Need help- "dirty" boolits?!?

[Beaverhunter2]

I was ladle casting .476- 400gr from a Lee mold. The boolits came out nice- once I got the temp regulated, everything went well.

Then I picked up a Lee Production Pot. Same metal, same mold. About the time the metal and mold start getting hot enough to fill out the mold, the boolits start looking "dirty" in spots on one side or the other. I read in a Lyman brochure that Lithium grease could be used to lubricate sprue plates. I put what I would call an almost microscopic amount on the threads of the sprue plate screw. It was then that I started using the Prod Pot and also started having the problems. I've since cleaned the mold with dish soap, brake cleaner, and denatured alcohol. The mold looks perfectly clean. It doesn't seem to make any difference. Also, while one side of the mold tends to get "dirty" and rough more often, there is not steady pattern. It can be on one side this boolit, the other side the next boolit, the following boolit looks OK, and who knows what I'll get next.

I can't get any pictures to come out well enough so you can see what I'm talking about.

Any ideas?

BTW This is not "frosting". I know what that looks like and this looks more like contaminants. I've fluxed the metal (WWs) repeatedly and added about 4% tin from 95/5 solder.

Please help!

John

[The Nyack Kid]

dirty boolits are just that .they have dirt (slag) in them . this dirt tends to settle down to the bottom of lead pots . if you have really dirty slag alloy let the pot sit for a bit then draw some off of the bottom . pore it in to ingots then when you have enough , melt it down in a clean wide flat bottomed pan , then let the alloy sit molten for abit to settle to the bottom then let the alloy harden . the slag then can be removed from the bottom of the big ingot .

[runfiverun]

you need to get your flux down to the bottom of the pot
what you got is called inclusions..... woo hoo i like it when i can use a big word.

any way what i do is drop a few lubed [ hard lube like wax] or fill a few grooves
on a couple of bad boolits with crayon ,candle wax, bees wax. etc

in your mix and stir with a spoon, piece of wood or whatever, my wife likes to
use one of my new screwdrivers

and stir the crap out of it a couple of times
you should get a bunch of grey floaty fluff stuff. skimm carefully.!!

[HeavyMetal]

The problem with the nyack kid's idea is it means we have something heavier than lead in our casting pots! I don't think so.

However you've hit the nail on the head with the description: contaminent! I have never believed the slag theory, but have belived that this is cooled lead attached to the end of the spout and it some cases still in the hole on the sprue plate. with this contaminent present each time you pour a round your pushing cooled lead "chips" from the spout and sprue hole in with the molten alloy, the boolit cools before these become molten and bang you got spots!

The next time you cast have a small dental pick handy and exam each hole in the sprue for crud still sticking to the sprue plate. You'll have to look close but you will see it. You need to flic this stuff off before you pour your next round! It also means you may not be waiting long enough before you open your mold. The classic reason I try to use two of the same molds when casting these days!

The next thing you want to try is knocking the crud of the spout before you pour your next round! I use the part of the sprue plate that sticks out at right angle to push pull debri off of the spout and then give a quick blast of the handle to push any crud or left over alloy in the spout out and only allow fresh alloy into the mold.

Once you get a hang of letting the sprue cool long enough the quick stream of lead out the spout will cure the "speckled egg" problem on your bullets!

[44man]

I use a ladle but change alloys a lot so I have to melt, flux and pour out the pot into ingot molds. There is a LOT of crap that does not float. Even stirring and scraping the bottom while fluxing will not bring it up. It is black, dusty looking junk.

[leftiye]

I will now chant one of our mantras. Stir it with a stick. Stir it with a stick (and so on). The stick itself is a fluxing agent (actually a reducing agent- a carbon donor which chemically is active and removes oxygen from your alloy), and will carry whatever flux you use with it into the melt as you stir. Next get some real good reducing fluxing agent. Stearic acid is about as good as it gets. It doesnt burn off at low temperatutes either and can be stirred in because of this. Ivory soap is mostly stearic acid. I like to add Rosin to the stearic acid (smells good too).

I had inclusions in my boolits for years before/until I got a truly good fluxing agent. No more anymore! It sounds like your alloy had these impurities all along, and they only became a problem after you started using the bottom pour pot.

[bigborefan]

Does your bullets look like the one on the left in my picture below? If so, I have been plaqued with the same problem for years. The bullet on the left is from using the bottom pour of my RCBS pot while the bullet on the right is a ladle pour using the same alloy from the same pot. I have tried everything to fix this problem with no satisfactory results. I have changed fluxing agents including using stearic acid and wood sticks for stiring, used different alloys including just pure lead and tin, changed temperatures of the pot, altered the distance of pouring from spout to mould, and other changes too many to mention. I've even drilled the spout opening a little larger with no improvement. I don't believe the dirt on the bottom of the pot theory either. I have cleaned the pot out after each session at one time to see if it was from that but still no change. From the first bottom pour to the last, they all came out the same. I finally gave up and went to ladle pour for all my bullet casting. By the way, I've been casting bullets for 30 years so I'm not a newbie at this. I want to add also that the condition was not as noticeable when pouring bullets of 200 grs or less. It was more prominent on my larger 500 grain bullets. http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j65/SSCamaro427/45-90Sharps014.jpg

[44man]

Now all of you know why I have used a ladle for 52 years! :drinks: I can cast a few hundred extra boolits with the time wasted keeping the bottom pour working. Yeah some guys make it work but all in all if you list all of the solutions those guys have to keep the thing working it would fill this entire forum! :mrgreen: To make the ladle work takes one sentence.
Take away my ladles and I will quit casting.
There are other factors at work when you get boolits like that bad one, other then just some dirt. The dirt would have been used up with a few boolits.
Now it will take another forum to explain all of THOSE reasons! [smilie=w:Let's watch and see how many different solutions pop up here.

[Lloyd Smale]

I have about the opostite luck. When i ladle poor im constantly fighting contaminants on the top of the melt or adding contaminants (flux) to keep the top clean. Ive had much better luck with the cleaner lead at the bottom of the pot. 99 percent of the trouble with bottom poor casting can be taken care of by cleaning your pot well once in a while and keeping the pot close to the same level while casting. Personaly id rather spend time shooting the fooling around with a casting technique that slows production about by half.

[leftiye]

Bigbore, Them contaminants probly form when the alloy is heated up. You can't do it when you ladle pour, but with a bottom pour I always keep the pot covered with something to keep the air off. I like crushed charcoal for this. This keeps the top of the melt oxygen free as it will combine with any oxygen that comes near. I don't even flux the main pot any more, I remelt my sprues and add metal in a second pot and flux that pot before replenishing the main pot.

Another thing that might do it would be if you cast some hotter until you get a light frosting (keep those particular compounds from freezing too soon). Many here cast to this standard as it generally gives better weight uniformity and fillout.

[monadnock#5]

According to Col. C.E. Harrison in the book "Cast Bullets" page 60, some dross does sink to the bottom of the pot. He attributes this to "certain scrap leads", but doesn't identify which types. The problem affects bottom pours most often "probably" because they get stirred less often.

The cure for a bottom pour is to let the pot sit at temp for 20 min., then cast the contents into ingots. When cool, wire brush not only the the pot, but also the ingots. Thoroughly.

Put your pot on a thorough cleaning schedule and if kept to, the problem should go away.

[Lloyd Smale]

i guess id look at it this way. Sure the one on the right looks better but after they both hit the ground or an animal there going to look pretty simular. Id about be they shoot equally well. Ive yet to have someone walk up to one of my loades shells and say boy thats a pretty bullet.

[selmerfan]

Lloyd, when I loaded your bullets I said to myself, "Man he makes purty boolits." :) Now I have a standard to measure my own boolits against, once I get around to casting them! I have all the equipment and materials, now I just need time...
Selmerfan

[bpost1958]

Marvelux will get it cleaned up for you. Read the directions and remember it attracts moisture.

[bigborefan]

Leftiye, I tried covering the pot with wood shavings and that didn't help. Also I found that lead temperatures around 750-850 degrees made the situation worse. Lately, I have been casting for BPCR so with the lead- tin mix, I've had good results with a ladle at 700 degrees.
Monadnock, I tried exactly as you suggested in my effort to fix this. I bottom poured a whole 20 lbs of alloy into 1lb ingots then took a wire wheel brush on an electric drill and burnished the bottom of each ingot to remove all surface dross. Made no difference in casting after melting back in a cleaned out pot.
Lloyd, You're right that appearance isn't as important as performance, but that some people have this problem while others don't with bottom pour and no one knows why for sure is what naws at me. About the only thing that I haven't tried but could solve this is to try some of the expensive pure virgin lead that is sold by a few reloading supply houses. The lead that I have been using for my BPCR casting is scrap sheeting lead mixed with pure tin.
According to "The Art of Bullet Casting" from Handloader, a picture resembling my problem states that this is caused by trapped gas but doesn't tell how to remedy this.

[bigborefan]

UTK, Thanks for your input. I know the appearance of the bullet in the picture looks frosted but the alloy that I used for those particular bullets was pure tin a pure lead. In order for a bullet to look frosty, there needs to be antimony in the mix and there wasn't in this case. They were cast at 700 degrees. I was hoping John would chime in on whether his problem was similar to mine.

[monadnock#5]

Monadnock, I tried exactly as you suggested in my effort to fix this. I bottom poured a whole 20 lbs of alloy into 1lb ingots then took a wire wheel brush on an electric drill and burnished the bottom of each ingot to remove all surface dross. Made no difference in casting after melting back in a cleaned out pot.

Bigborefan, you scrubbed the pot, but did you scrub the ingots?

The passage cited in "Cast Bullets" wasn't an article, but rather an answer to a question from a reader of the American Rifleman. While the text didn't say specifically, and I know it sounds nutty, but apparently if you were to cross section one of your boolits, you would find that the only place the slag appears is on the exterior of the boolit. You would find none internally.

So, cast your ingots from the contaminated alloy, and when they have cooled to where you can handle them, scrub the heck out of ingots too.

What the hey, nothing ventured...

[bigborefan]

Monadnock, I did both the inside of the pot and the bottom of each ingot. I also read the same article in the NRA "Cast Bullet" publication (question & answer). There isn't much that I haven't tried.

[monadnock#5]

Well, I guess the only comfort I can extend to you is that I remember reading in one of Mr. Ackwards posts, that above a certain grain weight, he switches from bottom pour to ladle casting. Your 500 grainers would certainly qualify for ladle cast only in that gentleman's book.

[Beaverhunter2]

Wow, guys- thanks for all the input! I've only got minute but wanted to reply.

Bigbore, You nailed it. Your bullet on the left looks just like the surface I get on mine. The bigger vs. smaller issue seems to apply to me as well. I can cast .310 RBs from the pot and they look beautiful. The next boolit cast is one of my .476's and they have the marks on them. I'll try some ladle casting tomorrow with this alloy and mold and see if my problem goes away. I'll also cast a few .54 cal 380gr REALs both ways (ladle and bottom pour) and see how they come out. They won't be any good for shooting because of the tin and antimony in the alloy, but it will let me complete the testing. I can always remelt them.

Good stuff, guys! Thanks again!

John

[runfiverun]

they look like the tin isn't keeping the skin open quite long enough
the lead is oxidizing as it cools and noy getting a good fill-out.

now i know this is on a flat area here but it could be so like uneven cooling
i would have to re-look at the lyman cast book to re-call
what they call it.

but some molds just want to ladled, i got one or two of these myself

[357maximum]

I call it tin poisoning, seems everytime I go out of my way to add tin to an antimonial alloy...bang there it is.....leave the tin percentage very very low, and I have no issues. I can make it go away by simply adding more ww and pure 50/50 blend to the melt til it dissappears, no metalurgist, but it woks on all my bottom feeders.

[Lloyd Smale]

something was hit on here. Ive allways noticed a prettier bullet when casting pure lead then i do with high tin/antimony alloys. I also notice a small amount of tin can help fillout but high tin/antimony alloys tend to be the ones that leave voids where hot spots occur in molds. Could be that a guy would notice less of problems like that ladle casting because if nothing else your going slower and your mold wouldnt tend to heat up as fast. Through the years ive allways heard people say that pure lead is the hardest to cast and alloys like linotype are the easiest. Personaly i think its the other way around. Pure just needs to be cast hot and allowed to be set up properly before cutting spruces if you do that you will about allways get good bullets. Casting high tin/anitmony alloys can sometimes be a jugling act as every mold reacts differnt to them and if your casting more then on mold or up to 4 as i do it can be a chore to keep them in there sweet zones.
I call it tin poisoning, seems everytime I go out of my way to add tin to an antimonial alloy...bang there it is.....leave the tin percentage very very low, and I have no issues. I can make it go away by simply adding more ww and pure 50/50 blend to the melt til it dissappears, no metalurgist, but it woks on all my bottom feeders.

[357maximum]

something was hit on here. Ive allways noticed a prettier bullet when casting pure lead then i do with high tin/antimony alloys. I also notice a small amount of tin can help fillout but high tin/antimony alloys tend to be the ones that leave voids where hot spots occur in molds. Could be that a guy would notice less of problems like that ladle casting because if nothing else your going slower and your mold wouldnt tend to heat up as fast. Through the years ive allways heard people say that pure lead is the hardest to cast and alloys like linotype are the easiest. Personaly i think its the other way around. Pure just needs to be cast hot and allowed to be set up properly before cutting spruces if you do that you will about allways get good bullets. Casting high tin/anitmony alloys can sometimes be a jugling act as every mold reacts differnt to them and if your casting more then on mold or up to 4 as i do it can be a chore to keep them in there sweet zones.



B-I-N-G-O

[leftiye]

Bigbore, If you cover your melt it has to be with something that doesn't turn to ashes right away and become inert. Either go to something like charcoal that doesn't deteriorate quickly, and/or add more as time passes. I had thought that, as my first post stated I'd ended my problems with this by going to better fluxes. But your statement that you had done somewhat the same without effect makes me think that the oxygen absorbing covering was the solution. Stirring deeply and scraping the sides and bottom of the pot with a hardwood dowel will remove and reduce oxides down inside the melt and on the pot.

I use a mold heater, and when I say hotter, I mean the mold, not the melt. Frosting should occur in anything other that pure lead (possibly then even), as it is due to the surface of the lead crystallizing due to not freezing immediately against a cool (relatively) mold. Good boolits can be made with 600 degree alloy in any state from wrinkled boolits to grossly frosted boolits by heating the mold more or less.

[bigborefan]

Leftiye, Thanks for the tip. I'll give the charcoal a try next time. The only thing that I have tried in the past as a cover was just wood shavings mixed with saw dust. As far as fluxes go, I've tried bullet lube, candle wax, Marvelux, stearic acid and I always stir it with a large spoon for my initial fluxing, then stir with a wooden stick about every 20 minutes thereafter without adding any other fluxing agent.
I also use a hot plate to initially warm up my mould to the correct starting temperature and when I take a small brake. Normally with this procedure, my very first bullet dropped is a keeper. Before using a hotplate, it would be about 10-15 minutes before I got my first keeper.

[runfiverun]

bigborefan
could you look at that [dirty boolit] under a magnifying glass , jewelers loop,
microscope.
and see if those dirty areas look like" christmas tree branches?" crossing each other
just curious.

[454PB]

What I've found is that bottom pour pots need volume of flow.....not pressure. As the spout begins to slag and restrict, the volume decreases and the pressure increases. Keep the spout clear, flux well ONCE, leave the dross on the surface as an oxygen barrier, and problems like this disappear.

[shotman]

take your bottom pour and run it out {no lead] sand blast the inside clean then coat with a heavy coat of mold release and heat and let cool then melt next batch i bet that will clear up your problem now for the best way get a can of the Cerama Coat that is used on guns sand blast and coat with the CC and heat you need a thermometer to keep temp at around the 350 it calls for but once done inside of pot will stay clean if you dont use metal to scratch it shotman/rick

[bigborefan]

Runfiverun, I'll have to wait til I cast again to check one out under a jewels loop. The bullet in the picture was taken last year and because of all the time that I spent trying to fix the problem, I went to ladle pouring to get anything done. If I remember correctly, I did use a jewels loop to check one out at the time and what I saw were a few sperical bubble holes with a few that looked like they were filled with dry grey looking slag. Like John said, it usually appears on one side of the bullet and not the other. Also what is strange is the surface shows a faint whitish film that disappears when buffed with a cloth. I have also noticed lately that when ladle pouring, as the level of lead goes down, my ladle starts building up a dry grey slag glinging to it that doesn't appear earlier in the casting. This may be normal, I don't know since I had always used the bottom pour in the past and only started using a ladle for a year now. I have to bang the ladle on a hard surface after about five pours to keep the pour hole clear.
Leftiye, 454PB and Shotman, I will try your suggestions to see if they solve our problem (Johns and mine)and report later as to my findings. I prefer bottom pour to ladle casting when things things go right.

[runfiverun]

the reason i was asking is that some of this sounds like oxidized lead riding the
currents in the pot,
my initial thought was to blame this on antimony or maybe cadmium/indium.
i think that grey fluff is antimonial related as when i add antimony ore
into my mixes i get quite a bit of that fluff [ it is kinda like dryer lint?]

[Sundogg1911]

i had a problem similar with a production pot. it turned out to be a blob of crud right around the spout. when I fluxed, stirred and scraped i wasn't touching it. I now scrape around the spout with an old long handled screwdriver. havent had the problem since.

[bigborefan]

Well, I had the chance to try out the suggestions made for this problem and am sorry to report that the problem still exists. I bead blasted the inside of the pot til it looked like new. Then I applied a coat of mould prep which made the inside of the pot looking good. I started with a fresh batch of 20-1 alloy, fluxed and then let sit for about 20 minutes. Every bullet that was cast, looked like the problem ones from before even running the temps from 650 degrees to 850 degrees. I then covered the lead with a nice layer of charcoal and again waited 20 minutes for everything to settle. Once again, no luck. I then cast four bullets using the ladle and as before, perfect bullets. The picture below shows the ladle cast on top and the bottom pour below them. What's perplexing is that it can't be the alloy since the ladle pour is from the same mix. It can't be the mould since they come out ok by ladle. It can't be the mould or lead temperatures since ladle pouring in the range of 650-850 still makes perfect bullets. It makes no sense and I guess I am just destined to use a ladle from now on. Things could be worse. They could come out bad using both techniques, I guess. Thanks to everyone who contributed and hope that much of the information helps John out with his like situation.
Runfiverun, I would agree with your theory except the alloy that I have been using as of late has just been pure lead mixed with tin. No antimony at all in these batches. When this happened with my WW lead, I thought it was the antimony then.
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j65/SSCamaro427/castbullets004.jpg

[Beaverhunter2]

Thanks to everyone for their input. And special thanks to BigBore for saving me the work of trying out all of these possible fixes. I have to be honest, guys, I'm not in that big of a hurry that I'm concerned about the production rates of ladle vs bottom pour casting. My moulds heating up controls my production rate. I will try the solutions to see if I can fix my situation but I'm not going to try them all tonight.

I did some of my own testing yesterday and ladle pouring got me good boolits while bottom pouring the .476s led to about 8 rejects for every good one. My .310 RBs still come out beautiful so it's the big ones that don't work out so well. I'm still waiting for a .457-405FB mould from Midsouth. When it comes, I'll let you know how they work out.

Very interesting and informative!

Thanks again!

John

[jleneave]

I posted a week or so ago about a problem I was having with fill out. After looking at the pictures of your bullets and hearing the descriptions I believe that this is the exact problem that I was having and am still having. I also use a Lee 20lbs production pot. I didn't want to have to go to ladle casting but it is looking like I may have to give it a try. I will monitor this post to see if any one is able to figure out a fix for this aggrivating problem.

Jody

[runfiverun]

you know the one thing i have seen here is that everyone who is having
this problem is using the lee pot
i use one also and get better results from mine also if i ladle from it

i also have 2 master casters which are bottom pour only and have none of these problems
with boolits from them.

i am thinking it is the way the lee pot cycles off and on i think it heats from the top down
and you get reallly bad raising and dropping not only of temp
but of thermal currents inside the pot, causing your tin mix to try and ride the thermals to
the top.
consequently when you ladle you are constantly stirring the tin back in the mix
and getting a more consistent mix.
this would also explain the stuff sticking to the ladle being so nice and shiny it is
SNo tin almost at an oxide state and close enough and cold enough to be skimmed
off every time you lift the ladle out of the pot.


just my thoughts, i am out of work right now so have a lot of time to think about stuff
like this.

[bigborefan]

Runfiverun, I'm casting with an RCBS Pro Melt. It's close to 20years old and I thought that maybe the heating elements toward the bottom of the pot may be bad and if the heat sensor thermostadt was at the top, maybe the lead at the bottom was not as hot as the lead at the top. I would say that it is the sign of the beast when casting large bullets but I have read where some people don't have any problems casting large bullets from a bottom pour.

[runfiverun]

i can cast 400gr from the mastercaster with no problems.

another thing is even pure lead can have bismuth, which acts like antimony.
but if you are getting good boolits, ladle casting is the way to go.
if you could'nt get good ones no matter what then it would be a big problem.

[454PB]

i am thinking it is the way the lee pot cycles off and on i think it heats from the top down
and you get reallly bad raising and dropping not only of temp
but of thermal currents inside the pot, causing your tin mix to try and ride the thermals to
the top.


If you think it heats from the top down, try this:

Empty the pot completely and plug it in. Set the thermostat to around "7" and let it heat for about 10 minutes. Turn off the lights in the room and look into the empty pot. All three of my Lee pots glow a dull red in the bottom 2" of the pot.

[GSM]

For those using the RCBS Promelt, one thing to look at is the operating rod/valve at the nozzle. The rod and the area right behind it are the hardest to keep clean of crud. For some reason the trash seems to be attracted to the rod (especially with fluxes that melt), migrates down to the nozzle, and into the mould.

It doesn't take too much trash to blemish a bunch of bullets. AAARGH!

I can't remember if it was Harrison or someone else, recommended that the amount of over-pour into a mould be liberal in order to give the crud a chance to float out. This seems to help a bit.

[AZ-Stew]

In my case, bullet size hasn't been an issue. I have seen this phenomenon with everything from .30 cal. to .458 500gr rifle bullets and .32 to .45 pistol bullets. I haven't seen as much of it recently and I believe it's because I take the time to skim out as much garbage from the pot as I can before I start to cast.

When I started casting 35 years ago, the information I read (no gurus and no internet back then) said not to scrape the stuff off the top of the melt in the pot. They claimed it was tin coming to the top and that it should be fluxed and stirred thoroughly back into the melt. I'm beginning to believe this is not the best thing to do. I think the stuff is stirred into suspension and ends up in the bullets.

I've pretty much quit fluxing. Marvelux rusts the pot and candle wax stinks up the shop, even with the vent fans on. Now when the alloy (WW with just a bit of tin added to improve fillout) in the pot becomes liquid, I stir it and scrape as much of the gray floaty stuff off the top as possible. I continue this until there is very little of the garbage coming to the top. I don't mess with it again until I have to add more alloy to the pot (about 400 pistol bullets). I haven't seen any inclusions for quite a while.

The next time I smelt, I'm going to try to get rid of as much of this stuff as possible before casting ingots.

Whatever this stuff is, it appears to migrate to the bottom of the pot. This is why your ladle-cast bullets are free of contamination. You're drawing your alloy from near the top of the pot. I can't explain why the stuff comes to the top when the pot is stirred, but what I've been scraping off the top of the melt after stirring looks for all the world like the crap that's been contaminating my bullets for years, and now that I've been removing it from the pot, I'm getting better bullets.

As 454PB says, the Lee 20 pound pots have their heating element down near the bottom of the pot. I could see a blue ring around the sides near the bottom when I first turned it on when it was new.

Speaking of the Lee pot, I had an exciting few minutes in my shop over the weekend. My son (age 31) and I were doing some loading for his .357 and he wanted some .44 bullets to load and shoot in one of my guns. I lit-off the pot and let it come to temp. When I stirred the alloy (as described above) I apparently bumped the valve mechanism with my stirring spoon. The valve rod lifted up out of the nozzle and its base came to rest on the bottom of the pot, locking the valve in full-open mode. I couldn't get it back in to stop the flow due to the small ridge around the nozzle where it is pressed onto the bottom of the pot. 700 degree lead began pouring out as fast as it could run through the spout. Since I had enlarged the spout opening a bit with a drill when it was brand new to allow a faster flow for casting big bullets, the flow was a lot faster than one would want under the circumstances. I keep an ingot mould under the spout to catch the "Lee Drip", so the molten lead didn't immediately spread out over the entire bench, but it was exciting trying to get a couple more ingot moulds out of storage and under the open spout before things really got messy. Let's just say the Lee 20 pound pots don't have a robust valve mechanism. I didn't get burned, but I was lucky. On top of that, this particular pot won't hold temp. I've seen 100+ degree temp swings during casting without changing the thermostat.

My order went in to MidSouth last evening for an RCB$ ($330+ +shipping -Ouch!) Pro Melt. I'm going to send the Lee pot back to them in the RCBS box and ask them to swap it for a mould or two. It's only had about 10-20 hours of use.

Regards,

Stew

[runfiverun]

sorry meant bottom to top
in the cyclic way it works it really created bad currents

[mto7464]

Holy crap. I tried some with my un-used laddle and they did come out nice and shiney without that dirty look too. I thought that was the way they were suppose to look but now I am going to try laddling mine for a while to see if it make any difference in the way they shoot.