Percent rejects when casting?

[trucker76]

Well I did my first casting yesterday. 30lbs with a 2 cavity mold :holysheep. Yeah should've got the 6 cavity. Well I got a bowl full of 230gr .45 boolits and 63 rejects. Honestly I was expecting a lot more bad boolits. Maybe I'm not as picky as some people? If the drive and base are good and there's no flaws on the cone or obvious bad areas where the pour was bad I kept them. I fugure I have about 26lbs of good boolits, and 230gr per thats approx 800 [smilie=w:

Now to lube and load.

[TXGunNut]

Congrats on a very good session! I don't track the percentages too closely but when I do it's around 5% for pistol boolits and a little more for rifle. I sometimes weigh my rifle boolits and that will generate a few more (2-3%) rejects. IMHO pistol boolits can have a few defects in the nose as long as all the edges are sharp. I don't count the obviously bad boolits that go straight back into the pot as soon as I drop them.
And yes, pistol boolits beg for a 6 cav but it's a good idea to see how a given boolit design performs in your gun before investing in a 6-cav when possible.

[bruce381]

I have only problems at startup with not filled our or wrinkles when mold is not up to temp.
Once up to temp I can empty the pot with no rejects BUT do then have to keep mold cool with a wet towel.

I throw out the shiney ones at first and only start keeping as they go frosty, thats my sweet spot.

[osteodoc08]

If you can dial in the preheat on your mold, very few rejects. I end up dropping more when I go to lube/size/load. If they hit the ground, at any time, they get put in the reject bucket. I don't want to shoot one with a dinged up nose or load one that has grit in the lube after rolling around the basement floor. I'll toss them into my next smelt and the lube can act as flux.

[HollandNut]

you will probably do better with the two cav rather than the six anyways .. I prefer using a ladle and my aluminum six cav 480 400 gr mould works better using two or three cavs and my Lyman 462560 4 cav does fine at four . You aren't running a race , speed isn't necessary , this is therapy ..

[dragon813gt]

It depends on the mold. For 45cal I have virtually no rejects. As the bullets get smaller the percentage goes up. There are always more rejects when using a mold the first few times. Once I have the alloy temp and cadence figured out then I'm back to virtually no rejects.

[Dutchman]

this is therapy ..

Zen and the art of bullet casting! It's the journey not the destination...

I get maybe 10-15% depending on if I'm using Lyman or Lee. You don't get one hole groups out of a rifle by allowing flawed bullets through the inspection process. I have a fairly strict inspection process that may involve each bullet being viewed closely 4 or 5 times as it goes through the different levels of preparation to include seating into the case. You loose nothing by having high standards. Toss 'em back in the pot and demand better from yourself, your technique.

http://images38.fotki.com/v231/photos/4/28344/9430776/DSCF2096cb-vi.jpg

[runfiverun]

I toss back a fair amount too.
probably 20% of my rifle boolits go back, my handgun stuff is more like 15%.
I once tossed back 10 pounds of 22 boolits because I was getting a high reject rate from that batch. [must not have been my day to cast]

[jeepyj]

At this time I don't do much with rifle but I'm fairly heavy into handgun casting. I would say for me it really depends on the mould. Some have a higher amount of culls for various reasons others seem to get almost none. I have a 35891 the seems to have a fair amount of rejects and a 452374 that almost never throws a bad one.
Jeepyj

[ryan28]

I think I had about 90% failure rate till I figured out how to cast. Took a little while, but ok now.

[captaint]

Once we get our molds up to temp, the main reason for (my) rejects is dirty alloy. I'll start seeing junk in the sprue puddle on top. If I don't stop and flux pretty quickly, those spots are going to start showing up in my boolits. Up goes the reject rate. I like to keep some sawdust on top to protect against oxidation, but I still have to stop and flux anyway. I hate getting on a roll and having to change anything. It does keep the reject rate down, though. Mike

[btroj]

Depends. I have had runs with huge reject rates, others with 5 percent rejects if that.

Like Run said, sme days it just isn't to be and I give up and come back another day.

For plinking ammo and stuff to be shot at 25 yards or less I'm not real picky, for target stuff with rifles I'm far more picky.

[Old School Big Bore]

If I notice midstream that there are a lot of uglies, I stop, step back and try to figure out what's wrong. Molds are individuals and may demand protocols specific to themselves. When I first got the MP .41 HBWC I had to throw back a whole run except for about a dozen because I wasn't checking closely enough and just banging along fat & happy. Turned out it just needed a more thorough cleaning and hotter alloy plus a higher preheat. Had me worried.

[Sgtonory]

Once i get mold to temp and dont have to add more lead to the pot i have maybe a 1% reject.

[bobthenailer]

After 40+ years of boolet casting and over 1/2 a million boolets made, my reject rate is less than 1%.
when learning the VOODOO to cast, it can be much higher.

[Love Life]

0% for pistol.

[offshore44]

Good day casting-probably about a 5% reject rate from pour to load. On a bad day casting - I just stop and go work on the truck or something. Each mold and alloy has a mind of it's own, and some days casting is just not to be.

[trucker76]

Well I lubed and jarred them up. My ocd kicked in and I had to count them. 705 total good bullets, 63 rejects. Though as my first cast I'm sure 50% of the rejects came in the beginning as I was figuring it out. Near the end I was getting the flow perfect, no overrun off the sprue plate. The only lead under the pot was from drips. Now I know why people nickname the lee pots "drippy". Also I found you can fit exactly 400 230gr .45 bullets in a standard size hellmans mayo jar.

[plainsman456]

I like others have had a few more rejects with the smaller boolits but when doing the pistol boolits very few and they get put back in the pot.

[country gent]

I routinly reject the first 15-20 casts depending on mould as these are to get the mould at true casting temp and normalized. After that very few rejects or culls. I normally cast several hundred at a setting from single cavity moulds. I am more concerned with quality over quanity. I cast rifle bullets in the 300-600 grn range. Frome 38-45 caliber.

[bangerjim]

I have found 2 things that very easily minimize/eliminate rejects:

1) Preheating molds on a hotplate to casting temps

2) Pressure casting on finicky molds that I know will not drop good boolits


A hotplate is a life and boolit saver! By preheating, you eliminate all that time and all those rejects filling your molds with lead trying to get up to "casting temp". Let the hotplate do that!

I have a few molds that I have learned I need to use pressure casting right from the word go. With that simple change in technique I went from 60% rejects to less than 1%.........every single time!

Welcome to the fun............and madness!!!!!!!!!!

bangerjim

[trucker76]

I routinly reject the first 15-20 casts depending on mould as these are to get the mould at true casting temp and normalized. After that very few rejects or culls. I normally cast several hundred at a setting from single cavity moulds. I am more concerned with quality over quanity. I cast rifle bullets in the 300-600 grn range. Frome 38-45 caliber.

That's some big boolits. You shooting wooly mammouths or something?

[popper]

A peanut jar full makes a pretty good exercise weight. 5% culls is pretty good indicator. My 'plinker' criteria is good base, bands and no wrinkles. Fish eyes are OK for pistol.

[DeanWinchester]

I have a pretty low reject [remelt] percentage. Any imperfections go back in the pot on the spot. When I do rifle boolits, those that don't make weight go into the the blaster pile. I really only cast for 308 nowadays and any boolits who don't make weight for my scoped rifle get loaded for my truck gun, an old beat up mauser. It's not very accurate anywho so waste not want not.
Pistol boolits, I've loaded some pretty gnarly looking boolits [embarrassingly bad] and can't tell much difference. For range ammo [pistol] if it's square based and remotely filled out, I'll bang with it. The perfect ones get loaded and stuffed into inventory for hard times.

[Pb2au]

Pistol, I tend to be pretty forgiving.
Rifle, I tend to crawl all over them. There is enough to keep track of when i am proofing and testing loads, I do not want to sit around and wonder if it was a boolit with herpes on that one driving band that I kept that caused that one shot to go a 1/2 wider than the rest of the group.

[Cloudwraith]

I just started casting a couple weeks ago. Using a 2 cavity 9mm mold from Lee I initially had about a 60% reject rate. After working on mold and alloy temps along with just experience in the actual casting that has fallen to about 20%. I'm having an issue now where when I lube the mold I must be getting a little bit in the cavity (although I don't lube anywhere near them) and it takes about 5 pours or so to get that burned out and start dropping correctly again. I hope to get down to less than 10% with more experience.

[fredj338]

On my hand casting molds, I preheat on top of the pot, usually takes 2-3 pours to get the noldup to temp (hint, pour, break the sprue & leave the mold shut for 30sec or so, then open & repeat until it's hot). On my Magma, it takes 5-6 pours to get good bullets out, the mold gets no preheating but as I outlined earlier.

[bangerjim]

I just started casting a couple weeks ago. Using a 2 cavity 9mm mold from Lee I initially had about a 60% reject rate. After working on mold and alloy temps along with just experience in the actual casting that has fallen to about 20%. I'm having an issue now where when I lube the mold I must be getting a little bit in the cavity (although I don't lube anywhere near them) and it takes about 5 pours or so to get that burned out and start dropping correctly again. I hope to get down to less than 10% with more experience.

What the heck are you using to lube a mold that bungs it up like that??????????

I use Nature's Miracle.....beeswax! on the sprue hinge pin and on the index pins. Just a tiny touch. Only every 5-6 cast sessions. If beeswax gets in the cavity........no big whooop! Does not bother the lead at all.

Cheap....easy to use....readily available. Our great-grandfathers used it, who not us?

bangerjim

[Shiloh]

No base or poor base, they go back into the pot. Rounded edges?? Back in the pot. Otherwise they get loaded and fired.
I am more fussy with rifle boolits.

Shiloh