Raining Boolits

[SharpsShooter]

I tried the Lee mould cure-all that has been posted on the board, I don’t recall the poster, but it works. I have a Lee 457-450F that was cranky and I figured I had nothing to lose.

I fired up the Lee bottom pour and commenced to get down to it. Holy stuff..It cast like a high dollar mould and boolits were falling from the mould at a before unheard of rate. All was good and I ran the pot nearly empty twice. The pile of boolits in front of my eyes would last at least a day or two and I retired to the loading room to sort by weight and cull the undesirable. I began the process by sorting cosmetically and then it happened.

Over 60% were damaged. The bases were dented, dinged and disfigured from dropping onto the ones already resting on the folded towel rendering them to the cull coffee can. I am casting ACWW and of course they are super hot and have to be soft as they fall out of the mould. Ahhhhh, learned my lesson.

Just thought I'd share the lesson.

[smilie=b:

[David R]

I pour em on a towel when they are air cooled, but every few casts, I pull the towel up on one end to pile em up. Last saturday I had a BIG pile from the new BD45CM. 44 lbs of boolits in an afternoon.

Most of the time I prefer to quench them, so no hassle about bumping in to each other.

David

[Buckshot]

............When my wife worked for Armed Forces Radio & Television she got me a bunch of neat cardboard boxes that proffessional Betamax tapes came in. Seems odd to get excited by a dumb ole cardboard box, but these were just perfect for casting. They are about 2" deep, 6" wide and a foot long, of doublewall construction.

I had one end elevated about an inch and used another piece of cardboard on the high end, that made a ramp down inside. Atop that I laid several layers of old cotton shop towels. The dropped boolits landed on the shop towels and then rolled to the bottom of the box. The last of those boxes gave up the ghost several months ago so I made some out of wood.

As the drop box would fill I'd tip the slugs off into another to cool. With a 6 cavity mould you can create a sizeable amount of hot lead objects that take quite awile to cool. I've had 2 of the boxes full of slugs on the bench cooling off enough to put into those inexpensive Glad plastic food containers.

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

[NVcurmudgeon]

I drop my boolits on a thick pile of old cloth, not plastic, fender aprons, being careful to not drop on previously cast boolits. When I add alloy and flux, every 15-20 casts, I lift one side of the cloth and roll the somewhat cooled bolits safely into the pile.

[Cherokee]

I use two wood boxes about 5x12" with carpet bottoms and switch from one to the other, lifting the edge as needed to roll the "new" bullets into the pile that is cooling. After cooling, add to large cardboard storage box(s). Has worked for 30 years.

[SharpsShooter]

All good ideas...thanks. It rained again this evening, boolits that is... over 200 in a couple hours and only a few rejects. Man you go through the ignots when casting 455gr stuff!

:)

[wills]

You can drop them on the floor, but that also seems bad for them

[SharpsShooter]

I dropped one yesterday straight out of the mould to the floor. It was 40 inches maybe, but it flattened one side probably a third of the diameter.

heh heh

[Ken O]

Being a retired welder, I have a few fire blankets laying around. I drop my boolits on a folded up blanket, it cousions the fall and doesnt burn. OT... the old blankets were made out of asbestis, if we were doing overhead arc-gouging or welding, we would make a poncho out of them by cutting a hole to put your head through, nothing ever worked better.

[cdrCargil]

I cast my first last night. Had a few problems with wrinkles, and learned to turn up the heat a bit. (I don't have a lead thermometer yet.)

I was dropping them into a bucket of water, but it seemed to do no good. They were coming out screwed up anyway. Then started dropping them onto a tripple folded towel and it seemed alright. I think it was just that my heat was'nt high enough in the first place and quenching them was'nt doing me any good as about half of them were wrinkled anyway.

So dropping them into a bucket is a good thing? They cool to fast to dent by the time they hit the bottom? Is it better to do this as opposed to the folded towel method?


Richard <--------AKA the newbie.

[Buckshot]

...........cdrCargil, by dropping WW alloy into a bucket of water (WDWW), you're heat treating, in effect. These boolits will be quite a bit harder then air-cooled ww (ACWW). To get the best consistancy from WDWW any boolits that do not readily drop into the water from the mould should be set aside, or re-melted if you have no use for them. These 'hangers on' won't be as hard as the others if they were dropped.

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

[Junior1942]

Here's my casting setup. Everything is in the shallow baking pan. When I'm through, all the tiny slivers of lead are in the pan, and I can easily dump them into the cooled-down pot. Notice the swath of black leather pinned to the front edge of the pan. I dump the bullets from the mold onto the elevated portion of the leather, and they roll down the leather, cooling as they roll, and land in the bullet pile.

http://www.castbullet.com/reload/photos/lee31001.jpg

[rebliss]

I've been dropping into a medium-sized bowl. Although I still get the hiss when they drop, the water tends to heat up quickly. Is there a drastic difference in the hardness of boolits when the water is as cold as possible versus the warmer water?

I've seen in movies that they would quench swords they were making in snow, which I imagine was pretty effective. They'd also use blood, but I don't think that would leave my boolits with that nice, shiny silver color.

[David R]

I've been dropping into a medium-sized bowl. Although I still get the hiss when they drop, the water tends to heat up quickly. Is there a drastic difference in the hardness of boolits when the water is as cold as possible versus the warmer water?

Use a bucket with a couple of gallons of water in it. It won't heat up as fast and holds a LOT more boolits. I use a towel over it with a slit in it so the splash back doesn't get into my mold.

I love that star wars sound they make when they hit the water.

David

[waksupi]

Rebliss, I imagine there is a hardness difference from the warm water. There are some here who have used ice, and snow as a quench medium, to keep the bullets as hard as possible. Hopefully someone will chime in who have done this, and made some checks with a Bn tester. I always use a five gallon bucket ful of cold water. At the end of the casting session, temperature drop is minor. If you need a bucket, ask at a bakery. Usually a buck a piece, or free.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
Back about a yr. ago I started to do 1st WDWW in a consistant manner. I had tried it about 15 yrs before but not in any regular manner.
I liked the improved hardness espcally for rifle bullets.
Then I got to thinking that snow added to the quench would do 2 things :
1) due to the phase change of snow/slush to liquid, the quench would remain at the same temp. as long as some snow/slush remained (0-4 degrees C). This would give better temp. control of the quenching medium & process.
2) The larger temp. difference between the hot bullets (I cast frosted bullets) & the quench should result in a harder bullet.
I don't know if I invented this but I had never heard of anyone doing it before I tried it on purpose. Some one ealse may have tried it before me but never recorded it. It works great f or me.

[felix]

The max difference between hot and cold water would be about 10 percent in a linear scheme of things. However, cooling rate is very non-linear, such as being much closer to a natural log function. This would suggest (without proving anything) a 20 percent possible advantage to the colder water. But in practice, this does not hold up. Why? Because a large diameter 400 grainer takes a lot of cooling and water just won't cut it; a small boolit cools in the ambient air before hitting colder water. Now, here is the real culprit. Water boils at 220, right? So, there is an air buffer between the boolit and the water, and that buffer prevents colder water from doing it thing. In conclusion, it does not make much difference of what the water temperature is. For a real quench job, we need a "water" that does not boil up through 450 degrees. An added bonus would be a "water" that was heavier than lead. ... felix

[Bret4207]

And that gentleman is why Felix is held in the high regard he is.

[Wayne Smith]

I was water dropping Oldfellers long 8mm Karabiner last weekend. Some of them ended up bent - I imagine I was dropping them too hot and they were bending when they hit the hard surface of the water?

The water is in a plastic washbasin on the floor, the stove/pot on the table. No chance of a splash that high, unless I fall in!

[waksupi]

Wayne, I don't think they are cooled enough before they hit the bottom of the basin. I really think you need something deep like a five gallon bucket to get the cooling effect. I've seen steam bubbles go to the bottom of the bucket with these, and I will bet the bullets are still soft when they reach the bottom in the shallow containers. This quenching is a deep business, to work right.