wrinkled bullets and poor mould fill out

[762cavalier]

OK so I just started tonite bullet casting. the first boolits that I poured were ALL wrinkled with poor mould fill out. I am using Ingots that I got from the local shooting range that I am assuming are just melted wheel weights. they are aaabout 2 lbs a piece and stamped with a W. I'm thinking I need to add some tin to help with the mold fill out. only problem is I'm having a hard time finding tin here in the politically correct PRK. Having a hard time finding wheel weights too here in the capital of liberalism run amok [smilie=b: . any suggestions are appreciated.

Oh by the way I'm using a lee 2cavity mold TL358-158-swc and followed all advice here and instructions from Lee. Please I don't want to hear any Lee bashing as I've heard it before and it is unproductive :-| . Lee is the reason I'm even able to afford to try bullet casting :-D .

Even pouring some substandard kind of wrinkly bullets it was a unique thrill and I think I'm Hooked :grin: :grin: :grin: :grin:

[Scrounger]

Sounds like not enough heat. Get your melt a little hotter, if possible. Also, you need to heat your mold hotter. Lay the mould on top of the melted lead in the pot for 2 or 3 minutes, then try to cast. You have to walk that narrow line between too hot and too cold...

[26Charlie]

762Cavalier - wrinkled bullets and poor fillout can be the metal is too cool, oil in the mould, mould too cool. If none of these causes is the culprit, sometimes smoking the mould helps. Simply get it hot by casting, then use a candle (I keep a few birthday-cake candles for this use) and let it deposit smoke inside the halves of the cavity. I seems to allow the bullet to cool and solidify a little slower than the bare metal mould does.
I have had moulds that just won't fill out a part of the bullet. I lay a flat (bottom or end) of the mould against the molten metal until it is as hot as the metal, and in the process any extraneous oil, solvent, or whatever has smoked off the mould. Then I cast a bullet and hold the mould handles shut until the sprue solidifies. This takes awhile because the mould is so hot, but eventually it will solidify and give you a truly frosted bullet. If I then smoke the mould, it will work OK 9 times out of 10 from then on.
If you are casting from a bottom-pour pot, sometimes it works better to have the stream of metal strike the edge of the sprue-hole and swirl into the mould rather than drop straight in. If you are using a two-cavity mould, sometimes the mould works better filling the rear cavity before the front one.

[Buckshot]

..........I'm basicly going to say the same thing as Scrounger and 26 Charlie. Place the mould blocks on top of the molten lead a minute or so. Pour the 2 boolits and set the mould down as it will take a bit for the sprues to set up. Once they do, dump the boolits. They should have a crystallized appearing surface all over like electroplated galvanized steel.

If they do not then your alloy isn't hot enough. If they are, commence casting, as your alloy is hot enough to begin. We'll see in a minute if it's hot enough to continue. The blocks will shortly cool to the point that your casting tempo allows them to. If your first bunch of boolits are dropping sharp and well filled, but begin to develop rounded bands or other features, do one of 2 things. Increase your casting speed or crank up the pot temp a tad or two.

You're right that casting can be a lot of fun. Nothing can wreak it faster then working for an hour and never getting a good slug. If they don't appear quickly then think about it for a moment rather then torturing yourself, and fix the problem.

Deputy Al and I were talking the other day and he mentioned a mould he had where the good boolits appeared instantaneously, and dropped from the blocks like rain. We both agreed that few things were more sublime, and it was really hard to stop when things were going so well :D

..............Buckshot

[BruceB]

762, pard;

Yep, it sure is fun when things are going right.

I'd strongly suggest that you do NOT use candles or matches of any kind to smoke the cavities, since both can give undesireable waxy build-ups which will make casting of good bullets difficult.

Rather, get one of those long-nosed disposable butane-fired barbecue lighters (MUCH easier on the fingers than the pocket types) and use it for the purpose. The carbon it deposits will be very "dry" and thin, and works much better than candles etc. Don't smoke excessively, either....just a thin uniform coat will do OK. Another alternative might be a graphite spray, but that can affect the diameter of the bullets. Try the butane lighter first; it should do the trick.

Lee 2-cavity aluminum moulds will heat very quickly when in contact with your molten alloy, and only thirty seconds or so of heating time will be ample. BEFORE heating and BEFORE smoking, try cleaning the mould with brake cleaner spray and a soft brush, such as a toothbrush, somewhere outdoors (the fumes are nasty), and wear some goggles or at least avoid looking at the spraying process. Scrub the daylights out of the mould and the underside of the sprue plate while they are wet, and do the spray routine two or three times, brushing furiously each time. Then smoke it and have at it! (Make sure the brake cleaner has evaporated completely, first!)

I use quite a few Lee 2-cavs, and run the pot just as hot as possible (870 degrees, for my RCBS furnace). CRANK UP YOUR HEAT. My Lee-cast bullets are fine, and some of the moulds don't need smoking, either. Mostly however, I do use the BBQ lighter as described. It usually helps, and even if not, the extremely thin layer of "smoke" certainly does no apparent harm.

Don't get discouraged, and let us know how it all works out. The Lee moulds WILL give you decent bullets once we get your difficulty ironed out, I guarantee it. About thirty of them are here on my bench, saying "Yep, yep, yep", and nodding in agreement.

Lead-free solder from almost any hardware store is an easy way to obtain tin, even in the PRK, since it is in fact almost pure tin. I tried adding tin to my wheelweight metal some years back, and found it did nothing for me or my boolits. Ergo, one expensive component that I don't have to buy. It may be that my higher-temperature routine makes the addition of tin un-necessary. For the tumble-lube bullet type such as you are making, range salvage should work alright, but it is probably NOT wheelweight metal. It most likely contains a lot of .22 rimfire bullets (almost pure lead) and cores from jacketed bullets, again, almost-pure lead, plus some other unknown and variable components. Just don't try to run them at .357 Magnum maximum-load speeds, and you should be fine with this stuff. At some point, start haunting your local tire stores and beg, buy or steal their used wheelweights. Then, you will have an alloy that can almost literally "do it all" in our world of cast boolits.

Oh, and welcome aboard. This is an enjoyable place to hang out.

[rebliss]

Deputy Al and I were talking the other day and he mentioned a mould he had where the good boolits appeared instantaneously, and dropped from the blocks like rain. We both agreed that few things were more sublime, and it was really hard to stop when things were going so well :D

I got to that point last night--just running through perfect boolit after perfect boolit (from my Lee 2-cavity .452-120 SWC). Didn't want to quit!

[9.3X62AL]

762--

Not much to add to the text here--the earlier posters covered it well. I also use the butane lighter to "smoke" the mold cavities on aluminum blocks. I believe the smoked surface slows heat transfer from the poured casting to the block metal, allowing the poured metal just a few moments longer before "freezing"--resulting in nice, shiny boolits minus wrinkles.

I found another mold to perform admirably yesterday--the Lyman 2-holer that Curmudgeon located for me, #311419. The castings weigh 87 grains, and fall out at .3135" or .314", there's a little cavity variance. It's a flatnose gas check that looks like a #311316 that lost a drive band and lube groove. I've got a whole mess of guns that might put these to good use.

[MT Gianni]

Smoke black is cold carbon from incomplete combustion of a carbon fuel resulting from a hot flame on a cold surface. You can smoke a mold when it is up to temp but it's a lot faster to do it cold. Heating a smoked mold in the melt will not ruin the carbon. Gianni.

[lar45]

Sounds like you've got it all, but here is my 2 cents to add to the concensus(sp)
I like to scrub my molds when cold with hot water and dish soap with a tooth brush, then rinse in hot water. They should be dry by the time I get out to the garage. I then take a no.2 pencil and color the top of the blocks to help prevent lead smear. I also color the bottom of the sprue plate. I use the long BBQ lighter to put a thin film of carbon on the cavities. I think of it as a heat barrier so the aluminum doesn't conduct the heat out as fast and give the molten WW time to fill in the cavity. I haven't had a Lee mold yet that would cast well without smokeing.
turn the temp up. I sometimes preheat my molds with a propane torch, but resting it ontop of the lead pot does a great job.
You might have to run through 5-10 pours before they start filling out. When you drop them on the bench to look, see if it is always one spot that isn't filling out. That spot might need abit more smoking??

I find my self going, just one more pour. Oh man those were nice, just one more pour. Okay, just one more ingot. Things are going great now, I'll just make a small pile of ingots and then quit after that. The wife says it's after 11:00 are you comeing in anytime soon?...

[762cavalier]

Thanks for all the responses. After reading them I think my problem was that my lead wasn't hot enough. I was running the temp at about 600. I had already scrubbed the mold with boiling water and dishsoap followed by a hot water rinse then I smoked it. I had also tried heating the mold in the lead. I will try again when I get some more free time(a valuable commodity here). I didn't get discouraged about not being immediately successful. Just the fact that I was able to do something that most shooters don't even think of was cool.I did get a couple of usable bullets in the process, and am definitely looking forward to my next attempt.

[boogerred]

762-i too am somewhat of a beginner and was getting a lot of wrinkled bullets at first. i was doing everything according to lee,s instructions with poor results. i stumbled on my remedy by accident. i noticed that my wrinkled bullets were sticky and smelled like lube. i was lubing my hot molds with a whole stick of lube and getting it everywhere. i now set a thimble with a ball of lube on the edge of the pot and when it softens i apply it with a Q-Tip. i always run my lee bottom pour hot but this accidental discovery fixed my problem. when your bullets cool down feel em and smell em. it may or may not be your problem but its one more thing check and eliminate.

[454PB]

I think most of the Lee mould bashers are the ham-fisted type. They won't take the abuse of an iron mould.

I've got some that are 30 years old, have cast 10's of thousands of bullets, and still make excellent bullets.

[762cavalier]

Hmmm I did get bullet lube on A LOT of places and maybe inthe cavities. I was going to clean them again and resmoke them and try with a hotter melt.

[Buckshot]

I find my self going, just one more pour. Oh man those were nice, just one more pour. Okay, just one more ingot. Things are going great now, I'll just make a small pile of ingots and then quit after that. The wife says it's after 11:00 are you comeing in anytime soon?...

...........Heh, heh, 'zactly! When I got the Lee 6 cavity 358-158RF, cleaned it and did hte prep. Pre-heated it and went to town. The boolits just rained out. I have a tilted chute deal with several layers of old towel they fall on and mostly roll down the chute into a shallow 8"x10" box.

I had a PILE in the box that reached halfway up the chute and no place for'em to go. Those in the pile were still too hot to put into the plastic Glad containers I use so I put a cardboard box behind the catch box and tilted it up to dump out as many as possible. When I finally got done saying, "Just a couple more, just a couple more" I had a bit more then you could put in a 3 lb coffee can! Must be 60 lbs of those 158RF's.

................Buckshot

[jtaylor1960]

For a while when I first started casting I had a problem with wrinkled bullets.I was told by a friend and experienced caster that I needed more heat.After a little experimenting I came up with a system that works for me.I use a propane heat source.After setting the flame and letting the pot melt I wait about 15-20 min. before casting any bullets.If I don't the bullets wrinkle from start to finish.If I wait after about 5 or 10 bullets the mold warms up and starts to cast good bullets.Also I put my mold next to the pot, but not in the flame while waiting for the pot to melt so the mold is hot when I start casting.Using this system I get good bullets from any of my molds.Good luck, Jeff Taylor.

[44man]

On some post there were plans for a mold furnace made from an electrical box, some hinges, a thermometer and a cheap hotplate from Wally World. I made one and put my mold in it while melting the lead. 500 degrees is perfect. My first boolit will be perfect every time. I would not be without it now, much better then putting the mould on the pot or dipping it in the lead. I also lay a second mould on top to preheat, then pass my torch over it to get boolits started. Then pull the one out of the furnace and go to town with both moulds.

[Willbird]

I won't bash Lee any more than to say the single and double cavity molds are worth the $13.00 or so you pay for them. The 6 cavity are quite nice I think.

I have found that somehow there can be someting in a mold that Brake clean didnt get out, but washing with toothbrush and dish soap did...darned if I know what that substance might be. Maybe the dish soap makes the mold feel happy or something :-)

Bill

[Old Jim]

I like my Lee, RCBS, Lyman and LBT molds but my shining star is a brass mold from Mountain Molds. I let my pot get hot then put the mold on top for a few minutes and rarely have a bad bullet from the first pour.

[ddixie884]

These guys, obviously, know what they are talking about. In my experience, the hotter, the better, if fill out is the problem. Once bullets are filled, and sharp, then you can back off on the heat and concentrate on shiny.

[C1PNR]

I have found that somehow there can be someting in a mold that Brake clean didnt get out, but washing with toothbrush and dish soap did...darned if I know what that substance might be. Maybe the dish soap makes the mold feel happy or something :-)

Bill
Hmmmm, the mould "feels happy," eh. Have you been watching too much Emeril Lagasse?;-) [smilie=l: