First steel mold came today

[ghh3rd]

Well I just acquired my first steel mold - a Lyman 452460 4 cavity. Naturally the first thing I realized is that this thing is heavy, as expected... heading toward 3 lbs with the handles.

Most of my other molds are aluminum, with a couple of brass group buy molds. I'm wondering what to expect when I start casting with this compared to my others - I'm hoping that once I get it up to temp, it will start raining boolits. :-)

Randy

[country gent]

Clean it good with accetone then with dishsoap and water. Pre heat it on a hot plate to around 350*-400* and start casting I dont normally smoke iron molds or use a mould release on them they ussually cast pretty good as is. Getting big blocks up to temp may take a few casts. Pour big sprues to help heat it up. Setting it on the top of the pot helps but dosnt always get these big boys up to temp as well and as fast as the hot plate does. Run it fairly quick pace to start and you should get good bullets.

[Leadmelter]

Ditto, but once you get in the zone, you will have a pile of beautiful boolits and an empty pot.
You won't have to go to the gym after two hours of steady casting.
Bon Chance
Leadmelter
MI

[runfiverun]

get it to temp then slow down the casting rate.
going slow is going fast.

make yourself a nice place to set the mold while your filling it and counting out the sprue cooling time.
this will reduce the amount of wear and tear on your wrists.
I made a box to fit under my casting pot.
I drag the mold to fill it then let go of the handles and count then pick it up and open the cutter taking the sprue in my gloved hand [returning it to the pot] and then dump out the boolits.
close the mold and return it to the box to be filled again.
it's all in a nice little circle.
and I'm only holding the mold in my hands about 30% of the time.

[toallmy]

I find the steel molds a pleasure to cast with . Get into a good speed and just go with it . You can probably cast at a little lower temp to .

[Victor N TN]

I have an old H&G 45 acp 6 cavity steel or iron mold. I usually leave the mold over the pot warming up until the pot gets up to temp. When I start casting I turn the thermostat with open. It never gets too hot. Have a stock of lead alloy set where you can get to it quickly.

Thanks will get better with practice.

Good luck.
Victor

[Mk42gunner]

Well I just acquired my first steel mold - a Lyman 452460 4 cavity. Naturally the first thing I realized is that this thing is heavy, as expected... heading toward 3 lbs with the handles.

Most of my other molds are aluminum, with a couple of brass group buy molds. I'm wondering what to expect when I start casting with this compared to my others - I'm hoping that once I get it up to temp, it will start raining boolits. :-)

Randy

I've got that same mold. While it doesn't rain boolits quite as fast as a H&G, it will still drain a pot fairly quickly. Go back and read rfr's cycle of operations, it makes a lot of sense.

Figure out a way to preheat your ingots so you don't cool your alloy as you replenish the pot. I set my long ingots across the top of the pot to reclaim some of the wasted heat.

Robert

[Echo]

Make yourself a little stage out of 1x3, or whatever you turn up, so the placing the mold on the stage puts it exactly right to go under the spout. I have this same mold, and have cast thousands of boolits - good accurate boolit. And as someone above mentioned, put the mold on top of the furnace when you start. Turn the control all the way up, and when the melt looks like it is ready, start casting. Put an ingot on top of the furnace when you take the mold off, and place it into the melt when appropriate, replace it, and press on.

[ghh3rd]

Thanks for the tips - I am using a 20lb Lee furnace, but just remembered that a friend gave me his old 10lb Lee furnace. I suppose I could use it to keep an extra 10lbs of lead melted. In fact I just had an idea - I have an old saw blade that I could put across the 10lb furnace to lay the mold on to keep it nice and toasty.

[Frank V]

Heh with that four cavity mold you will be able to see your lead pot drop with each filling of the mold. You will get a pile of good bullets though.

[runfiverun]

I built a thick steel top for all of my pots. [1/2"]
it acts as a heat sink of sorts but it adds mass to the pots and helps keep the alloy at a more consistent temperature.
it's a good place to store my next ingot going in the pot and to rest the mold I'm gonna use next.
it's also a good thing to have if you drop a cold ingot in the pot because the moisture will bubble up and the top blocks almost everything that would come out.

[Frank V]

ghh3rd
How's it going? Have you gotten a pile of bullets yet?
Let us know.

[ghh3rd]

I sprayed the mold with brake cleaner, scrubbed the cavities and surfaces with a toothbrush. I was letting it dry naturally but already saw a spot of rust on the sprue plate so put the mold on the Lee pot to expedite the drying. Once the cleaner was gone, I applied bullplate lube to the top & bottom of the sprue plate. the top of the mold, and a small drop in around the sprue plate screw.

I was going to let it heat up some more, but it was going to get dark soon and I wanted to make a few boolits, so I just started casting, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10.. about the 15th cast the mold was about heated up, the lead was at about 700 or so and the boolits began to be keepers.

I dropped them into 5 gal pail of water and proceeded to cast about 25 more times and wound up with over 100 good boolits... next time there will be many, many more boolits :-)

I was actually kind of shocked when I dropped one on my scale and it read 199.9 grains! The next was 200.4, 200.4 200.1.... I like this mold!

I measured the boolits and found that they are dropping at .453-.454 with my alloy... I like this mold!

I ran them through my Lyman lube sizer guessing at the new adjustment and pulled out the first one, perfectly lubed, and didn't have to wipe it's nose or clean it's bottom :-) They were the easiest boolits to lube so far...

Did I say that I like this mold?

[Mk42gunner]

I have two double cavities and a four cavity of that design. They normally drop very very close to 207 grains with my alloy. I don't remember the diameter, but they all clean up in a .452 H&I die.

They look awful short when loaded, but they feed well and cut round holes in target paper.

I normally push them with 231, but I am getting kind of low on that.

Robert

[Frank V]

Great report ghh3rd.

Sounds like you are on your way to getting a lot of bullets to keep your gun running.

[ghh3rd]

It was a nice cool breezy day today so I set up the pot on the back porch and started casting some of the 452460. I'm not sure how long I was casting, but I did get tired and pressed on for a while longer. Total of 36 lbs of 200 gr 452460 for the .45 acp.

What I found about using this mold is that it likes the stream of lead to be hot, like 750, and the mold close to the spout on the Lee pot, and aimed right in the middle of the sprue hole. So long as my aim was good, I got good boolits. Of course I took an obligatory picture to attach.

166431

I needed to cast some, since my 18 yr old son took an interest in reloading last night and took over the turret press and used up the boolits I had on hand. I think I'm going to give him a lesson on using the lube sizer next :-)

166432

By the way, my reloading bench is set up in the corner of my bedroom :-). I didn't have anywhere else to put it, and my wife suggested that corner. She's a keeper!

Randy

[Frank V]

Wow when your Wife suggests the bedroom for reloading I'd say she's a keeper.
Heck when you get your Son helping with the reloading it'll be great Father Son time.
When I was about 15 my Father had my Brother & I reloading under his supervision.
When I was 16 Dad turned the reloading over to me. He'd buy the components & I'd load for he & I.
My Brother started reloading with me about a year later.
Great stuff helps Father & Son become one with a hobby!!!!!!