Difficult casting session today

[brewer12345]

Spoiler: make darn sure that whatever you drop your boolits onto from the mold has no synthetic fibers whatsoever.

I bought a pair of Lee 6 bangers for my 44 mag Marlin, namely the 429-200-RF and the 429-240-SWC. I want the plain base for a soft shooting cowboy type load (which this gun loves, specifically the Ultramax 240 grain cowboy load) and the gas checked variant for a racier load (jacketed 240s with 11.5 grains of Longshot is the bee's knees). I cast 20 pounds and change of keepers with the 200 grain mold and they are .432 as cast and are +/- 1 grain of 213 cast with range scrap plus a couple to 3% pewter. All fine and well. I tumble lubed them and will try shooting them unsized with Trail Boss.

The SWCs cast pretty nicely, although I overheated the mold and got some frosty ones at one point. I was using a wool blanket the dogs had chewed a hole in to drop these boolits on. What I did not realize was that this blanket must have had some synthetic fibers in it because a third or so of the boolits turned out to be stuck to the dang blanket and had melted fibers attached to them. I scraped off what I could and tossed the rest in the reject pile when it was worse than I would bother with. Cast with COWWs plus a few percent of pewter, these were right around 233 grains without the check or lube, which means they are right on the money for 240 grains as a finished product. The odd thing is that the diameters seem to range from .432 to .437. This might have something to do with mold heat ranging from barely hot enough to hot enough to frost, perhaps I did not have the mold quite fully closed when I cast some, or perhaps the cavities are inconsistent in size.

Pretty frustrating to toss a third of my production for something as stupid as using the wrong thing to drop the boolits onto. Grrr...

I plan to make up a dummy cartridge to see if the SWCs will cycle through the action of the Marlin. If they do, will I have problems trying to size these in, say, a .430 Lee push through die?

[Bzcraig]

Sizing from 432 to 430, no problem. Sizing from 437 to 430, problem. Could the 437's be oblong?

[brewer12345]

Sizing from 432 to 430, no problem. Sizing from 437 to 430, problem. Could the 437's be oblong?

Like, out of round? Dunno. Will fool with them tomorrow. I tend to be "caliper challenged" so I don't entirely trust my measurements after a long casting session. The bigger question is whether the Marlin will feed a SWC. If I get past that hurdle, I will have to figure out what size I want these. Since the plain base boolits are conveniently .432, if they shoot well unsized I may end up buying a sizing die in that diameter.

[Bzcraig]

Like, out of round? Dunno. Will fool with them tomorrow. I tend to be "caliper challenged" so I don't entirely trust my measurements after a long casting session. The bigger question is whether the Marlin will feed a SWC. If I get past that hurdle, I will have to figure out what size I want these. Since the plain base boolits are conveniently .432, if they shoot well unsized I may end up buying a sizing die in that diameter.

Yes, out of round. When you get the opportunity buy a micrometer and use it for fine measuring, much more accurate than calipers.

[brewer12345]

Yes, out of round. When you get the opportunity buy a micrometer and use it for fine measuring, much more accurate than calipers.

I had no idea. I find calipers hard to use, so perhaps a micrometer would be better.

[lightman]

I occasionally have a day when things just won't go my way. Often simple things that add up to make for a non productive day. Some days you would be better to just stay in bed, if only you when those days were going to happen!

I've not had the problem of inconsistent diameters or out of round bullets so I can't really help you any. I might inspect the mold looking for anything keeping it from closing completely.

I have both digital and dial calipers and micrometers and I can say that micrometers require as much or even more finess as a caliper. Its nothing that can't be learned by spending some time measuring stuff with one but don't expect them to be easier.

Good Luck in getting this straightened out!

[whisler]

Any chance you had one or more digits on the sprue plate handle on the oversized ones. They say that will open the mold some.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I have a towell with a blue stripe woven in it that is polyester. The boolits stuck hard to that stripe. I folded it under to avoid that and remelted the marred boolits.

[OS OK]

I've gotten into the habit of holding the mould up to a light source with the sprue plate open, squeezing the mould handles with the same force I use to pour the cast, then twisting the mould back and forth to see if I can see light coming from between the parting surfaces of the mould. The bottom of the mould is facing the light and I'm looking through from the top of the mould.
Now the habit is so ingrained that I do it unconsciously about every 10 throws.
Should I see light, I'll use a small wooden stick, sorta the size of a pocket ruler to scrape the mould surfaces between on the parting faces & at the same time take a look at the pins and their recesses to see if there's any small lead deposits there.
After cleaning, hold the mould up to the light once more to check for light. This takes only a minute or two, doesn't let the mould cool too much and doesn't interrupt the production of round properly cast boolits.

whisler made a valid point about the sprue handle...don't touch it as you pour as it will part the mould surfaces a wee little bit. Try it with a cold mould and see yourself how that happens.
Where the sprue plate locks under the bolt on the other side of the mould becomes a fulcrum point that opens the front, far end of the blocks.

[brewer12345]

Could have been the sprue plate issue. I have to see if the marlin will feed the SWCs. If it will then I will figure out how to cull the ones that are simply too big, or I might simply remelt the whole batch.

[OS OK]

Prolly one thing for certain here...your going to have to purchase 'something' so you can continue to save money casting! ;)

[reddog81]

Yes, out of round. When you get the opportunity buy a micrometer and use it for fine measuring, much more accurate than calipers.

Any pair of reloading calipers will be able to measure if a bullet is out of round to the tune of .005. A micrometer is a much more precise tool and not nearly as easy to use as most calipers. For 98% of reloading purposes calipers are good enough. Honestly a set of cheap digital calipers is the most handy tool for quick measuring of bullets.

If the bullets are out of round its probably due to the handles not closing all the way. build up of lead on the molds blocks, alignment pins coming loose, holding the handles incorrectly can all cause this issue.

[brewer12345]

Prolly one thing for certain here...your going to have to purchase 'something' so you can continue to save money casting! ;)

Maybe. 44 mag is barely legal for deer in my state and only manages it with a few commercial rounds (must have 1000 FPE at 100 yards), so this rifle is mostly a range toy for me. I don't need to be blasting screamers every time for target work, so if only the RNFP plain base mold works out for me it isn't a huge deal. OTOH, if I get to shoot this thing for under $5 a box of shells, it will be plenty fun to do.

[Soundguy]

Spoiler: make darn sure that whatever you drop your boolits onto from the mold has no synthetic fibers whatsoever.

I bought a pair of Lee 6 bangers for my 44 mag Marlin, namely the 429-200-RF and the 429-240-SWC. I want the plain base for a soft shooting cowboy type load (which this gun loves, specifically the Ultramax 240 grain cowboy load) and the gas checked variant for a racier load (jacketed 240s with 11.5 grains of Longshot is the bee's knees). I cast 20 pounds and change of keepers with the 200 grain mold and they are .432 as cast and are +/- 1 grain of 213 cast with range scrap plus a couple to 3% pewter. All fine and well. I tumble lubed them and will try shooting them unsized with Trail Boss.

The SWCs cast pretty nicely, although I overheated the mold and got some frosty ones at one point. I was using a wool blanket the dogs had chewed a hole in to drop these boolits on. What I did not realize was that this blanket must have had some synthetic fibers in it because a third or so of the boolits turned out to be stuck to the dang blanket and had melted fibers attached to them. I scraped off what I could and tossed the rest in the reject pile when it was worse than I would bother with. Cast with COWWs plus a few percent of pewter, these were right around 233 grains without the check or lube, which means they are right on the money for 240 grains as a finished product. The odd thing is that the diameters seem to range from .432 to .437. This might have something to do with mold heat ranging from barely hot enough to hot enough to frost, perhaps I did not have the mold quite fully closed when I cast some, or perhaps the cavities are inconsistent in size.

Pretty frustrating to toss a third of my production for something as stupid as using the wrong thing to drop the boolits onto. Grrr...

I plan to make up a dummy cartridge to see if the SWCs will cycle through the action of the Marlin. If they do, will I have problems trying to size these in, say, a .430 Lee push through die?

those rejects with synthetic fibers stuck to them... acetone or laq thinner might just eat them fibers... or a quick pass thru a candle flame may do the same to them as well. just stay under 600 degrees.

ps, I drop my casts either into a water filled 5g bucket with a flap of old denim over it with a hole cut in it.. it stops splashes. If I'm not water dropping, then folded denim from old pants legs works, as does big sheet scraps of tanned leather.

[Hootmix]

Folded denim pant leg ..works great ..thicker the better.


coffee's ready,,,,Hootmix.

[Skunk1]

Drop mine on a cotton towel, like the ones I use to wax cars. Thanks for the heads up though. I figured I drop some on whatever clean rag I had in the shop someday.

[Thin Man]

Brewer, the SAAMI spec for 44 Mag COL is 1.600" but my Marlin won't always feed handloads at that length. It's a mix of features like the length of the loaded cartridge and the shape or profile of the nose of the boolit. Sometimes even the boolits that appear to be reasonable on the ogive will balk and I have to load them shorter. Now I have gone to a standard COL of 1.575" will feed pretty much any boolit I load, and if so I can still experiment for a longer loaded length. Some of my SWC profiles will flow only if crimped over the top of the forward driving band. Not the happiest answer for the issue, but we have to accept what the rifle will give us. After all, each rifle operates by its own rules, not SAAMI's or ours.