Cull Rate

[jim4065]

Kind of disgusted with myself. I sat down with the old Lee small bottom pour and some new ww ingots to try out a couple of GB molds. Decided to slow down my casting pace to keep from getting "slumps" and hot spots. I used two moulds - filling one while the other hardened - and didn't bother with sprues till it was over.

Really bad results - most of which I'll put down to low temp. Tried to talk myself into keeping a couple hundred from each mould; after all - they'll be used for plinking, mostly. I used to be anal about quality, but thought I was getting more sensible. Now I'm thinking of melting the whole lot and starting fresh - which (finally) brings me to the point.........

At what point do you scrap the batch? These have 30% + really bad boolits, and maybe 10% really good ones. My thought on scrapping 'em all is that powder and primers cost money - why be satisfied with lousy boolits? :confused:

[Bret4207]

FWIW- I find you have to cast pretty fast to keep the 6 bangers up to heat. You said "GB" so I assume a 6 banger.

As to the other question- why scrap any "good" boolit? Even if you only get 10 good ones, thats 10 you didn't have before.

[mooman76]

Sounds like you slowed your pace down too much. I only use one mould at a time. If the lead takes to long to harden I turn it down abit.

I don't have to have perfect bullets but I do put back any with large or allot of wrinkles or if they didn't fill out properly. I can live with bullets that are slightly rounded at the base. I don't have too much trouble getting near perfect bullets once I get going and with preheating Lee moulds I usually have good bullets from the first one excluding the big 6 bangers which take quite a few for me to get good ones.
I never scrap them all but at the same time you don't have to setal for bad either. Like Bret said. Why scrap 10 bullets just because the others are bad. That's 10 more you didn't have before but I guess it's up to the individual and how much time you have or are willing to spend doing bullets!

[Dale53]

I pre-heat my moulds on a hot plate. I expect the moulds to start dropping near perfect bullets in a few cycles. After things are "running", I expect nearly all of the bullets to be near perfect. I don't settle for less because I don't have to.

If YOUR bullets are not "near perfect", you just need to do a little more casting. Casting bullets is part science and part "art". The art requires practice and lots of it. We don't expect to become good shooters in a session or two and I am here to tell you that it takes more than a session or two to become a good bullet caster.

So, KEEP CASTING, and watch and "listen" on here. There are quite a number of accomplished casters frequenting this site and help is freely given.

Dale53

[gray wolf]

I think you answered your own question.
I give you my permission, melt them.

[gray wolf]

My thought on scrapping 'em all is that powder and primers cost money - why be satisfied with lousy boolits?

I agree melt them and start over. Also some very good advise in the above post's

[Flinchrock]

If I'm not 100 percent confident in my ammo I have a harder time concentrating on my shooting. We are our own quality control inspectors.:Fire:

[Adam10mm]

I do a three part cull. Seems time consuming but I cull as I go, even with six bangers.

If I see a nasty boolit upon dropping it from the mold, I grab the tongs and put it back in the melt.

After cooling, I inspect again, a little closer looksy. These are where the iffy ones get culled.

While sizing I inspect each boolit before setting in the sizer.

I don't go from casting to sizing in a whole session. I'll cast one night, then size at a later date. I'll shoot wrinkled for plinkers but come hunting loads, they are perfect only.

The one thing I like about casting is I get unlimited mulligans. If I don't like it, I just melt it again and I get a do-over.

[trickyasafox]

if you already sorted them, might as well keep the good'uns and melt the rest.

[Sundogg1911]

If they're just plinkers keep what you can shoot. If they're for competing, i'd scrap'em and start over. It's better to keep all of the bullets that "matter" in lots from the same alloy. I find slight variation in the alloy to make a pretty big difference. I try to keep my boxes marked as to what lot it was from. It may only make a slight difference, but difference is the key word.