Struggling with quality casting bigger boolits...

[SniderBoomer]

Up to now, I have been casting for 38/357 and 30-30 and with the different alloys I use, from soft to very hard, I get great looking, consistent boolits.

I just started trying to cast for 45-70 - and I am struggling...

I have the Lee 405 grain 2-bullet mold. That little mold, well it does seem to get far hotter far quicker that my experiences with the smaller calibers.

Biggest problem I have is when I use an alloy made from some harder 'type-metal' alloy I just got (alloy cast is 50-50 type-metal/pure-lead mix). Even after I think I fluxed my alloy well (I use beeswax and sawdust), I seem to get powdery inclusions and strange little dings and pucks, no matter how careful I clean the mold first (I use pure acetone).

When I size my boolits (right after water quenching) they look unevenly sized around the rings. Since the sizer is narrower than the boolit, I can't quite figure what I am doing wrong.

I cast them at 750F

here's one as water-quenched, and the one on the right sized shortly after quenching.

The alloy does seem hard, after 1-day, they are already at BHN 27.2 Dia is .458" as quenched and the sizer is .457"

I missed a page on the 101-guide here guys - what am I doing wrong?, thanks.

http://i41.tinypic.com/wc08z9.jpg

[popper]

As cast is small, sizing just hits the high spots. Wrinkles in the nose are symptomatic of cooling too fast or a slow pour. That 'growth' on the rear of the first drive band is strange. Too much Sb from the type metal? i use brake cleaner or Comet & a toothbush.

[SniderBoomer]

Thanks Popper. I did wonder if there's too much Sb, as these are far harder than I expected after 1 day.

I forgot to mention, every drop needed multiple taps from a mold mallet, making a big variation in delay between pour and quench time. I just read up on the Lee-menting thread, I think I will try that on my 45-70 2-cav and see if I can improve things.

Appreciated, Snider.

[leadman]

Do you have any indication of a white powdery substance on the boolits? What I am thinking since they are not filling out real well and on the smaller size, plus so hard already is you may have some zinc in the mix. Very similar to what I have gone thru this week.
If you can find some pool acid put a drop on the sprue in the depression so the acid stays there. If there is any bubbling you probably have zinc in the mix. Don't worry though since the "Root Kill" from Home Depot will remove it. Took me about 8 fluxings to clean up one pot. Use caution as there is moisture in the RK. It is blue in color and turns white when most of the moisture is gone. Let it set on the top for a couple minutes after the color change and then carefully work it thru the alloy.

Even if you don't have zinc in the alloy the RK is a very good flux and will help clean the lead.

[SniderBoomer]

Leadman, thanks, what is the tech name for pool acid? And is Root Kill the same as Copper sulfate?
Will try this once I figure out what these are ;-)

Edit - found it, Hydrochloric Acid (brick cleaner) and Copper Sulphate, I can get those nearby. Thanks!

[Skunkworks]

HCl =HydroChloric Acid

1:1 mix is to much unless you're going for above max loadings.
I mix. 1:3 and add 2% tin, aircooled it hoovers around 12-13BHN and will pass 1850fps without issues.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm153/Chickenthief/Blandet/Smilere/2c.gif (http://s295.photobucket.com/user/Chickenthief/media/Blandet/Smilere/2c.gif.html)

[SniderBoomer]

Hey Skunk' yep that sounds fine for that 405 grainer... I think I'll Lee-ment and re-melt, in that order, then see what I can cast and compare.

[Garyshome]

some new molds seem to take quite a few rejects before the good ones start to drop. Some molds just start dropping real quick. Just have to keep after it. I change temps to find which works best, varies between 650 to 750, once the mold starts to drop good stuff than the temps can come down a little bit Maybe.

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[SniderBoomer]

Thanks for all the help guys.

I did my first Lee-ment... not as easy as I hoped - are you meant to use soft alloy for that?

Anyhoo, it did get rid of some burrs, the mold is dropping nice.

As for the alloy, I agreed with the comments about perhaps too much Sb and diluted it by adding 1/5th pot of roof lead.

Much nicer boolits. Still say 15-20% are imperfects (a tendency to show as undersized when sizing), but a fraction of the loss rate before and a vast improvement.

Thanks for the advice.

pic (water-dropped & sized: two of the latest on the right -v- previous one)

http://i40.tinypic.com/1smv5y.jpg

[Wayne Smith]

You haven't told us how you are casting them - bottom pour or ladle and or the type of ladle. This has a major impact on larger boolits.

[popper]

You are on the road to success. Shoot some and see how they do. I still see the rings just back of the nose. Not much metal in that mould, you may have to heat it up between pours or cast faster. I don't cast anything that big but I am wondering if the sprue plate holes are big enough to get a fast pour?

[Larry Gibson]

Your type metal is antimony rich and tin poor. Before Lementing I would have added 20 - 50% lead and then 2 % tin for a much better alloy that would have filled the mould properly and casting could be done in the 715 - 25 degree range.

Agree with the question on style of casting used; bottom poor, ladle or dipper?

Larry Gibson

[hickfu]

If you are hitting the mold to get them to loosen it can cause dings and such (seems like you already figured out your other issue) keep a brass brush close by and every few pours brush the inside of the mold with the brass brush. I do this to make sure my boolits dont stick so I dont have to beat the heck out of my handles to get them to drop. I cast 45-70 boolits between 350gr up to 535gr and then only thing I do different is the flow rate on the pot gets turned up more on the 535s. I also keep a fan going to hold the mold open and in front of for a 5 count to keep the temp of the mold from getting too hot.


Doc

[SniderBoomer]

Lee bottom pour

[TES]

Bigger bullets need a faster flow for fill out. The pour rings in your castings seem really close together. (you can see them clearly in the ogive of the Boolit)

Try speeding up the flow.

If that does not do it, get the mold hotter. You may have to rest it in the pot for a bit to bring temp up.

Basically get the casts to come out frosty by making everything too hot. Then start backing of slowly on temps for the pot and mold. Once you find a sweet spot don't stop casting until you have run out of lead.

[longbow]

Try using a ladle. I have been ladle casting for over 40 years. I like simple and ladle casting works well for me especially for large boolits and shotgun slugs where there is a large volume required quickly.

I use an open plumber's ladle that holds about a pound and a half of lead (I should verify sometime but regardless, it is pretty big). I can pour a lot of lead fast with that.

Yes, I have used bottom pour pots but they did not suit me so ladle it is.

You might have some venting issues too. I occasionally find that I have to loosen a sprue plate a bit or just barely break the top edges of the mould blocks under the sprue plate to allow air to escape faster.

Longbow

[SniderBoomer]

thanks, I will try a ladle pour next.
I learned something new, I thought the concentric rings were mold tooling.

great help here guys, thanks.

[FAsmus]

SniderBoomer;

Ladle cast is my answer for consistent 45 or bigger bullets.

There is a ladle technique called "Wosika pressure-wave casting" that works wonderfully well. Ed Wosika has written for the CBA and I got it there. ~ Or ~ I could tell here if there is interest.

Good morning,
Forrest

[Tom Myers]

SniderBoomer;

Ladle cast is my answer for consistent 45 or bigger bullets.

There is a ladle technique called "Wosika pressure-wave casting" that works wonderfully well. Ed Wosika has written for the CBA and I got it there. ~ Or ~ I could tell here if there is interest.

Good morning,
Forrest

By all means, please do tell it here. There is much interest.

[Beagle333]

Yes, do tell! I just started ladle casting .45 and .45-70 and want to learn all I can.[smilie=s:

[44man]

Too much type metal and lack of tin. Some of the type metal was recycled so many times it lost tin.
The boolits show signs of alloy separation when cooling. Tin will cure it but you sure don't need such hard boolits.
I use a Lyman ladle to cast everything. For large boolits hold the ladle tight in the sprue and keep it there long enough for the boolit to take lead from the ladle as it cools. Then tip off. Avoid having the boolit take from the sprue alone. The sprue can set as fast or faster then the boolit and will starve the boolit.

[SniderBoomer]

Fasmus & 44man - thanks, I did another cast before I read your posts.

So sort of an update. I remelted everything, cast a set of consistent runs between 650-750 and settled on a best temp for this alloy.

I then set about casting from alloy from the top of my furnace, with a ladle, a plain spoon-like affair not ideal, I got a Lyman Dipper coming in the post.

Ladle casting wasn't easy. My alloy, even at 700F although with alloy and ladle very hot, didn't come off the ladle 'cleanly', you know what I mean, sort of seemed to pour with a sticky 'thick' consistency and I found it hard to not sometimes block the mold pour holes with the pour, blocking the air-release.

Well, I endeavored to persevere... got almost an exact 50% fail rate. I rate failure by a boolit that after sizing, shows incomplete sizing of the driving bands.

here's the Fail-v-Good picture (fails on top).

http://i42.tinypic.com/o6l5x1.jpg


Here's my 'Fails' - poor fill-out evident on sizing...
http://i42.tinypic.com/xd8gg9.jpg


And here's the few I rated as 'good to shoot', not perfect by any means, but I think they'll shoot okay.
http://i44.tinypic.com/213q2s1.jpg

Well, I hear Bart Simpson saying 'Are We There Yet?" and the answer is a firm Nope...

After these new posts, I am likewise keen to hear more of this Ladle technique.

My job today is pickup some Hydrochloric Acid and test my lead for zinc as recommended earlier.

Meantime, as I await my Dipper ladle arriving, open to more advices.

Great learning process guys, it is appreciated. -44man - I am surely going to try what you suggest when the Dipper arrives - and add more Tin.

[Ben]

To cast 45/70 bullets , you need :

( 1 ) A good dipper with an adequate opening ( I have several Lyman dippers that have been drilled out to successively larger diameters to improve flow rate on the pour - I experiment sometimes with certain troublesome molds to find that " RIGHT Combo " of melt temperature and flow rate ) .

( 2 ) A Hot alloy and plenty of it.

( 3 ) A Hot , clean mold with good venting.

[FAsmus]

Tom and other members:

The "Wosika pressure-wave" casting technique is like this:

Using a "dipper" type ladle, Lyman or RCBS and an open-top lead pot the mold is held such that excess alloy will only go back into the pot during the pour. ~ I just rest it on the edge of my 10 pound pot, or the 20 pound pot when it is indicated. The tool is angled slightly so the excess alloy will go back into the melted alloy.

Once the tool is in position I fill the dipper and, while I move it toward the mold I hold it such that when the nozzle clears the edge of the sprue-plate it is already beginning to pour. This assures the absolute minimum of impurities in each bullet. ~ OK, then, as the pouring alloy hits the sprue hole I aim it toward one side or the other such that the alloy as it enters the cavity does so in a swirling motion. I hold the stream of alloy in position a second or two after the cavity is filled. This assures that all possible air-pockets have time to find their way out of the bullet.

The "pressure-wave" title comes from the way the stream of alloy, hitting the taper of the sprue opening builds up a wave of moving metal. This indicates that the pressure of the alloy entering the cavity is greater than it would be if a fellow simply depended upon gravity to get the job done. In practice it feels kind of like I'm "hitting" the cavity with the stream of alloy - don't try to 'dribble' it in, that won't work.

When casting with a dual-cavity mold fill the closer cavity first, get another ladle-full of alloy and then fill the second. Trying to fill two with the same pass won't work anywhere nearly as well.

The idea is to generate some pressure in the operation. ~ We know that the ladle technique where you place the spout of the ladle in contact with the fill-hole of the empty mold and rotating the two tools at once to fill the cavity works well too. But I have this to say about the two techniques;

In my efforts to get the very best large caliber bullets I can cast I have tested the two methods as follows: I moved one of my electric scales to the casting bench and weighed every bullet I cast as it came hot from the mold.

In casting anything from my 500 grain 44s to my 700 grain 50s the 'pressure-wave' method always gives me more consistent weights (like +/- 0.5 grains if all goes well) it also casts bullets that are about one full grain heavier than the same bullets cast with the same alloy with the same tool on the same day. ~ I do not claim to know why this is, I simply report what I have seen.

I might add that having the scale there at the casting bench has taught me things about cadence and heat control that I would not have learned otherwise. These things affect bullet weight as well.

Good morning,
Forrest

[Tom Myers]

Thanks Forrest,

Food for thought.

[SniderBoomer]

FAsmus - that's a nice, clear post.

I look forward to trying this method, sounds good, logical.

And thanks Ben too. I'll update when I get the Lyman Dipper and try all this info.

Snider B

[Char-Gar]

As stated, you want to get that large quantity of lead in the mold as quickly as possible. I have one ladle I use for 45 caliber rifle bullets that I drilled out the spout to a larger diameter. I also opened up the hole in the spru plate as well.

[Ben]

Char-Gar has got you headed in the right direction ! !

Takes a good hot flow on 400 and 500 gr. bullets.

[SniderBoomer]

Thanks guys. Hey I forgot to add, I did get some HCL acid for the zinc-test, my alloy don't bubble (no zinc).

Char-Gar - the spru opening holes, well I could use them opened a bit bigger on this mold. What's a good size would be that would still result in a good boolit base?

[SniderBoomer]

Hey Forrest,

tried my first attempt at the pressure casting technique.

Fumbled slightly as I had to use a plain spoon dipper (with a very thin pour) for now until the Lyman Dipper arrives, but I was impressed by the improvement in fill-out quality. I never seen the top band at the crimp groove fill completelylike that. See the image of some sized boolits, no depressions or low spots on the bands.

In fact, I got no bad boolits, even the poorest of this batch are better than the best of the last batch. Weight variation of 2.5 grains. It's slow for me, but a better dipper will speed this up.

http://i41.tinypic.com/28k21sp.jpg



One new question: When the fill-out is good, I see on sized boolits some of the metal is being squeezed sightly unevenly at the mold-join line- the sized bands have slight width variations. How bad is this for accuracy? Any way to lessen it? (I did lube the boolits for sizing with some light spray oil).

[Char-Gar]

Thanks guys. Hey I forgot to add, I did get some HCL acid for the zinc-test, my alloy don't bubble (no zinc).

Char-Gar - the spru opening holes, well I could use them opened a bit bigger on this mold. What's a good size would be that would still result in a good boolit base?

Spru holes vary in size depending on the maker and phase of the moon. I use my drill bit set as a gage and drill out the hole with the next larger bit. That usually does the job. When doing this there are two things to take care of;

1. Stone any burrs off the under side of the plate caused by the drilling.
2. Any machine marks in or around the spru hole can form a lock into which hot metal flows, hardens and is difficult to remove. When the spru has difficulty falling free, this most often is the cause. Therefore, polish out any machine marks left by the drilling.

I was taught to pressure cast back when I started in the late 50's. The notion was to hold the mold at a 90 degree angle, fill the dipper, hold it to the spru hole and quickly invert the mold and dipper back to vertical to allow the hot lead to flow into the mold as quickly as possible with as much pressure as possible. If the mold, dipper and alloy are all up to the right temp, good bullets will result. The idea is to get hot metal in and air out, as fast as possible, with as much pressure as possible. This has worked for many lifetimes.

When the cavity is full, I tilt the dipper nozzle to allow a spru to be poured. This will be needed as the alloy cools.

[FAsmus]

SniderBoomer;

The deal on excess parting-line sizing and material mushing into the grooves as you point out is due to slight out-of-roundness of the bullets as they come from the mold.

This is seen at times and is one of the reasons some of us index bullets so they may be loaded into the chamber consistent with the out-of-round always being in the same place in the bore as the bullet is fired.

My idea is to get an on-size mold that does not have measurable out-of-round beyond say 0.0005. Then indexing or sizing bullets is something I don't worry about. (A micrometer is really needed to see this kind of thing)

Some members believe that sizing does away with any problems with out-of-round or over-size bullets anyway - and so they don't worry about it much. ~ I try to maintain a middle of the road view - and cherish the molds I own that cast round, on-size in the first place.

Good afternoon,
Forrest