemed to have abrasive look to them which I am assuming is the frosting. I am not complaining about that because I really never thought I would get rid of the swirls and smiley faces. I will continue this regiment for consistency and work on the frosting when I know that the one good run was not a fluke.
Thanks guys for the help...I should have posted my dilemma a lot sooner, but it is what it is! This is a really cool site, with a lot of knowledgeable people with some great instruction. I will get back as soon as I conquer the frosting issue.
***JUST A NOTE: I was ready to throw my pot, mold and lead (400 lbs.) in the lake before I posted this initial thread!!!

[williamwaco]

I think your primary problem is you are not hot enough.

All the above is good information but I am betting you don't have all the gadgets the "junkies" are using.

Try this:

Get your pot hot.
The metal should be as liquid as water.
It it appears thick like an oil or perhaps a thin gravy, it is not hot enough.

When it gets hot, flux it carefully
(There are lots of threads here about fluxing.)

Now cast as fast as you can safely.
Go fast but do not push it or rush it.
Be sure all the holes are full and the sprue should make one solid plug that fills all the holes and runs along the entire length of the top of the sprue plate.

As soon as the sprue is solid, dump the bullets.
You can tell if the sprue is hardened by tapping it with your stirring spoon.

After dumping the bullets, immediately refill the mold.
Do not take any time to look at the bullets.
Dump them and move on.
Fill and empty the mold as fast as you can safely do it.
Keep doing this until it takes 5 seconds for the sprue to harden.
This means that 3 to 4 seconds after filling the mold, if you tilt it to the side, the sprue will run off the top of the mold like water.

When you reach this point, you can dump the bullets on your pad back into the pot. Most of them will be wrinkled or not completely filled out.
Now you can start inspecting the bullets as you drop them.
You can't pick them up but you can inspect them carefully by rolling them across the pad.
This will slow your casting cadence down to about half what it was and the sprue hardening time will decrease to two to three seconds.
At this point you will begin to get good bullets.

If you don't, set the mold aside and let it cool off enough you can pick it up in your bare hand and repeat the above process.
Occasionally it will take two or three repetitions of this heating and cooling to get the mold to work. This is a one time event, nest time, it will work as soon as it gets hot.

[captaint]

What 292 said - I used to do the same thing myself. It'll kill ya !!!! Just keep casting. You'll see. Mike

[MtGun44]

Do not stop and inspect! Cast, cast, cast - as fast as you can. Mold is too cold.

Bill

[rsrocket1]

A majority of the boolits seemed to have abrasive look to them which I am assuming is the frosting. I am not complaining about that because I really never thought I would get rid of the swirls and smiley faces. I will continue this regiment for consistency and work on the frosting when I know that the one good run was not a fluke.
Thanks guys for the help...I should have posted my dilemma a lot sooner, but it is what it is! This is a really cool site, with a lot of knowledgeable people with some great instruction. I will get back as soon as I conquer the frosting issue.
***JUST A NOTE: I was ready to throw my pot, mold and lead (400 lbs.) in the lake before I posted this initial thread!!!

Good for you carocon!
Yes, the dull look on the boolits is frosting which indicates too hot of a temp. It is not bad and certainly better than wrinkles.

Glad you didn't throw away the 400 pounds of lead. Just send 200 of it my way and we'll call it even :D

[DrCaveman]

Nice job man. Step 1 completed

Next youll see a difference in how easily the boolits drop from the mold, sometimes requiring many many whacks...

And sometime around then there will be finning on the base or sides of the boolit...youll find the solution here at this site

Then youll begin to inspect and discriminate about the diameter and weight of your boolits. You may adjust temp, adjust alloy, lap cavities, or swap molds. All of those will change things, and this forum helps a lot with diagnosing them

Lube choices will enter into your psyche...

It's a serious slippery slope of obsessions within this hobby/craft but id be lying if i said it wasnt pretty damn fun, every bit!

[Nickle]

If you haven't solved the problem, it sure wouldn't hurt to get a single or double cavity mould setup and take the time to learn that then come back to the 6 cavity. It could be a double cavity, same bullet as the 6 cavity. Later on, when you're good, when the 6 cavity heats up, you could switch to the double for a bit and let the other cool a little. That way, there's no waste.

Now, learning on a 6 cavity mould isn't much different than learning how to drive a car, in the respect that using a Ferrari or other real fast car is not impossible, but also not the best way. So, that's why I (and others) advocate learning on the single or double cavity setups.

Crawl, walk, run is the way to learn. 6 cavity moulds are pretty much "run".