Critique my boolits

[Scott_In_OKC]

After several false starts over the years, I finally cast my own boolits today. I had a high reject rate as I was learning about controlling my mold and furnace temps.

How do these look? They're representative of the ones I think I look acceptable. They are going to be powder coated, so I'm not too worried about minor cosmetic issues. Anything obvious jump out? They were cast from range scrap I smelted a few weeks ago.

Thanks in advance!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20171016/35275d3fd467d998227321fd6aeb99f3.jpg

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[Krp68]

Those look great to me. Load em up.

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[Tom W.]

Just fine!

[brewer12345]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Coat them and load them. Your gun will tell you if they are good. I shot my first batch last week in several test loadings and found extremely accurate loads for both of the bullets I tried.

[Digital Dan]

They will look a little odd in a .45-120-3-1/4.

Especially if the PC is pink.

[kens]

shoot 'em !!

[lightman]

They look good. Well filled out.

[jeepguy242]

Look great. Shoot them

[jdfoxinc]

You don't want toshoot those failures. Send them to me. I'll dispose of them ( down range ) for you.

[jeepyj]

Looks like they will shoot fine. Once powder coated you'll fine out how they size up. I find some moulds are great for PC others are a little to large to begin with then adding the thickness of the coating they size quite dry. Good luck and be sure to keep us posted.

[Scott_In_OKC]

Thanks everyone. The hot plate I ordered from Amazon was DOA, so I ran several cycles of pour/discard heating the mould until I got some decent boolits. Tomorrow, I'll PC the good ones & melt the rejects.

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[Dan Cash]

They look fine. If you pan lubricated them, you would have shot them by now with out the muss, cost and health risk of powder coating.

[Scott_In_OKC]

I went ahead and powder coated some tonight. Pretty happy with how they turned out.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20171016/3e445b36e7123f4db6c397a37c53ce21.jpg

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[Tripplebeards]

I've been finding PC covers imperfections and squeezes them smooth when sizing. My gun can't tell the difference by the small groups it's printing. PC looks good. Are you tumbling? If so bounce them in a separate container after removing them from tumbling. It will give you a more even coat.

[Scott_In_OKC]

I used the shake and bake method with Smoke's powder.

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[Tripplebeards]

After I shake them I drop them in another Tupperware container and bounce them a few times. It knocks off the excess powder and gives a more even coat.

[Scott_In_OKC]

Thanks, I'll give that a try next time.

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[Tripplebeards]

205949

They don't turn out perfect every time but these were shake and baked with smokes powder and I bumped the heat up to 350 for 20 min.

[runfiverun]

yes I don't try for a heavy coat either.
I did at first then realized I wasn't getting a good smooth coating.

make sure you put a little lube on them before you size them.
it sucks melting drilling beating them out of the die.

[Scott_In_OKC]

I have a feeling there will be a lot of learning as I go along.

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[runfiverun]

there was for all of us.
small batches until you refine your process then fill a bucket.

[OS OK]

Coating for coating all of them considered...I don't think you can beat the smooth even coat of 'clear gloss'...yeah, it just looks like Pb and not very glamorous but it's a dang good lube coat. You won't fill the crimp groove with PC in that cast style and cause problems in the seater scraping PC as it folds the bell inward for the crimp die and it will not cause differing thicknesses on the nose, meplat where you could end up having varying seat depths.
You appear to be paying close attention to the details and it shows in your good work already...these are just some of the details about PC you will pick up as time goes by...so far, "fine work".
Also, oven temperature matters, you can have fine looking PC on the casts but in some instances it's not completely cured properly...if ever that's the case it will leave light grey smears in the barrel and it's very hard to remove...just for spits and giggles verify your particular oven temperature and you will know that the cure is done correctly in future loads. It took me a while to come up to speed regarding oven temps. but thanks to Dragonheart down in Texas he got me steered straight about the oven...use one of these, cheap and reliable, easy to read...


205972

Gettem sized up correctly for your particular gun and don't hesitate to put a little spray lube on them to get the sizing job done. This is one of the areas that Hornady One Shot really works well...you don't have to coat 360* around the PC'd cast, as each cast leaves a thin coat of lube for the next several to be sized. It works better all around especially sizing fatter cast and thick PC'd boolits.

Looks like you are off to a great start both in casting and PC'ing.

[Tripplebeards]

Smokes clear is definitely the smoothest. The only bad thing is I ding the boolits up doing it. Even tumbling one at a time. But the clear fills in the dings...it's like a cleat coat of varnish.

[Bama]

After several false starts over the years, I finally cast my own boolits today. I had a high reject rate as I was learning about controlling my mold and furnace temps.

How do these look? They're representative of the ones I think I look acceptable. They are going to be powder coated, so I'm not too worried about minor cosmetic issues. Anything obvious jump out? They were cast from range scrap I smelted a few weeks ago.

Thanks in advance!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20171016/35275d3fd467d998227321fd6aeb99f3.jpg

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk


Only problem I see is they are not coated and loaded--You did well

[robg]

Pretty boolits

[DerekP Houston]

Thanks everyone. The hot plate I ordered from Amazon was DOA, so I ran several cycles of pour/discard heating the mould until I got some decent boolits. Tomorrow, I'll PC the good ones & melt the rejects.

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That was my method for heating to mold starting out too, they look good I'd shoot em! Lines look sharp

[myg30]

Nice looking boolits Scott. Did you dress them up for photo shoot ? Them sure are nice n clean n shiny. You got bit by the boolit bug now, no turning back!!
Good safe shootin,
Mike

[blue32]

Looks like a Lee 356-120-TC with that beveled base. I don't see any problems.

[mozeppa]

posts #2 thru #29 are completely WRONG!

i will p.m. you with my mailing address and am willing to dispose of those ugly bad attempts of boolit making ....at no charge to you whatsoever!

keep trying and keep on sending them to me for hands on evaluations pertaining to their quality.

thank you , mike

[wistlepig1]

Bullits look great, if that is the Lee 356-120-TC Lee 356-120-TC I got that mold today and well be rolling some Friday!?!?!?!

[Smoke4320]

Choot 'em

[adam_mac84]

I have a feeling there will be a lot of learning as I go along.

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I worked loads in 100-200 batches all summer, and finally shot a competition yesterday without ANY leading, at my desired power factor... took some tweaking, but know my equipment better for it, and can load up a mess of them this winter

:drinks: