Newbie looking for critique.

[jdl1020]

Hi all,

Been reloading for years now, but jut started casting my own bullets, and since I have no one around me to learn off of, was hoping some of you could let me know if I'm on the right track here. Read over tons of threads here and the LASC guide before getting started, and it seems like things are going ok, but like I said - I don't have a trained eye. Hopefully this post isn't too long.

My lead is radiological lead cylinders used to ship isotopes (I work in a biomedical lab, we get these all the time). Each cylinder (outer cylinder, inner cylinder, and a lead cap for each) weighs about 16 pounds. Did the quick and dirty "pencil test" and they seem to be around a Brinnell hardness of 10 according to that method. When I melt the cylinders down, flux and pour ingots, the lead seems to be pretty clean, there's not a ton of dross to scrape off (but there is some). No problems there.

Just started casting the actual bullets this past weekend. Using Lee's 2 cavity 45 ACP 452-230-TC mold and the Lee production pot with ladle to pour. Heat the lead up to about 750 degrees (it seems to pour well there). Bullets drop out of the mold nicely and are immediately water quenched. Below are some images. I panicked at first when I saw the bottom was a little rounded - but when I looked at the mold, it actually has a small bevel - so I thing they're ok in that respect? One thing I'd like advice on is the base where the sprue is cut off - any way to clean that up a bit? Also - I read about leaving a generous sprue to make sure the bases are nice and flat - they seem to be (minus the bevel from the mold), but is the sprue I'm leaving enough (pic attached).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/jdl1020/sprue_zpscaa1a416.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/jdl1020/profile_zps7ecb0734.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/jdl1020/bottom_zpsb97e5334.jpg

Bullets dropped tend to be between 229 to 232 grains (absolute max and min, most are actually right around 231 gr). In general, do they look OK to the trained eye? I've got nothing to compare to (I've reloaded before with all FMJ projectiles).

Thanks for any info/advice/critiques.

joe

[Char-Gar]

The size of your spru is fine. The bullet is fine, size lube and shoot them. The little divot at the bottom is of no great concern for your use. It can be avoided by letting the spru cool a little more. Take a damp cloth in a shallow pan of water, invert the mold and lay the spru on the damp cloth. It just takes a second and then the spru will cut clean.

[nagantguy]

+1 on everything Char-Gar said it is all sound advice and they look good to me as well.

[wv109323]

I would let the sprue cool a little more before cutting. I would not use any water near my molten lead. The sprue plate has to be hot to cast and get a good base on the bollit. 750 degrees may be a little hot. I usually pour at 720-730 degrees.

[cbrick]

Welcome to CastBoolits jdl1020, I wish my very first bullets looked that good and I'm glad I didn't have a camera way back then to prove it. :mrgreen:

The sprue tear is simply a timing/cooling thing as mentioned. The damp cloth to freeze the sprue is fine, it can help speed up casting. I don't see a need to water drop for the 45 ACP but if it's working for you . . .

Best advice so far has been . . . Go shoot them & make more, repeat.

Rick

[BNE]

I'm only a year and ahalf ahead of you.... I think your boolits look great. Lube them, size them, load them and shoot them.

[smoked turkey]

Joe welcome to the site. You are off and running. As others have said your boolits look really nice and now all you need to do is size and lube them and you have just become a little less dependent on commercial vendors for your boolit supply. That is nice in itself but there is also a great feeling when you can say "I made that". You will save money on your boolits but likely you will not notice that since you will be shooting more and buying more stuff so you can save even more money. Joe it is crazy, but down the casting/reloading/shooting road a while from now you take inventory and say how did I get all this stuff. But if you are like most of us you will have a lot of fun doing it. Great hobby we have here. As far as the site here it is the best possible place for folks like us who are affected with this madness.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Your bullets look good. Pouring a little puddle on top of the sprue plate allows for any shrinkage to take place by providing a bit more of melt to be drawn into the bullet base...supposedly discourages the formation of voids under the bullet base---some of which can be off center and detrimental to accuracy. A divot on the base where the sprue is cut doesn't do much, but if you can eliminate it, so much the better. The bevel on the base is still being argued about with many for it and many against. It has pros and cons. Don't get hooked on exact weight of the bullets...a spread of 3 grains will not be critical in terms of accuracy in the 45. Don't worry about running too hot and getting some frosty casts as they don't effect grouping. If you don't like the appearance of frostiness....a couple of turns with some #0000 steel wool will make them shine. Keep up the good work. LLS

[jonp]

A year or so ahead of you and mine seldom look that good. Nice job

[jdl1020]

Thanks for the welcome and comments. Happy to hear I'm on the right track. I'll probably cast some more tomorrow after work and plan on trying the method of cooling the sprue to clean up the cut on the base.

Need to get some lube, not sure yet what kind I want to try. Plan to push these with Red Dot powder, it works well for me with my FMJ loads, so once I get them lubed it'll be time to ladder some loads.

Thanks again... nice to have a good community around to help out us new guys.

[williamwaco]

That bullet looks great.

If your bullets test BNH 9 to 12 that is plenty hard. You do not need to water drop them.

That sprue puddle is virtually perfect. Slightly larger would be fine too. Many new casters try to keep it small. That is a mistake.

Take a look at the front cavity of your photo. Note that the sprue puddle has a small dimple right above the pour hole. That occurs when metal flows from the molten sprue puddle into the mold as the bullet shrinks.

Doing great!

[nvbirdman]

Using isotope lead, your boolits should be almost pure lead so water dropping would have no effect on hardness.

[Slow Elk 45/70]

Welcome to the insanity!!![smilie=s: If I were using your Iso/lead , I would add a bit of tin , but you gotta shoot em and then there a lot of things can be adjusted.....do they lead the weapon , how fast ???, what powder ?? , what do you shoot for , holes in paper, dead cans, etc.etc... Take your time and Have Fun along the way.....:cbpour:

[44man]

Welcome to CastBoolits jdl1020, I wish my very first bullets looked that good and I'm glad I didn't have a camera way back then to prove it. :mrgreen:

The sprue tear is simply a timing/cooling thing as mentioned. The damp cloth to freeze the sprue is fine, it can help speed up casting. I don't see a need to water drop for the 45 ACP but if it's working for you . . .

Best advice so far has been . . . Go shoot them & make more, repeat.

Rick
I agree, nice job and the break out is no big deal, does no harm.
However I do have a concern about such soft lead for your ACP. Tin would help some.
Water dropping does nothing with soft lead except make it easier instead or piling them on rags. I love to water drop everything because of the small space I cast in, hate to keep moving boolits out of the way. I keep my bucket on a short stool to my left, turn and drop. Water drops in a pot of lead is not dangerous, it steams off. Water has to get below the surface. My bucket is low from the bench. Never drop a wet boolit back in the pot.

[jdl1020]

OK - a bit confused on the isotope lead then. The lead pigs we get our F18 in are most similar to the "White Cylinder" listing here:

http://www.fellingfamily.net/isolead/index.html

We have both painted and unpainted, I've been taking the unpainted, just to avoid the messy/smelly aspect of it. That website has most of the pigs listed at around a Brinnell hardness of 10.5. When I did the pencil test described on these forums and elsewhere, on the actual cylinder itself (BEFORE melting into ingots) a 4B pencil slid/smeared across the lead. A 2B pencil dug into and cut a curl from the cylinder. So - if I read the thread correctly, that means it's softer than 2B and harder than 4B, so somewhere around 10 Brinnell (which does seem to jibe with the isotope lead webpage above)? I got the same results with the pencils on the cast ingots after melting the cylinders (harder than 4B but softer than 2B).

After casting the bullet and the water drop, and testing on the flat base of the bullet, a 2B will no longer cut, it smears across the base. The next pencil up in my kit, HB does scratch and produced a small curl of lead. All pencils were sharpened and then sanded to a flat edge and pushed down and forward across the lead for testing.

Did I err somewhere in the testing part? I'm new enough to this that it wouldn't surprise me if I misinterpreted something. I realize the correlation between Brinnell and pencil is somewhat loose - but being that I'm casting for the relatively slow 45 ACP, a relative hardness of 10 or so would work from what I've read.

Oh, as for the water drop, the bucket is about 2 feet below the bench, and I have a piece of foam that floats in the bucket. Bullets drop onto the foam surface then roll into the water.

[cbrick]

jdl, I looked at the same web page attempting to determine the alloy used in these containers. Best I came up with is that they aren't "pure" lead which is logical because quenching wouldn't harden them if they were. Bottom line is that if the bullets hardened at all the alloy does have antimony in it.

Another thing is that if the lead is indeed around 10 BHN and it's used in the 45 ACP quenching really isn't necessary, all you need to do is lube them & shoot them. If they are properly sized for your gun and around 10 BHN there should be no leading and they'll shoot just fine. Since they are already quenched don't worry about it, should work just fine.

Don't get too wrapped around the axle over this especially as a newbie. You can get as technical as suits you but many times it's simply not necessary for good results. The 45 ACP is one of the very best places for a new guy to get started because it's so forgiving and easy to cast/load for.

Shoot'em up and enjoy and let us know how things go for you.

Rick

[44man]

Yep, confusion over the alloy. I have X ray shield lead that is pure. I assumed that you also had pure.

[45-70 Chevroner]

I agree, nice job and the break out is no big deal, does no harm.
However I do have a concern about such soft lead for your ACP. Tin would help some.
Water dropping does nothing with soft lead except make it easier instead or piling them on rags. I love to water drop everything because of the small space I cast in, hate to keep moving boolits out of the way. I keep my bucket on a short stool to my left, turn and drop. Water drops in a pot of lead is not dangerous, it steams off. Water has to get below the surface. My bucket is low from the bench. Never drop a wet boolit back in the pot.
+1 on the water drops on the surface, I have never had a problem with a few drops on the surface. I have even tested it buy splashing some drops on the surface with my fingers. I used to keep a small can with water in it on the table to dip the sprew in to cool it a bit, just a second in the water and then watch the evaporate then refill the mold.

[Char-Gar]

The gents are right about some water on the top of the melt, It will just sizzle and be gone. The problem is when you drop something heavy and wet into the melt that sinks below the surface, where the water vaporizes and the gas pops to the surface in a mini-lead volcano.

Years ago our own Bruce B popularized placing a terry cloth rag in a shallow metal pan with some water beside the melting pot. The spru is touched to the damp rag. I have done this for years and it speeds up production noticeably and presents no risk. Others use a sponge for the same purpose. No more waiting for the spru to cool with the possibility you didn't wait long enough and are cutting the spru wet. Works for me.

This plus placing about an inch of clay kitty litter on top of the melt to prevent oxidation and the need to reflux often, really speeds up the casting process. Fresh ingots are placed on the rim of the pot to warm and placed on top of the kitty litter when needed. They sink through the litter and there is no need to reflux.

[cbrick]

The gents are right about some water on the top of the melt, It will just sizzle and be gone. The problem is when you drop something heavy and wet into the melt that sinks below the surface, where the water vaporizes and the gas pops to the surface in a mini-lead volcano.

Very true. Water on the surface isn't a problem, it sizzles and evaporates rapidly, very rapidly. It's when water is introduced below the surface of the melt that things can get exciting in the blink of an eye. When liquid water is flashed to steam it expands instantly to something like 1800 times it's volume with an amazing amount of force. It takes very little water to empty your pot all over the ceiling, walls, bench, you.

Rick

[1911KY]

Good lookin cast! I am a few months ahead of you and fondly recall the newness, questions and worries...

I wouldn't quench them, I just drop mine on a folded towel on the bench. I spread them out as I go so they cool a little faster.

Do you have a bottom pour or are you ladle pouring? I often had sprues like that when I was ladle pouring but now that I use my bottom pour I can control the sprue puddle better. The more you cast the better of a feel you will get for exactly how much sprue you need. Too much is rarely a problem but too little always is.

If you have a bottom pour then be looking into a 6 cavity mould, once you are comfortable with everything. They are a game changer in my opinion. You can really go thru some lead in a short amount of time.

Welcome aboard and I wouldn't be too picky about taking lead with paint on it....it keeps getting harder to come by everyday. Worst case scenario you could sell it to a fellow caster.

[jdl1020]

This plus placing about an inch of clay kitty litter on top of the melt to prevent oxidation and the need to reflux often, really speeds up the casting process. Fresh ingots are placed on the rim of the pot to warm and placed on top of the kitty litter when needed. They sink through the litter and there is no need to reflux.

I'm ladle casting - can I still do a layer of kitty litter and just push the litter around a bit in order to fill the ladle? I have noticed my tendency to try to always skim the surface whenever it's not mirror finish (even a little cloudy), which I'm assuming is the oxidation. The dross I get tends to be almost a very fine powder (sooty, almost), but I also get some "goop" that forms on the top every couple of minutes. It's not terrible, but I'm kinda OCD about stuff like that, and tend to constantly be skimming it away because it bugs me.

[cbrick]

The hotter your pot the faster oxidation forms. Try casting around 700-720. Yes you can leave kitty litter (fresh not used :mrgreen:) or saw dust on top of the pot while ladle casting, kind of a PITA though. I mostly ladle pour myself and never leave it on top. Don't skim off the oxidation (goop), use some sawdust to reduce it back in once finished casting. While ladle casting I give the pot a bit of a stir with each pour and that seems to help.

Rick

[CGT80]

Thanks for the welcome and comments. Happy to hear I'm on the right track. I'll probably cast some more tomorrow after work and plan on trying the method of cooling the sprue to clean up the cut on the base.

Need to get some lube, not sure yet what kind I want to try. Plan to push these with Red Dot powder, it works well for me with my FMJ loads, so once I get them lubed it'll be time to ladder some loads.

Thanks again... nice to have a good community around to help out us new guys.

The edges of the lube ring don't look very well defined, but that may just be the mold. If it was me, I would try a little tin to see if it helps at all with the way the bullets turn out. With the shape of the base, that mold may just be designed without the sharp edges I am used to seeing. The boolit looks great for a new caster. The surface looks nice. I try to get away without adding tin, but I will do it if the boolits don't look good. Rotometals has nice tin wire chunks that weigh about 1.6 ounces each. It runs about $20 per pound. I start with 1% if I think I need it. There is a link for a nice spread sheet around this forum that you can put your weights into for each metal used in your mix and it will tell you what percentages and what hardness the mix will be.

You asked about lube. White Label Cred from a vendor on this forum. It isn't expensive and it works well. It is hot where I live, so higher temp lubes are a must for me. Cred needs some heat to flow in the lube sizer. I assume you are using a lube sizer like an RCBS Lubramatic or a lyman. You can use lee liquid alox or a mix of it and other ingredients, but I have never tried it.

Powder coating is very fun to do and you don't need lube. Size with the lee sizing kits for $25, using a single stage press.

Red dot works fine with cast boolits and I would try that first since you already use it.

[tward]

Nice looking Boolits! +1 on white label lubes aka LeStuff Lars is great to work with and has great products! Welcome to the madness! Tim

[jdl1020]

It appears that the top of the lube ring is slightly beveled/rounded from the mold... linked in a stock photo of the bullet I found on the web. I'll check my actual mold when I get home from work tonight to see if I can tell on it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/jdl1020/452-230-tc_zps724ce19b.jpg

The top edge of the ring looks (to me) like it's gentle... but the bottom edge of the ring looks sharp. Either way, I can probably try a little tin to the mix and see what happens. Are sharp edges usually an alloy mix issue, or casting temp issue as well?

Already ordered some samples from White Valley Lubes to see which I like best, and the Lee sizers/luber is sitting on my bench waiting for them. Not using a lubrisizer (at least not yet), will be pan lubing to start.

[CGT80]

Edges don't seem to fill out if the alloy is low on tin. I have an MP 45 270 SAA that has sharp edges and it requires tin in the mix and a hot mold (it is brass and a hollow point mold). The best way to learn is to try to answer your questions with experimenting. Run a higher lead temp and see what happens. Try a hotter mold. When you get frosty boolits, you know the mold is nice and hot. See if these make a difference, preferably one at a time. More heat doesn't cost you anything. More tin will have a cost. By changing your parameters, it will help you to learn a bit more about casting. Sometimes, mistakes or less than perfect conditions will teach you a lot, and it may help you out when you change molds, alloys, etc.

It could very well just be the shape of that mold. As good as your boolits look, that would be my guess. A close look at the profile of that mold is a great idea. No need to try fixing what isn't broken.

[williamwaco]

Edges don't seem to fill out if the alloy is low on tin. I have an MP 45 270 SAA that has sharp edges and it requires tin in the mix and a hot mold (it is brass and a hollow point mold). The best way to learn is to try to answer your questions with experimenting. Run a higher lead temp and see what happens. Try a hotter mold. When you get frosty boolits, you know the mold is nice and hot. See if these make a difference, preferably one at a time. More heat doesn't cost you anything. More tin will have a cost. By changing your parameters, it will help you to learn a bit more about casting. Sometimes, mistakes or less than perfect conditions will teach you a lot, and it may help you out when you change molds, alloys, etc.

It could very well just be the shape of that mold. As good as your boolits look, that would be my guess. A close look at the profile of that mold is a great idea. No need to try fixing what isn't broken.

One possible cause.

See:
http://reloadingtips.com/pages/exp_110818a_tin_in_alloy.htm


Another is the mold is too hot and the bullets are "over frosted".

See:
http://reloadingtips.com/how_to/frosted-bullets.htm

[TXGunNut]

Excellent start, good job! Welcome to the affliction.

[Blammer]

yep, bevel based no worries there, bullet look good, I'd use a smaller sprue puddle but yours is fine.

I'd let the sprue cool more before cutting, that will prevent that divit and lead smearing on the underside of the sprue plate.

smaller sprue's cool quicker, you're acutally 'tearing' the spure when you have a "divot" like that.

get your mould hotter and you can have your melt a bit cooler.

I'd not bother with the kitty litter or anything else on top when ladle pouring. Flux once in a while and let it roll.

[jdl1020]

Cast a few more yesterday... and got the lube grooves a little better. I was using the Frankfort Arsenal mold release (which seems a lot like molybdemum disulfide dry lube) and I think I was a little heavy when I sprayed the mold. Upon closer examination I could see some build up right along the lube groove. So, cleaned the mold out, reapplied much more lightly and the grooves in the new bullets are much sharper and defined. Lesson learned, I guess.

Have casted 1000 of the 230 gr TC so far. Lubed a couple last night with the Lee liquid alox just so I could try the sizer. Could feel a little resistance as the went through the sizer and when they came out the other size, all were .452 as expected. Didn't really care for the liquid alox, so waiting for my White Label lube to come so I can get 'em sized and load some ladders.

This could get addictive... pouring the regular bullets is fun enough, now I have a Lyman 180 gr devastator mold on the way.

Thanks again to everyone for all the advice. It's made the process easier knowing now that there's an amazing knowledge base to fall back on.

[cbrick]

The very best casting mold is a perfectly CLEAN mold, spraying something into the cavities is both un-needed and undesirable. If the mold doesn't cast well when clean it's because there is a problem, covering up the doesn't remove the problem it only covers it up. Much better to learn what the problem might be and correct it.

Rick

[jdl1020]

So I can actually get away without using a mold release or smoking the mold? I think everything I've read so far did something.

Using nothing in the mold certainly seems like it would produce a more consistent end product, in the sense of producing the same size drop and sizing them all in the sizer exzctly the same. The spray seems thin, but I'd imagine you'd never really know if you sprayed 0.001 inch vs 0.005 with your eyes - and if you sprayed too thick sizing afterwards may not do anything.

[cbrick]

Smoking a mold is an old wives tale. If it helps at all it's nothing more than covering up problem. I have over 70 molds and not a single one of them gets or needs smoking. Some printed manuals still recommend smoking, LEE does and I think Lyman still does. With Lyman there are many things that just keep getting re-printed in book after book.

The best you'll get from spraying or smoking a mold is a dirty mold and plugged vent lines. If your going to spend all that time making sure it's clean why would the first thing you do is gunk it up?

Ric

[runfiverun]

I'm not a fan of using mold release in a mold cavity either, unless I'm trying to make the mold smaller for some reason.
or if it has some nicks, or cherry marks in the mold and I want to fill those before lapping everything smooth.

most isotope cores come as 1% tin and 3% antimony, and the smaller vials are generally 2.5% tin and 2.5% antimony.
you can of course get variations of the two but those are the most common alloy's used.

[CGT80]

I run my molds clean as well. I think I smoked my first NOE mold, since I read to do that in the directions and some swear by it. The second NOE mold, I used it clean. I do use sprue plate lube that came with the molds, but the cavities are clean. It seems to take a few sessions to get a new mold to work well. Sometimes I have to clean the molds again or use a wood stick if any lead tries to build up. I am no pro at this, so I am learning more as I go as well. Clean molds are good molds.

[jdl1020]

Had some time to cast a couple small batches today... cleaned out the 452-230-TC mold and got all of the mold release out of it. Let it dry and started casting, and I'm now firmly in the camp of "you don't need mold release/smoking". Only had a couple of bullets that stuck in the mold, and those were easily released either by a gentle tap on the mold handle or a flick over the base with my gloved finger. When I miked them, they were definitely coming out a tiny bit larger than the ones in the coated mold previously - which I think is fine, as I'll be sizing down to .452 anyway.

Anyway - to cbrick, runfiverun and ctg80 - thanks for the clean mold advice. I'm pitching my mold release into the trash!

Also had some time to play with my new mold - the Lyman 180 "Devastator" hollow point mold arrived last night. That one seems a little tricky. Cleaned off the oil it was shipped in, warmed and went to casting. Pretty much all of the bullets had imperfections along the lip of the hollow point. The rest of the bullet body was perfect. So, I just expect it'll take some time to find the sweet spot for the mold temp and alloy temp to get nice clean edges on the hollow point. I've read on the LASC guide that they like to be run hotter than regular molds - so maybe I still wasn't quite hot enough (was at about 780 degrees), maybe even end up adding a little more tin. I did get one or two that were OK - and the odd thing there was when I weighed them, they came out at 203 grains (not 180). Seems like others online have had the same problem... so off to do some more homework and see what the solution will be.

[runfiverun]

you need to keep the pin hot.
once you see good boolits you'll look inside the cavity and see an anomaly in there.
it's from the pin being cool.

now not everybody does this or needs to but the mold release does have it's uses.
some use it on top of the mold to prevent smearing.
I have also seen hollow-point pins coated with it.
and it's generally graphite in an alcohol base so it does make a decent dry lube for other things.

[cbrick]

It's not mold temp that needs to be hotter it's the spud. You'll never get decent HP's with a too cool spud. Do not inspect the bullets while your casting. Keep the mold filled with the spud in the blocks as much as possible. The spud does not have the mass of the blocks and it cools quickly. A hot spud is a happy spud.

780 degrees is well over a good casting temp, I normally cast at 700 and 22's & HP's at 720-725.

Rick