What went wrong?

[adanymous]

I got my new 4-10 and lyman ingot mold in today, and I was super stoked to play with them. Got my rascals all tucked in for the night and went out on the back porch to play with it for a min. I usually do my reloading and stuff at work, not here cause the kids make it difficult to pay attention. So anyhow I was just playing around and molding some 247 311s from and NOE mold. I left my lube at the shop so I tried lubing with a crayon...dont do that. So after it stopped being wrinkly and I started getting good bullets I was dropping them in a half 5 gal bucket full of water. Again, just playing around, I know thats not necessary. Got 100 or so and decided it was quittin time and went digging through my bullets. I noticed pretty quickly that some of them broke off at the last lube ring, and most the others were bent to some degree. Some badly, like banana bent. Needless to say they are all back in ingot form. What the heck happened. Id think that water would cool equally all around the bullet and not cause a weird deformation like that.

BTW that lee 4-10 reminds me of my grandmas toilet. The only way to get it to stop running is to jiggle the handle. I gotta get richer so I can get an RCBS or something:razz:

[454PB]

Sounds like the boolits where too hot from the mould. I've seen the same result with traditional casting (no water drop) many times. Either reduce alloy temperature, mould temperature, or both.

[fivel_976]

Great info

[RED333]

Yep, way to hot, slow down, lower the melt temp, good boolits will come to ya.

[Wayne Smith]

Yup, same thing when I release long thin boolits too early from the mold. I've gotten banana shapes from both .30 cal and .25 cal.

[dakotashooter2]

You'll probably notice that the broken ones have a somewhat crystalized appearance at the break..... TOO HOT

[osteodoc08]

A thermometer is a valuable tool. Pick one up and keep melt temp around 700*F. Boolits should be satiny and sharp corners. Once they start getting beyond satiny in color, mold is too hot. Don't water quench. Learn basics first. Drop into a cotton cloth.