.22 Cal PRODUCTION

[Wayne S]

I coined the term PRODUCTION from a picture on the 7 soup Can thread
NOW to the question, Which would be better for casting a quantity of quality 22 Cal bullets ?
1. Two RCBS 2 cavity molds

2. One 4 cavity either SAECO or LBT mold

3. One NEI 6 cavity Alum. mold

OR maybe PRODUCTION ,Quantity, and QUALITY don't go together when talking .22 cal booolits [smilie=1:

[felix]

You are correct about your last sentence. Those are completely separate attributes when talking 22's, i.e., mutually exclusive. ... felix

[GabbyM]

With the little boolits in a Saeco mold I have to work fast to keep the mold up to temp. I can't imagine anyone being able to keep two molds running at the same time due to heat loss. Or more to the point any reason to try.

I'm running mine in a Magma Master Caster machine and get around 700 per hour. I only run the cooling fan intermittent. I've never hand cast with it but I'm thinking if you weren't dumping the mold every twenty seconds it would not stay hot. That would be 360 bullets per hour.

In my experience. You about have to preheat the mold blocks. Then it may be five minutes before the mold starts to drop proper boolits. When I get going I don't' answer the phone or allow any interruptions because I don't' want to start over.

If you're molds are getting hot on you. Just buy a 6” fan at the dollar store and aim it across the area you dump bullets. The fan blowing across your mold as you manipulate it will keep it plenty cool.

With the 22's your big time cost will be placing those little gas checks on the bullet base. About two hours of that and my sanity is at risk. Thoughts of re barreling my 223 to 6mm-223 start floating in my head.

[Mugs]

Wayne
Those boolits I sent you were done in a 2 cavity at about the rate Gabby mentioned , 360 a hour. I've got to agree with him about trying to keep up with 2 molds.
Mugs
IHMSA 5940L

[Wayne S]

thanks Everybody, I'll ponder on it,
thanks Mugs I'll let you know how they do :drinks:

[JIMinPHX]

You are correct about your last sentence. Those are completely separate attributes when talking 22's, i.e., mutually exclusive. ... felix

Do you think that they are really mutually exclusive? Or do you think that one precludes the other? With a .22, I really wonder about that.

[WKAYE]

I have the 4 cavity Saeco. Once it gets up to temperature, all that iron seems to hold the heat well. You can turn them out very quickly. I usually use lino and the quality is very good.

[Bret4207]

IMO, 25 cal being as small as I've done much of yet, IF you can keep the mould hot enough to frost the boolits a bit you'll get good fill out. That's a big IF. IF you could do it the 6 banger will be the quantity champ.

[trickyasafox]

This may be very stupid, so forgive me if its not feasible-

Why don't we just attach a heating element to the bottom of a 22 cal mold if temp is the problem? Just run the cord along the handles and keep it extremely well insulated

I would think it wouldn't take much to either drill into the sides of the block and put a small element in there, or to just attach them to the bottom of the blocks themselves.

is this that bad of an idea? It just seems that if we need heat to keep them running, why not just add heat?

[Echo]

You are correct about your last sentence. Those are completely separate attributes when talking 22's, i.e., mutually exclusive. ... felix

Speaking as an old researcher, 'Independent' and 'Mutually Exclusive' are mutually exclusive - if they are Mutually Exclusive, they are not Independent - if they are Independent, they are not Mutually Exclusive.

Gad, at the expertise available on this Forum! Trivial Pursuit demons, all!

The Old Stat Prof, AKA

[45 2.1]

A double cavity iron or brass mold will produce better boolits here than the others. Takes a long while to make a pile of boolits, but look at the component savings.

[Wayne S]

A double cavity iron or brass mold will produce better boolits here than the others. Takes a long while to make a pile of boolits, but look at the component savings.
Thank you, I bow to experence , although a SAECO iron 4 cavity ??[smilie=w:and sometimes one just has to learn the hard way [smilie=b:

[jhalcott]

When I was young and working in the steel mill we had a heat tape for cold weather pipe protection. I hooked a piece of this to the bottom of a 6mm mold,This was high temp tape! it needed 220 volt connections to warm up. I tried to cast this small bullet in January. It was for the shop electrician who wired the (his) mold. The mold got up to where a 450 degree Templestick would melt. The 4 cavity mold NEVER dropped decent (to me) bullets.! That and the WEIGHT of the whole thing was not a good candidate for me. It did do much better in the summer with a linotype/wheel weight alloy. I believe we only tried WW in January!!!??
those D&%* wires always got in the way too!

[garandsrus]

I have been very pleasantly surprised casting with my RCBS 55gr FP 2 cavity mold. I do preheat it and cast quickly. The boolits come out great when using linotype. I like the hard alloy since these are getting shot from a 22-250. I have shot some pretty good groups from 50 yds, but will move out to 100yds now that the weather is getting nicer.

The nice part of casting .223 boolits is that the pot stays full. You get 127 boolits from a pound of metal :)

John

[johnly]

I must be an outlier as I like the two mold method, and I cast 22 caliber bullets. It allows you to run the molds a bit hotter, as there more time between dropping the metal and cutting the sprue.

John

[mtgrs737]

Casting some 25acp bullets in a RCBS mould the other day in a cold shop I used a propane torch to preheat the mould. I am not so sure that I would of ever gotten the temp up by just casting alone. To keep the temp up I ran excess lead on the sprue plate and let the sprue harden a few extra seconds before cutting. I had no problems keeping the mould hot enough once it got to temp. I cast at 750degrees of ww alloy + 1% tin.

[Wayne S]

I must be an outlier as I like the two mold method, and I cast 22 caliber bullets. It allows you to run the molds a bit hotter, as there more time between dropping the metal and cutting the sprue.

JohnJohn,
what two molds are you using ??

[DrNick]

Idea: If you had a six banger aluminum mold, there's be more than enough space there to mill out two more 'cavities' of say .400 or so....one at each end. Cast these at the same time and you'd be putting more than enough alloy in the mold to keep it hot. Take the plugs and toss em back itno the melt when you're done.

[jameslovesjammie]

Has anyone milled off the bottom part of a mould? Less material that needs to get up to temperature? Just use shorter screws for the mould handles? Just a thought.

[Gerry N.]

I use a Lyman single mold to cast .285" 35 gr. round balls for my .30 cal flintlock squirrel rifle and have no problem with it. That little pill doesn't occupy much space at all in the mold. I pre heat with a propane torch, then turn the flame down to barely lit, and use it to warm the blocks if they cool too much.

Yes, production is slow. On the other hand, I sort of enjoy watching cordwood dry.

Gerry N.

[felix]

Well, of course, you are correct, Echo! But, really, is there anything in this world that is independent? ... felix

[w30wcf]

I agree. I would stick with no more than a 2 cavity mold for casting match grade .22 bullets with (important) the addition of a new sprue plate with .06 to .07 diameter sprue holes.

That will speed up production thus keeping the mold up to temp. How does 500 match grade .22 bullets / hr sound?.:-D

w30wcf

[Echo]

Well, of course, you are correct, Echo! But, really, is there anything in this world that is independent? ... felix

Carrumba! I gave up teaching Stat YEARS ago! But!

True, many items are CORRELATED, meaning they sorta happen together, sometime, but that doesn't mean they are NOT independent! The definition of independent is that the occurence of one does NOT change the probability of occurrence of the other. Rolling two dice, the occurrence of a '3' on one does not change the probability of of a '3' on the other - those events are INDEPENDENT!

But the occurrence of a '3' on one die means that die CANNOT also have a '4' showing. Those events are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.

So things can randomly occur together and still be independent.

Believe me, I can bore you SILLY talking about Inferential Statistics! See? I'm already doing it!

[72coupe]

Echo, one of my favorite sayings is, polite conversation ends when you tell someone more than they really want to know about any subject.

You are not there yet.

I must be really slow. I spent most of Sunda pouring wheel weights into a Lyman 225415 mold. 6 hours and only had 1320 bullets to show for it.

I was happy with that until I read the 360 per hour figure.

It was more than 100° in my garage so keeping the mold hot was not much of a problem.

[kir_kenix]

I cast both a 44 gr lyman rn and the rcbs 55-sp. Both of them are 2 cavity molds. I can cast to about 300 rounds/hr of usable boolits. Maybe 90-95% of those get sorted into my "match" pile, and the rest make it into the plinking pile.

I am only capably of keeping one mold running at a time, but I keep cranking on that one mold. I wouldn't mind a 4 cavity saeco, but I think I'd have trouble keeping up with a 6 cavity mold and keep my quality level up.

Of the 2 molds, the Lyman is the better performer. The RCBS can be pushed alot harder, but I'll trade a few fps for better accuracy anyday. Sizing is very important for these little pills, and your lube choice is more important as well.

Good luck on your search for both quality and quantity...but I think you are going to compromise one way or the other.