Water quenched boolits look "rough"

[ohland]

I've noticed that my boolits look like the surface is (very slightly) rough, or pitted after water drop. Yet if the boolit is air cooled, they are smooth (shiney or frosted, varies with casting temp). Is it just me, or is this another fact of life?

For my druthers, air cooling gives me useable bullets, though they are HOT! a lot longer.

[Adam Helmer]

ohland,

So, how do your water-quenched boolits shoot? I water quench all my wheelweight/tin rifle and handgun boolits and they are shiny and smooth and shoot better than I can hold.

Adam

[Retumbo]

This thread is worth nothing without pictures.

[ohland]

ohland,

So, how do your water-quenched boolits shoot? I water quench all my wheelweight/tin rifle and handgun boolits and they are shiny and smooth and shoot better than I can hold.

Adam

Reminds me of "how does your garden grow"? Last year my 285445 were under an inch at 50 yards. Yet they were dull after water quench.

136808

Here's some water drop from last year.

Must amble downstairs to get an image of yesterday's pour.

[runfiverun]

calcium in the water does it.

[mongoose33]

calcium in the water does it.

Thanks a whole lot. Now I have to run some experiments. :)

Distilled water versus hard water.

[MBTcustom]

Try running your alloy at a cooler temperature, and make your pours 45 seconds apart.

[sigep1764]

Straight wheel weight boolits are always frosted all the way around for me due to my Accurate Mold liking to be run a little hot. When I switched to 50/50, most of it went away. Then switching my alloy to 1/3ww and 2/3 pb, it went away entirely. I thought it was due to the differing amount of antimony in the alloys. They all shot equally well, though the softer alloy did help the leading I had in my one trouble 9mm. All of them were water dropped, mostly to be handled easily.

[bangerjim]

I drop all my castings in water from my swimming pool (just to cool them only). Talk about a chemistry set!

I do not notice any unusual pitting or roughness from water that is high in Ca, Cl, NaCl, and God knows what else is in that swimming pool water with all the clarifiers, Cl UV protectants, and other stuff I put in it!


banger-j

[ohland]

The old retrobate has loaded most of the output. But there should be some further output soon.

[dg31872]

Tim: Why 45 seconds apart? Is this only to let the mould itself cool down, which cools the boolits? Have not water dropped before, but want to learn.

[runfiverun]

not Tim.
but it ensures the boolits have shrunk and pulled in all the alloy they can. t
hey will drop from the mold super easy and you will have super sharp sprue cuts.
sometimes waiting this long means you might need to cut the sprue then close the plate and cut them again to get the little nib off.

casting at a slower pace has some advantages over speed casting in terms of quality and consistency.
one way to get the pace down is to work with 2 molds at the same time.
get the first right near the top of it's happy temp zone then add in a second mold, and rotate the two at a consistent easy pace.
you'll quite often see some shiny but still well filled out boolits.
you still have to judge the sprue cuts and monitor mold temps but you might just surprise yourself.

[Geezer in NH]

If they shoot great what problem?

[BAGTIC]

If you let your shiny air cooled bullets set around long enough they will lose their polish too.