Cast My First Bullets Last Night/This Morning....Long Post

[jleneave]

Well, I have been on this site for about 2 months now. I started out gathering WW and slowly acquiring equipment. I have about 500lbs of WW ingots and another 600-700lbs of WW that I haven't smelted down yet. I got a new Lee Pro 4 20lbs bottom pour furnace. I bought a Lyman #429421 4 cavity mold off eBay and the handles for it are on back order from Midway.

I also bought a RCBS 45-270-SAA mold and a Lyman .454" round ball mould (for a Uberti 1860 that is also on back order through Midway, starting to see a pattern here) and I have RCBS mold handles and Lyman 2 cavity mold handles. I got bored tonight and decided that I would try and cast some bullets with the RCBS .45 cal mold to practice for when my Star lube sizer (that is also on back order) gets here.

I cleaned the mold by boiling it in soapy water then rinsing with clean boiling water as I was instructed to do by LeftoverdjI and Three44s, thanks again by the way. Then I cleaned them with brake cleaner and scrubbed them with a toothbrush as I had read here in another post. For good measure I boiled them in soapy water again and rinsed in clean boiling water just to make sure they were good and clean.

I put a few ingots in the Lee furnace and let them melt down and added a few more. While the alloy was melting and coming up to temp I sat the mold on the edge of the furnace so it could get a head start on getting up to temp. I have a RCBS thermometer and I sat it in the alloy after it was all melted down. I was using straight WW alloy.

I started casting bullets when the temp got to 700 degrees just to practice and help get the mold up to temp. I also wanted to see how the mold cast at different temps as the alloy was getting hotter. I saved my first cast bullet as a souvenir. It was real shinny but the edges were not sharp. As the temp got up to about 850 degrees the bullets started frosting but the edges were a lot sharper and the overall bullet filled out much better than when the mold was cooler and casting shinny bullets, but on one of the bullets I was consistently getting a spot that had tiny divots the size of a needle point.

I thought that maybe there was a spot on the mold that I didn’t get clean and the edge was just a little rounded. I started tapping the mold on the towel I was dropping the bullets on as soon as I got both cavities filled while the sprue was still liquid. When I started tapping the mold the bullets started filling about MUCH better!! Has anyone tried doing this before with good results? I am not tapping it hard just barely tapping it on the towel.

I let the temp get up to about 950 degrees but slowed down on the speed of filling the mold because the sprue plate was starting to barely smear the lead and the bullets were starting to get little whiskers, but kept on tapping the mold on the towel. The bullets were still frosted but they looked really good shape wise.

I like the looks of the shinny bullets but they are not filled out as well as the frosted ones. The bolt that holds the sprue plate on kept getting really loose, I thought I had the set screw fairly tight. I had to tighten it up a couple different times and I cranked down on it pretty good. I don’t want to damage it but what do I need to do to keep it tight?

I have some Bull Shop Sprue Plate Lube on the way. Anyway, I just wanted to post to let everyone who has been helping me out know how things went. Overall I think that it went pretty smooth. I don’t know anyone in my area that cast bullets that could have helped me learn how to cast and if it were not for this site my learning curve would have taken a lot longer. I know I still have a lot to learn that can only be taught by experience, but thanks to this site and the help from all of ya’ll I am well on my way. Thank you all very much!!

If there is anything that may help me out or something that I may be doing wrong please feel free to give me some constructive criticism. Thanks again!!!

Jody

[Bret4207]

Sounds like you're doing fine. That you discovered the tapping trick on your own bodes well for you! I have tried tapping and swinging the mould . Either way seems to help fill out, but remembering to try it....well I forget sometimes and waste time trying to get fill out. Thats why I try to write things down now. Frosty boolits are fine by me. I sort of prefer them. If the finish bothers you just give them a swipe with 4/0 steel wool after they're loaded.

Thos little pins holes in the finish can drive you nuts! Sometimes it's dirt on the mould. Sometimes I find it in the same spot cast after cast. If so I'll rub that spot with a stick of wood and that will help. My theory is there is a tiny hole or flaw of some sort in the metal that allows air or oil or something to become trapped or hung there. The stick seems to help.

[44man]

Getting everything too hot will cause defects like the pinholes, rounded edges, etc. I don't know if it is gassing something out of the metal or what but too hot never works for me. For WW's and hard alloys I never get over 750*, softer stuff can take 800* and large soft boolits, a little more.
You say you went to 950*! :confused:

[Bass Ackward]

Jody,

Sound like a veteran.

Your towel tapping solution is apparently another method to overcome what probably amounts to poor venting in that area.

Within limits, for a bottom pour, the better the venting of the mold, the cooler you can run your mold and your mix and still get proper fill out. Or the smaller stream you can use which sometimes prevents splashing inside the cavity.

This is why a lot of guys like the pressure fill of a dipper as the weight of the lead forces air out of the cavities better than a trickle fill that must be hot enough to gravity settle before solidifying. As a result, you can usually mold about 50 - 100 degrees cooler than with a bottom pour outfit.

[Down South]

I have about 500lbs of WW ingots and another 600-700lbs of WW that I haven't smelted down yet.
It appears that you have done well in finding WW. I thought that I had did well in the past two months scoring about 600 lb of WW. Most of it was free or traded for but I did buy 3 bucket fulls at $20 apiece.

[corvette8n]

My Lee molds seem to make better filled out bullets when they are casting slightly frosted.

[38 Super Auto]

I have some Bull Shop Sprue Plate Lube on the way. Anyway, I just wanted to post to let everyone who has been helping me out know how things went. Jody

I just started using the BullShop sprue lube. I was a little skeptical, but this stuff works great. It seems to passivate my steel H/G mold, works well for alignment pin lubrication. I think it allows me to cut sprues a little earlier.

I switched from Lee lube to the B/S sprue lube on my Lee 6-cavs. I don't see as dramatic an improvement on the Lee Al molds.

Anyway, as per Daniel's directions, I put a few drops on with a Qtip. I apply it at the beginning of every cast session and wipe off the excess.

I'm sold on the stuff.

[454PB]

It sounds like you had a very pleasant first casting experiment. I agree with 44man, 850 degrees is too hot, and 950 degrees is bordering on vaporization.

[Adam10mm]

I only cast between 625° and 675°.

[cbrick]

Jody, crank the temp down, you'll loose a good bit of the Sn in the alloy to oxidation. I agree that frosted bullets are not necessarily a bad thing within reason but 950 degrees is a bit excessive. Your initial casts were shiny because the mould was not yet up to temp, not because the alloy was too cool. You could get just as frosted boolits casting at 700 degrees.

Casting that hot if nothing else will radically slow down your casting just by the need to wait for the alloy in the mould to cool enough to open the mould.

Here's an article that deals with various alloys and alloy maintenance that should give you some tips.

Cast Bullet Alloys & Alloy Maintenance (http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletAlloy.htm)

Rick

[AZ-Stew]

WWs don't need to be poured at any temp over 725 degrees. That's plenty to fill a properly heated mould. Boolits should be (thanks to whoever came up with the actual correct phrase) "dull gray", not crystaline-frosty, and not chrome-shiny (unless you're casting fresh, new linotype). Dull gray and with all corners filled and sharp indicates correct temperatures for mould and alloy.

Above all, if you're casting anything other than a round ball, be sure the base of the boolit has square corners! Anything with a rounded base corner should be immediately returned to the re-melt collection. Other parts of the boolit can have slightly rounded corners with little effect on accuracy, but rounded base corners are DEATH to accuracy.

If you're leaving a sprue puddle (you should if using a bottom pour pot), allow the puddle to cool before cutting the sprues. Obesrve what occurs as the sprue cools and hardens. You should see a small indentation form at the location of each hole in the sprue plate as the metal turns from molten to solid. This an indication that the cooling boolit in the mould cavity is contracting as it cools and is drawing in metal from the still-liquid sprue puddle. Allowing this phenomenon to complete before cutting the sprues will help to ensure that your boolits do not form internal voids by sucking air if the source from which they draw their metal as they cool is interrupted by your cutting the sprues too soon.

Regards,

Stew

[jleneave]

Thanks for the replies. I was wondering if 950 degrees was too hot when I started to see the little whiskers. I am glad ya'll straighten me out on that.

Waksupi, Thanks for editing my post and making it a little more coherent. I had been up all night when I wrote that and l was basically typing in my sleep, looking back on it, it was running on pretty bad. Sorry about that. I only got about 3 ½ hours sleep this morning and I am fixing to go out now, so I will try and keep this one short.

Bret4207, thanks for the compliment. I don’t know what made me try tapping the mold on the towel. I just thought if I could pack it in there a little tighter that maybe I could force the alloy to fill out a little better. I also keep detailed records and logs on all aspects of reloading. I am kind of obsessive compulsive like that with everything I do. I even keep very detailed logs when I go bass fishing. I have a 3 page form that I came up with that has everything from times, dates, how many bass I caught, what I caught them on and where, what time I caught them, weather conditions, lures I lost, and exactly how much $$ I spend on each trip, and the list goes on and on. Thanks for the tips on what may be causing the pin holes, I will take your advice.

44man, yep all the way to 950 degrees. After reading the replies in this thread I think I MIGHT have been trying to cast just a little too hot…..lol. But I am straight now. I will cool it down next time and see if I still get the pinholes. Thanks for the reply.

Bass Ackward, believe me I am far from a veteran. When I first started out I couldn’t figure out how to hold the mold, I had excess lead running down the side of the mold, everything just felt awkward. I did try to use a ladle a couple times but after pouring lead out the back of the ladle all over everything I figured I would learn one technique before trying another. Thanks for the reply.

Down South, Believe me there was a whole lot of looking involved in building my stash. Some of it I paid for and some of it was free. I still continuously look for sources of lead and they seem to get harder and harder to find and I am just starting out. I fear that in the near future it may get next to impossible to find.

Corvette8n, I definitely got better filled out bullets when they started frosting. On another note, my dad has an old Ford 8N tractor that the totally restored from the ground up. He thinks more of that tractor than he does his other vehicles. His truck and other vehicles sit out in the weather while his precious tractor sits all warm and cozy in his garage. I give him grief about it all the time.

38 Super Auto, I am looking forward to giving the B/S sprue plate lube a try. I know all the guys on here give it really high marks. I do have to say that I am not exactly sure what to do with it when I get it, but I guess I will figure it out.

454PB and freakshow10mm, I kind of got the picture that I need to turn down the heat. I had no idea that I was running it too hot. Thanks for the reply and helping getting me straightened out though. Freakshow10mm, I think it is your fault that I ended up ordering a Star lube sizer. It was you that posted the link to the video on YouTube of how fast it was, wasn’t it? Thanks a lot!!! (insert sarcasm here). Thanks ya’ll for the replies.

Cbrick, I will definitely turn the temp down next time. You are right, I did have to slow down to let the alloy cool before I could open the mold. I took that time to put bad bullets and sprues back in the furnance. Thanks for the link to the article.

I do have one more question. I tried to cast a couple of round balls just to see how the mold worked. When I get ready to cast the round balls to use in my back ordered Uberti 1860 I noticed that there is a raise area where the sprue gets cut off. Is there something that I need to do to get rid of the raised area before loading them into the revolver??

Dang, I didn’t mean for this reply to run on as long as it did. Sorry!! I am going to bed now. Talk to ya’ll later.

Jody

[AZ-Stew]

Yeah, put the raised area (sprue cutoff) at the top center before you ram the ball into the cylinder. Keeps the ball balanced as it spins from the rifling in the barrel.

Regards,

Stew

[jleneave]

AZ-Stew, Sorry didn’t mean to leave you out. I guess we were typing at the same time. In the future I will keep my alloy temp less than 725 degrees and see how all goes. I will make sure that the base corners are perfectly square. I was allowing the bullets to draw off the sprue, I had learned that on here prior to starting.
Regarding casting round balls, I thought that I had read somewhere that there was a tool that you used to cut the raised area left by the sprue plate off. I just can’t remember where I saw it. Does this sound at all familiar to you? Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Jody

[AZ-Stew]

No, I haven't heard of such a tool. The Lyman moulds will leave a sprue protursion, while the Lee moulds will leave a flat spot at the sprue location. Either way, the ball will be slightly out of balance if the sprue is located far from the axis of rotation as the ball flies to the target. Frankly, I don't think it will be much of a problem at pistol distances. Just try to get the sprue centered as well as possible before ramming it into the cylinder.

You could roll the balls between glass plates to mash down the sprue protrusions, but it would be time consuming and you'd risk making the balls farther out of round.

Just center 'em and shoot 'em.

Regards,

Stew

[jleneave]

I tried casting a few more bullets with the RCBS 45-270-SAA mold again tonight. I am having a little more trouble than I expected. I am consistently getting several bullets with pinholes on both cavities. It seems that after the mold gets really hot it starts to go away but then I start to get tiny whiskers in a spot or two. They are not very long probably only a couple thousandths long. I am starting to wonder if maybe I missed something while cleaning the mold. I let it cool off then tried to spray brake cleaner on it and scrub it with a med stiffness toothbrush, but to no avail. What do you guys think about drilling a screw in two of the bullets and spinning them in the mold?? Is this something that would work or is this bad for the mold. Should I use a mild polishing compound or not. I am open for suggestions at this point. I should have listened to the guy who posted that when you think you have them clean, clean them some more!!

I ended up with about 326 bullets that I can use, but I threw that much or more back in the pot.

Jody

[cbrick]

Jody, its starting to sound like a possible alloy problem, not a dirty mould problem. I take it you turned down the pot temp and pre-heated the mould up to operating temp. If you still want to work on the mould a bit more try an ink pen erasure on any possible trouble spots then clean with alcohol. I wouldn't yet recommend a polishing compound or spinning a boolit in the cavities.

What alloy are you using and what did you do to blend it? Did you add any tin? How did you flux? With what? How well, for how long?

The alloy must also be clean, same advice as cleaning new moulds, once you’re sure it’s well done . . . do it again. I use a stainless steel slotted serving spoon and sawdust. A couple of heaping serving spoon's of sawdust and stir vigorously scraping the sides and bottom of the pot with the slotted spoon until well after the sawdust is done smoking and turned to carbon. Skim this off and start over with two more spoon full's of saw dust and stir, stir, stir. When done leave this carbon on top of the melt until your done casting, it'll help keep air (oxygen) off the melt reducing oxidation.

I don't flux the alloy until its reached its liquidus temp. (not melting temp) That can be hard to determine so I just wait for my casting temp of 700 degrees to begin fluxing and I know its past it's liquidus temp.

Hope there's some help in this for you.

Rick

[jleneave]

Cbrick, I added 2ozs of 50/50 lead/tin solder to right at 10lbs of lead. I realize that does not equal Lyman #2. I have read on here that a lot of people cast with straight WW alloy and that was my intention but I thought that this might be a fill out problem so I was just going to add a little tin to see if it helped. It did help a little or at least it seemed to. Yeah, I turned my temp down from my first time, I am now staying between 700* and 750* with the better bullets coming at the 750* temp. One thing I failed to mention above is that the area with the pin holes is on the same spot of the bullets/cavities. Sorry about that. I flux with candle wax and Frankfort Arsenal fluxing compound when smelting down into ingots and I flux several times and try to clean up the alloy the best I can. I flux one time with the Frankfort Arsenal compound in the casting pot. The alloy appears clean as I don't see any trash floating on the top while casting bullets and I don't see any trash in the bottom of the casting pot when I get to the bottom. I didn't flux the casting pot until the alloy temp was at 700*. I will try to flux the casting pot more before I start casting bullets and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for taking the time to reply and help me out.

Jody

[cbrick]

Jody,

At what temperature did you melt your WW into ingots?

[454PB]

cbrick smells zinc contamination! A good way to eliminate that possibility is to make up a new pot of alloy from wheelweights, rather than your pre-smelted supply of ingots. Keep the temperature down around 650 degrees while you melt and clean the new batch, then cast some new slugs and see if there is a difference. Zinc melts at 787 degrees.

The whiskers you describe can result from a burr, ding on the mould edge, or other obstruction on the mould faces that prevent complete block closure. The result is some alloy escaping into the mould vents and causing small whiskers. It can also happen with a tin rich alloy and too much heat, I see it frequently using straight linotype alloy. It would be a good idea to measure your boolit diameter, if they are much over expected diameter, there is a good chance a burr is present.

[cbrick]

cbrick smells zinc contamination! A good way to eliminate that possibility is to make up a new pot of alloy from wheelweights, rather than your pre-smelted supply of ingots. Keep the temperature down around 650 degrees while you melt and clean the new batch, then cast some new slugs and see if there is a difference. Zinc melts at 787 degrees.

Yep, just a hunch but since Jody cast his first batch of boolits at 900 degrees I thought there was a good chance that his smelting was done the same.

Rick

[jleneave]

Cbrick,I am 100% positive that there is no zink in my ingots. I watched for them very closely and I didn't smelt at anywhere near 900 degrees. I use a coleman stove with 2 of the small RCBS pots to smelt until I get a better set up. I am absolutely sure, without a doubt, that there is no zink in my ingots. When I cast my first batch I didn't mean for it to sound that I did all my casting at 900 degrees. I started casting at about 700 degrees and went all the way up to 900 degrees slowly. I casted several bullets at 50 degree increments from 700* all the way up to 950* I was just noting that the bullets filled out a whole lot better at the hotter temps but they were frosted pretty bad. One of the reasons I think that it is a mold problem is because it occurs at the same spot every time.

454PB, I will look for burrs on the mold. According to my dial calipers, I don't have a micrometer, they are right at .454" maybe a tad over.

[JayinAZ]

Does anyone have a good photo of a zinc contaminated bullet?

[cbrick]

Well, if there were burs or dirt or something in/on the mould and the temp was increased and the problem went away, then the temp is reduced and the problem came back would seem to indicate an alloy problem, not a mould problem. A problem with the mould would still be there regardless of temp, not come & go with temp changes. Or so it would seem to me.

Rick

[pearson1662]

CBRick,
Thanks for the link. Excellent read.

Jay

[jleneave]

Cbrick, The problem does get better with more heat but it does not completely go away. I don't know, I am stumped on this. I casted some more of the bullets last night at a temp of between 700* and 750*, straight WW alloy, and fluxed several times. I was still getting the pinholes on both bullets at the same exact spot each time. I let the mold cool down then tried to clean it again. I let it soak in brake fluid for several minutes and then scrubbed hard with a toothbrush. I put the mold back together and brought it back up to temp and started casting again. The pinholes were about the same, still in the same spots every time. I added 2ozs of 50/50 solder to 10lbs of WW alloy and the pinholes cleared up somewhat. They are not completely gone but they are not quite as bad. I am really stumped, with the holes coming out of the mold at the exact same place every time it makes me think that it is a mold problem, but when I add tin it gets better and that makes me think that it is an alloy problem. I am about to pull my hair out. Cbrick, thanks for taking the time and trying to help me out with this, I really appreciate it.

Jody

[cbrick]

10 pounds of lead alloy is 160 ounces. Only half of 50/50 is tin, you only added 1 ounce of tin to 160 ounces of lead alloy so you only added 0.65% tin. Run it up to over 2% and see what happens.

If 2 ounces of 50/50 seemed to help try adding more. 2.5% tin in 10 pounds of alloy would be 4 ounces of tin or 8 ounces of 50/50. Try this and see what happens.

All I cast is WW but I don't argue with it, I weigh each ingot going into the pot and add 3% of that weight in pure bar tin. 2% would probably do it but I've always used 3% and just keep doing it that way.

Rick

[Bass Ackward]

Another issue that I don't know if it was mentioned can be flow rate from the pot. The slower this is, the hotter you have to run your mix.

After re-reading your 1st post, 950 degrees should have given you frosty bullets that you said were still shiny and not filled out, so you are filling too slow. This generally gets adjusted per caliber. Once I get to 500 grain anything, I go to a ladle for fast fill and less defects.