boolit breaks when dropped on towel from mold

[hanleyfan]

I have been casting about a hour with a NOE 265gr.432 mold, I decided to check my boolits so I dropped one cast on too my work table covered with a towel, This mold is a 4 hole and when they hit the table 2 of the boolits broke in half! I have never had this happen before, The lead I was using was suppose to be range lead with a 1/2lb of 40/60 tin and lead melted in it. I had bought this 40/60 2 years ago and never labeled it and was assuming that it is tin and lead. The mold temperature at the time was 456 deg. and the lead melt was 745 deg. the center of the boolit looked grainy, Now I am wondering what these will do when fired, will they shatter on impact? What caused this?

[MarkP]

Were they still hot?

[hanleyfan]

Yes they were dropped straight from the mold after pouring in the lead.

[hanleyfan]

I did take one of the boolits out and smashed it with a hammer and it did not shatter, just flattened.

[bhn22]

You need to give them a few seconds to fully solidify, then drop them on something that will pad their landing. They're still pretty tender for a while.

[David2011]

Yep; just dropping a few seconds too soon.

David

[Bzcraig]

I'm thinking too soon as well and make sure the towel is folded over a few times.

[paul h]

I had a wierd experience recently with some alloy I'd traded for that was described as range pickup. I've cast over 1000# of wheelweights with no problems, until the first batch of this stuff. I added some tin and figured it would make a great alloy for hollowpoints, boy was I wrong.

If I turned the heat up enough to get good fillout on the mold the bullets would have parts of their driving band tear when I opened the mold, and they'd crumble when they hit the folded towel. If I waited longer for the mold to cool before opening, I wouldn't get complete fillout in the mold. I've never had such a frustrating experience casting an alloy. I'm not sure what the lead was contaminate with, but it was the strangest casting alloy I'd ever used.

I did cast up about 15 pounds of the same alloy this weekend and it seemed to behave better, so hopefully I just had one bad batch. I don't really want to use the remaing 50#'s for fishing sinkers, but I might have to.

[fredj338]

This has to be an alloy thing. I have been casting by hand & on a Magma for years & never seen this happen. I cast a lot of range scrap that I recover, no such issues. I suspect the range scrap, if purchased, has some impurity? Flux it heavily, try again.

[hanleyfan]

I had purchased this range lead on here from a seller every one recommended, I hope it is not all like this since I bought 600lbs of this stuff. I fluxed this lead 3 times before using, The boolits themselves look great, great fill out, not frosted, so when they broke I was totally surprised. I did take a couple after they cooled and smashed them with a hammer to see if they would shatter and they did not so maybe I dumped them too soon from the mould, I hope so.

[runfiverun]

Were they still hot?

too hot.

[bruce381]

too hot and ropped to fast i have seen that on SWC and the bands ripping off also just slow down.

[trixter]

Casting boolits is an art form, not a speed contest. Go slow and have fun with it. Remember just because your killing paper, doesn't mean you have to do in in a hurry. LOL

Really, just go slow and have fun.

[dragon813gt]

Bullets are still to hot. I have the same issue with one of my 30cal molds. I routinely rip them at the lube groove because it requires a different cadence then my other molds. Wait a few more seconds and you should be fine.

[Forrest r]

Water dropping boolits had spoiled me, did it for years. When I went back to air dropped/cooling boolits it was like I had to learn everything all over again.

Torn noses & driving bands, broken boolits & deformed boolits were the name of the game until I lowered the temp on the melt (nothing but range lead for decades) & slowed down. Quality over quantity ='s a better boolit & a chewed up x-ring.

Some 359-640's
85203

H&G 68 clones, weighed 100 of them & they had a 1.1gr difference in weight
85205

Keith 44 spl/mag swc clones, note that the boolits were just starting to frost. Had the lead too high, frosted boolits = trouble for me. I end up getting allot of chipped drive bands, broken noses & broken boolits when my boolits are frosted.
85207

The ness safety slugs will try any casters patience, hard to keep the loooooonnnng hp pins hot. When they cool the boolits stick to them & get allot of broken boolits (pictured).
85208

Those are all boolits cast from nothing but scrap range lead, no tin added, nothing. Cast @ different times of the year from different batches of hill pickins. Slow down & read/look at your boolits as you cast them,we are lucky enough to live in a time where some of the best mold makers on the planet are turning out the best molds I've ever seen (been casting since the 80's) at a very affordable price.

Enjoy your mold & the quality boolits it will produce for you. How about a couple of pics showing boolits comparing this run of boolits to the next run/casting session along with what you did different?

[Larry Gibson]

Dropping too fast and cast too hot are the probable factors with that alloy. However the problem could be exasperated by the alloy itself. How much range lead was the 1/2 lb of 40/60 put into? If less than 20 lbs it is very probable the alloy is still to rich in antimony which is why "the center of the boolit looked grainy". That was probably the antimony structure that was not in solution with the tin in the lead. Suggest the addition of 20 - 30% lead to the alloy you have. Drop the alloy temp down to 725 +/-.

Larry Gibson

[Four-Sixty]

Mistress antimony strikes again!

I've long used reclaimed shot and dealt with these problems. I've noticed my range scrap anymore seems to be as antimony rich as the reclaimed shot! I think a solution might be to thin the range scrap with pure lead first, then add tin to balance it out.

[leftiye]

Boolit is still too hot.

[montana_charlie]

... exacerbated ...

[jonk]

I've seen large diameter long bullets harden at the sprue, you open them, and the whole bullet slumps over because the mold was too hot and the center wasn't yet solid. To be fair, the temp of your mold was near the melting point of some alloys. Too hot.

[bangerjim]

I water drop everything into a cake pan filled with water with a towel folded over 4 times in it. Never have any distorted/cracked/broken slugs.

I water drop NOT to try to squeeze hardness out of the alloy ( I PC everything later so bhn is of little concern to me anymore) but to prevent BURNED FINGERS! Too many times I thought "that boolit has cooled long enough by now"............and OWEEEEEEEE........HOT.....HOT.....HOT!

Now I can examine the slugs immediately after casting and if bad, wipe them off and return them to whence they came.

banger

[Wayne Smith]

I water drop into a bucket with nothing over the water. I was casting a long 30 cal boolit years ago and doing so at a pretty good clip. When I went to pull the boolits out of the water about half of them were bent like a banana! Dropping too soon does strange things.

[dragon813gt]

When I went to pull the boolits out of the water about half of them were bent like a banana! Dropping too soon does strange things.

Those are the easy ones. It's worse when you inspect hundreds under magnification, the cheap magnified light from HF, to check for cracks. And you still end up w/ rejects. They show up when seating gas checks. The bullets lean ever so slightly.

[Larry Gibson]

... exacerbated ...

"exasperated"....a combination of exacerbated and I just plain blew the spelling..........[smilie=l:

Larry Gibson

[Char-Gar]

Bullets that break when you drop them from the mold onto a soft surface is natures way to telling you to slow down. You are dropping the bullets still wet. I have had it happen numerous times and slowing down always cures the problem.

I do not water drop bullets as they can create more problems than it cures. Bullet casting is not a competitive sport where speed matters. I have also learned not to pick up hot bullets. I thought that was pretty basic stuff.

[pearcetopher]

your bullets were way way way too hot

like that time in mexico I ate the chilli the tour guide warned me not to

I spent the rest of the day vomiting and crying for my mommy

amigo no its to hot!
amigo!!!
NOOOOOOOOO

[bangerjim]

Bullets that break when you drop them from the mold onto a soft surface is natures way to telling you to slow down. You are dropping the bullets still wet. I have had it happen numerous times and slowing down always cures the problem.

I do not water drop bullets as they can create more problems than it cures. Bullet casting is not a competitive sport where speed matters. I have also learned not to pick up hot bullets. I thought that was pretty basic stuff.

300gn 45's hold heat for a lot longer that you would realize! Water dropping solves ALL the problems. I have found absolutely NO problems water dropping. Since you obviously feel you have a source of superior knowledge, please share it with us.................rather than just making snotty comments.

[Char-Gar]

Well, if a fellow burns his fingers on hot bullets more than once he is not learning. With bigger bullets you wait longer.

I really did and do think this is basic stuff we learn when our mothers taught us not to burn our hands on hot pots and pans. This is not superior knowledge just basic life skills.

If a fellow wants to drop hot bullets into water rather than wait for them to cool, let's at least call it what it is....lack of patience.

Water dropped bullets make sizing much harder. I once broke the linkage of a good old Lyman 45 sizing 45 cal bullets.

Often better accuracy and less leading is found with softer bullets. Again this is not superior knowledge just experience learned the hard way.

[pmer]

When I was messing with those lead plates from Chrysler steering columns, boolits came out with a grainy structure too. For batch #2 I added added about 30% reclaimed ww boolits and water dropped them. But reading this I should have added pure instead. They still had some grain pattern to them.

[runfiverun]

I have the worlds most genius Labrador when it comes to stuff like pointing out the carrots in the fridge, finding cookies in the cupboard and in figuring out 50 different way's to get petted.
other than that she forgets her name most of the time, and gets lost in the back yard.
but she knows what hot means.