jsizemore
10-06-2008, 05:28 PM
I tried different things to get good fill out in my "0" sharpshooter mold. While cruzin' this website I saw that someone was using a pencil as mold release. I had plenty of #2 pencils laying around so I gave it a try. I kept my Lee 20-4 pot running at 800-850 degrees, which is where I had the best success before. On my 2nd pour I had almost 100% fill out. YEAH. And then it slowly went downhill from there with only 50% fillout. That was still better than I had been doing. Next time I cast, I reduced the pour rate adjustment to a trickle (about a 1/2 turn from bottomed out) and my success rate increased to about 70%. I had used the pencil on the mold 2 more times to improve shot formation and as the mold got hotter my success rate imprved to 95%. The mold was so hot that after I poured the final cavity, it took about 5-6 seconds for the lead to solidify enough to open the mold. When I keep the temp between 850- 900 deg the shot comes out lookn' nice and shiny like polished ball bearings. In 2 hrs of casting I ended up with 12lbs 5 ozs of finished shot. It seems the secret was the pencil and slowing down the flow rate from my bottom pour pot. When there is about 1/2" of lead left in the bottom of the pot, the stream should be down to a trickle. When the pot is full it should take about 2-3 seconds to fill each cavity. Hope this helps any newbees intrested in buying one of these molds.