Casting 225 cal Boolits: Need advice

[Leadmelter]

As soon as we thaw out here in the Great Mitten, I plan on starting to cast some 225 boolits.
I have a six cavity Lee Bator Mold, NOE 225 37 gr mold, and a RCBS 22-55gr mold. My plan is to start off with the Lee and NOE molds.
From reading several post, I seem to see a pattern:
1. Cast hot: Flux thoroughly, preheat the molds on a hot plate (already do)
2. Cast Fast and don't stop to dilly dally to inspect your work. Lube areas as indicated.
3. If the mold gets too hot, wet sponge touch.
4. Cull the boolits after they cool, sort by weight-/+ .5 grs or less
5. Enjoy the efforts of your labor.
Did I miss anything?
With a change in job and shift, I must maximize my hobby time.
Leadmelter
MI

[Bullshop]

It might be a better idea to start your learning curve with the RCBS mold. It will be the easiest to cast with. Once you get the feel of that one then graduate to the more difficult molds.
Oh and I forgot to mention that you left out the hot plate.

[Boolseye]

Hey man,
I've had good luck with .225 boolits, I have a Lyman 44 grain (225438) and the NOE RCBS clone (22-055) in 5 cavity.
I have shot both bullets from 2500 to 2700 without leading in .223 and .22 jet. I cast them hard...for me, that means throwing a little superhard in the melt, or straight COWW with added tin, then water dropped. I will estimate the bhn to be in the neighborhood of 18. Hope it helps, keep us posted.
-BE

[Jailer]

Looks like you've pretty much covered it. Keeping heat in the mold is the biggest obstacle with the little boolits.

[runfiverun]

I started with my rcbs mold on the too hot side and cast like it was the last thing I was ever gonna do.

then I found out I could just pay attention to what I was doing,
slow everything down, and just maintain a steady pace.
the mold was not cooling down because I never got it too hot to begin with.
if the mold did fall out of it's happy temp, I just stopped and warmed it back up while I culled the just cast boolits.
then I went back to casting a repetitious steady pace again.
I put my thermometer in the pot and cast with it in a 20* temp zone, if it goes above or below this window I stop and settle the pot down.
I slowed down my pots flow and watched exactly where I was putting the alloy on the sprue plate.

my weight spread narrowed down immensely, my reject rate went down, and my groups tightened up because of this.

[beagle]

You probably won't encounter the mould getting too hot. In .22 blocks, the heat dissipates pretty quickly. Cast as fast as you can and if it gets too hot, back off on your casting tempo a bit.

Be aggressive in your inspection and culling operation. This is most important.

I sat down one winter and weighed over 1,000 22-55-SP RCBS bullets on an electronic scale (yeah, I didn't have much to do that winter) and sorted into .1 weight groups. Throwing the results on a computer and graphing, I got a nice Bell curve. From my testing that spring, I did not notice a significant increase in accuracy so based on that experiment, it's a waste of time. Culling for defects seems to be more productive./beagle

[Boolseye]

You probably won't encounter the mould getting too hot. In .22 blocks, the heat dissipates pretty quickly.

Yeah, that was my thought, too. I don't think I've ever had ANY mold get too hot...a couple frosties is the worse that happens, and they're usually fine. I have opened a sprue plate or two on liquid boolits, but that's my own impatience.

[Blammer]

looks good, and of course culling cold boolits, culling while hot may be difficult. :)