New to casting need some alloy Help.

[AR15-SBR]

Hello, I am new to casting and need some help with my WW alloy.(I already searched A BUNCH) A year, or so, ago I melted down A LOT of WW, made them into 1 pound ingots and stored them for casting.

For Christmas I received the last piece of my casting puzzle, a Lyman 429421 mould.

I gathered all my stuff, degreased the mould with brake cleaner, smoked it with a match while the Lee BP pot heated. When the WW were liquid I fluxed/stired with parafin. The melt looked good.

I started pouring bullets when the pot reached 700 deg. , the first few were predictably flawed(cold mould). Put those back into the pot.

As the melt temp climbed I would try some more, leaving the bullets in the mould to keep it hot. The temp was near 900 before I got bullets to drop that looked anything like a keeper.

And finally to the question. I want to add some Tin solder to the alloy to help fill out the driving bands, but I dont want to go through remelting all my WW ingots again to mix in the tin.:groner:

So, I bought a roll of Lenox Sterling Solder(no flux). If I knew how much, in grains, of the solder to add I could cut off a measured length and add it when I put one of my WW ingots in the Lee BP pot at the same time.

If anyone knows how much, in grains, it would sure help.

Thanks

AR15-SBR

[sundog]

From the looks of your name, you are a black gun kinda guy. That's the problem! Ship all your WW ingots to me and be done with it! --- Just funnin'...

Sounds to me like your mould is not up to temp, even if your mix is. And, sometimes the second or third casting session on a new mould yields better boolits. If you add the solder to what's in the pot already, go in increments, keep track of it, and when you get a good fill, divide the total by # of lbs in the pot. Another thing. A decent mould should not need any smoking, especially iron or mehanite. Clean those cavities real good and try again. Often times the sprue plate hole is not larger enough either. That's a whole other problem. Plus the mould mating surfaces can be lightly chamferred with a stone thus the edges under the sprue plate then become another vent line.

[AR15-SBR]

Sundog, I am a Black Gun, Brown gun, Silver Gun, Oh and a (hush) Pink daughters gun guy. If it goes bang, pop or boom I'm all over it, just depends on the day as to which one strikes my fancy. AR15-SBR is a moniker that you don't see a lot. Over on The High Road and 24 hour campfire I go by Darkside.

I might have to drain my BP pot and start from empty, since I don't know how much lead is in there now.

You mentioned the mould should not need smoking. Could the "Smoke" cause "pits" in the surface if the bullet? The pits are very small but larger than the frosted bullets pics. I have seen.

Thanks

AR15-SBR/Darkside

[fourarmed]

Try force feeding it. Press the sprue hole up against the filler spout, lift the fill lever for about a 5-count, then lower the mold, allowing a little alloy to puddle on the sprue plate. That should give you some usable boolits. With seasoning (of both you and the equipment) that should eventually not be necessary.

[AR15-SBR]

Fourarmed, Might just try that today if I get a little time. Thanks

AR15-SBR

[Woodwrkr]

I learned just last week (here on the forum) that my new #358429 mold need to get broken in by using it for a couple of casting sessions before I could expect good boolits. I used it for its 3rd casting session late last week and it gave me great looking boolits.

Another thing I learned last week was if the base of the boolit wasn't filling out properly, the sprue plate might be to tight and not allowing the air at the base of the boolit to vent. The sprue plate should be loose enough to swing somewaht freely.

These two bits of knowledge got me casting great lookin boolits.

[AR15-SBR]

Well, I just came in from the molds 3rd casting session. I tried "force feeding" it as fourarmed recomended and about the same results as before. A few more keepers than the last time, just not real Purdy.

This time one side of the bullets would be perfect and the other would have what looks like some sort of "corrosion" on it. Most of the "corrosion" is in the lube groves, but some is on the driving bands and crimp grove.

I need to look-up zink contamination and see if that is what is happening, because to be honest, I knew absolutly nothing of zink when I smelted the WW.

AR15-SBR

[dubber123]

I am willing to bet you have a contaminated MOULD, not alloy, although thats possible. Some of the oil thats put on these moulds can harden, and be a pain to remove, and especially so if it's now baked on. I am not a fan of smoking moulds, it always seemed to cause more trouble than it was worth. Over doing it on the smoking can plug vent lines and cause poor fillout too. The old oil contamination causes the pitted look you describe. I have been scrubbing my moulds with an old toothbrush, coating the mould with dish detergent, and coating the soap with an abrasive cleaner like Comet, Bon-Ami, etc. The mild abrasive doesn't hurt anything, and cuts through much of the harder to clean deposits. I would clean the mould spotless, get the mould HOT, however you have to do it, and cast on the hot side till you get used to it. Good luck.

[mtgrs737]

Sounds like your mould is not clean enough, but zinc in the melt is a possiblilty. I use an old toothbrush and brake cleaner to scrub the mould clean, pay attention to the vent lines and cavities. I find a few zinc weights in every bucket of weights these days, they most likely came off of European cars, but they are there and if you don't sort them out they will melt into the rest. I try to keep the smelting pot below 725 degrees so that the zinc ones will float and can be skimmed off with the clips. The zinc weights are harder and sometimes have rivets holding the clip on, if you look closely some even have ZN cast in on them. Run you pot hot say 800 degrees and see if the cavities fill out better, mine do. Good luck!

[sundog]

AR, sounds like you have a contaminated spot. With what? Oil, who knows. Another good cleaning. I like brake part cleaner and a bronze brush, the kind you get with air tool stuff. You can also chase the vent lines with a razor blade. Be careful not to scratch the mould.

I'm going to mention the sprue hole size again. The sprue plate is a very essential piece of gear to get a good boolit. Too many moulds come from the manufacturer with hole too small. IF you decide to try it, open the hole ONE drill bit size at a time, hand chamfer, and hone the underside flat on a fine stone making sure there are NO burrs. While you are at it, chamfer the underside edges of the sprue plate. All work is by hand except for the drilling. Sprue plate should not be down tight. A hole should be of the appropriate size that alloy can swirl in while air is escaping.

A touch of tin, solder about maybe 6" long, per lb ingot might help. No reason to use any more than necessary. I do a lot of straight WW pissola boolits and straight WW works fine when everything is working good.

Keep us posted. There's enough folks here that have done this long enough, they've seen almost everything.

[AR15-SBR]

:-DGuys, I REALLY appreciate all the help.

After everything cooled off, including my temper, I sat down and really studied the bullets. The outside edges of the driving bands filled out nicely, except for the black/gray "corrosion" spots.

The "corrosion" looks like the stuff that forms on the bottom of an alluminum can that has sat in the water of a cooler for too long. If that helps.

I think that Dubber might be onto something about the contaminated mold. I noticed that the bullets appear to have the "corrosion" in simular places. I will get some comit and clean the $#!## out of it.

The thought did cross my mind that the lead wasn't getting infast enough so I took a small piece of wire and ran it around inside the spout to clean it. It does seem to flow a little faster now.

The pot temp is running around 850-900 deg. I don't know how much hotter It will go.

Sundog[B] it is funny you mention the length of solder. I did some quick sypherin, as Jethro would say, and came up with 70 grains for .01% tin. That just happens to be [B]6 inches of my solder.:-D

I will keep everyone updated.

Thanks again

AR15-SBR

[leftiye]

I used to get inclusions in my boolits. Like little bits of stuff (not the term I used then!) on the surface of the boolits. All this is a thing of the past since I started covering my melt with crushed charcoal, and fluxing with stearic acid, and stirring with a wooden dowel. Actually, now I premelt my lead and remelt my rejects, and sprues in a separate pot, and never flux the casting pot, just stir it once in a while.

Maybe get a hot plate and heat your mold up on it. If you want to get fancy, put a steel plate over the coils, and get a small stew can and cut a door in the side, and turn it upside down on the trivet. Get a hotplate with temp control!! Then you can get the mold hot enough to frost (if you wanted to) with 600 degree lead.

Plus one for the clean the mold surface, and then season the mold surface. I have a Lee 9mm mold that took about three or four sessions to get that crap off the surface that Lee puts on at the factory. Just kept casting better and better.

[Salmon-boy]

I had VERY similar experience with my Lee 125gr TL 6 banger.
I solved it by getting the sprue plate hot enough one session by pouring lead on it after casting the boolits. How hot is hot enough? No clue, but It took a few seconds for the sprues to solidify. When I cut them off they were still mushy. 500 cast later and it drops clean boolits every time.

I was getting a small shrink cavity in the bands just below the base. No more!

[oso]

70 grains of tin in 7000 grains of lead is about .01 tin which is about 1/100 tin which is about 1% tin. (To split the numbers beyond significance: 70 grains of tin in 7000 grains of lead is .0099009 of 7070 grains of alloy which is about 99 thousandths tin or about .99%)
I'd say 60 inches of your solder would be enough for 10 of your 1 pound WW ingots if 1% tin is what you want.
No need to thank me, just send me the solder I saved you.

[mroliver77]

It sure sounds like Zinc contamination to me. What does the surface of your melt look like after fluxing well? How fast does it get yucky stuff on top? Try bring it to just the temp where it is barely liquid and then flux the snot out of it with lots of candle wax and sawdust if you can find it. I found that if contaminated the fresh fluxed stuff will do good boolits for a short time and then the corrosine looking stuff appears again. For peestol boolits I have just run it through and the shot ok for plinking stuff. Just dont forget and pick them up and throw back into your stash. :(
J