SilverBow
08-30-2009, 05:13 PM
Hi everyone,
Despite having started purchasing casting supplies over a year ago, it was not until yesterday that I finally had my first casting session, and I was pretty happy about it. I smelted about 20lbs of WW a few months ago in a stainless sauce pan over a Coleman single burner stove and made some muffin tin ingots. For my casting, I used the same Coleman burner and a capped pipe that I had. The pipe has an an inner diameter of 4.75" and I cut it to 6", so it holds about 10lbs of lead. I started off with 3 muffin tin ingots, which stack nicely in the pipe, for a total of 6lbs. The ingots took about 20 min. to melt. Here's a picture of my setup:
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/setup.jpg
The plywood boards behind the burner were an impromptu wind break. I'm going to make a less flamable workspace for my next casting session. Once the ingots were melted, I added 6" of 95/5 solder and fluxed by stirring with a stick. The ingots were pretty clean, so there was very little dross to remove. Although I had a thermometer, the setup didn't allow me to keep the thermo. in the pot at the same time as I was casting, so only checked temperature at the start of each pot. I initially brought the melt up to 600F. When I placed my RCBS ladel into the melt, the lead solidified like thick chocolate in the ladel, so I had to leave the ladel in for another minute to bring it up to temperature. In other words, I don't think my lead was overly hot.
For the mould, I used a new RCBS 35-200-FN in Lee handles. I prepped the mould by simmering it for 15 min. in hot water with a couple of drops of dish soap, followed by a 10 minute simmer in clean water. I poured a couple of bullets to warm the mould and then prepped alignment pins, the mould top, and the sprue plate with Bullplate Lube using the Q-tip method (not much at all, just a dab on the Q-tip for the entire mould followed by a wipedown with the clean end of the Q-tip).
I was quite shaky at first as I figured out how the lead would pour. Initially, as the mould heated up, the sprue was freezing almost immediately and I would often get incomplete pours. But after a few rounds, I was starting to figure things out. I was surprised at how fast you have to move to keep the mould temperature up. For my first few drops, I collected the sprues and put them back in the pot, but then I realized that that was taking too long and instead just kept pouring and dumping.
One challenge I had was being lefthanded. I drilled and tapped the ladel so that I could move the handle to the other side. However, whenever I held the mould in my right hand and titled it towards the ladel, the sprue plate would shift under gravity and would either completely drop or be misaligned. I soon realized that I had to hold the mould flat and pour/swirl the lead through the sprue. I was hoping to try holding the ladel directly against the sprue to build up some pressure, like in this picture, but it was impossible with my setup:
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/sprue.jpg
Next time I cast, I'm going to flip the mould in the handles and see if that helps. All-in-all, I spent about 3 hrs. setting up and casting. I went through 3 cycles of the pot (15-18lbs), and realized that it doesn't take long to empty a pot of 6 lbs of lead! My cull rate was very high. I ended up keeping a total of 55 bullets, which I figure is < 10% keep rate. But I definitely felt that my yields were improving with each pot. I also found that with the last pot, I was casting much quicker, and that was resulting in a hotter mould and slightly more frosted bullets.
Here are some pictures of 5 randomly chosen "keepers". The bullets mic'd at .359+, which should be good for my Marlin 35 Rems and 357 Mag. My plan is to slug my barrels to make sure that .359 is sufficient to fill them up, and if so, use a .360 Lee sizer to seat the GC. Finally, I plan to tumble lube and then dip with Lee Liquid Alox. I'll post some before and afters, along with weight, when I get that far.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/front.jpg
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/bottom.jpg
I found that the best way to cull quickly was to check the bases of the bullets. I was a bit alarmed by the number of bullets that had every-so-slightly curved base edges. The keepers all had sharply-defined bottoms. Here's are two pictures showing one of the culled bullets on the left and a keeper on the right. Was I right to discard any bullets with a slightly curved bottom? Does it matter? And what can I do to try to keep the bases sharp? I'm hoping that holding the ladel spout against the sprue will help in the next casting session.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/bevel1.jpg
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/bevel2.jpg
So, anyways, that's the story of my first casting session. I can see why everyone here enjoys casting so much. It's very rewarding to converting junk lead into something usable. I'm hoping that I'll luck out and quickly stumble on an accurate load for this bullet; one that I can use for deer hunting this fall. The other moulds that I have to try over the next few casting sessions are a Lyman 358627 (215gr GC Keith), Ranch Dog 35-180, the NOE 360180WFN Group Buy, and a Lee TL358SWC.
I'd appreciate any and all comments about the bullets and my process. Seeing as I have no prior experience with cast lead bullets, there may very well be some flaws in my keepers that I'm not seeing. In fact, just looking at the closeup pictures of the "keepers", I can see that the middle one looks pretty soft around the edges.
Happy casting,
Stirling
Despite having started purchasing casting supplies over a year ago, it was not until yesterday that I finally had my first casting session, and I was pretty happy about it. I smelted about 20lbs of WW a few months ago in a stainless sauce pan over a Coleman single burner stove and made some muffin tin ingots. For my casting, I used the same Coleman burner and a capped pipe that I had. The pipe has an an inner diameter of 4.75" and I cut it to 6", so it holds about 10lbs of lead. I started off with 3 muffin tin ingots, which stack nicely in the pipe, for a total of 6lbs. The ingots took about 20 min. to melt. Here's a picture of my setup:
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/setup.jpg
The plywood boards behind the burner were an impromptu wind break. I'm going to make a less flamable workspace for my next casting session. Once the ingots were melted, I added 6" of 95/5 solder and fluxed by stirring with a stick. The ingots were pretty clean, so there was very little dross to remove. Although I had a thermometer, the setup didn't allow me to keep the thermo. in the pot at the same time as I was casting, so only checked temperature at the start of each pot. I initially brought the melt up to 600F. When I placed my RCBS ladel into the melt, the lead solidified like thick chocolate in the ladel, so I had to leave the ladel in for another minute to bring it up to temperature. In other words, I don't think my lead was overly hot.
For the mould, I used a new RCBS 35-200-FN in Lee handles. I prepped the mould by simmering it for 15 min. in hot water with a couple of drops of dish soap, followed by a 10 minute simmer in clean water. I poured a couple of bullets to warm the mould and then prepped alignment pins, the mould top, and the sprue plate with Bullplate Lube using the Q-tip method (not much at all, just a dab on the Q-tip for the entire mould followed by a wipedown with the clean end of the Q-tip).
I was quite shaky at first as I figured out how the lead would pour. Initially, as the mould heated up, the sprue was freezing almost immediately and I would often get incomplete pours. But after a few rounds, I was starting to figure things out. I was surprised at how fast you have to move to keep the mould temperature up. For my first few drops, I collected the sprues and put them back in the pot, but then I realized that that was taking too long and instead just kept pouring and dumping.
One challenge I had was being lefthanded. I drilled and tapped the ladel so that I could move the handle to the other side. However, whenever I held the mould in my right hand and titled it towards the ladel, the sprue plate would shift under gravity and would either completely drop or be misaligned. I soon realized that I had to hold the mould flat and pour/swirl the lead through the sprue. I was hoping to try holding the ladel directly against the sprue to build up some pressure, like in this picture, but it was impossible with my setup:
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/sprue.jpg
Next time I cast, I'm going to flip the mould in the handles and see if that helps. All-in-all, I spent about 3 hrs. setting up and casting. I went through 3 cycles of the pot (15-18lbs), and realized that it doesn't take long to empty a pot of 6 lbs of lead! My cull rate was very high. I ended up keeping a total of 55 bullets, which I figure is < 10% keep rate. But I definitely felt that my yields were improving with each pot. I also found that with the last pot, I was casting much quicker, and that was resulting in a hotter mould and slightly more frosted bullets.
Here are some pictures of 5 randomly chosen "keepers". The bullets mic'd at .359+, which should be good for my Marlin 35 Rems and 357 Mag. My plan is to slug my barrels to make sure that .359 is sufficient to fill them up, and if so, use a .360 Lee sizer to seat the GC. Finally, I plan to tumble lube and then dip with Lee Liquid Alox. I'll post some before and afters, along with weight, when I get that far.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/front.jpg
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/bottom.jpg
I found that the best way to cull quickly was to check the bases of the bullets. I was a bit alarmed by the number of bullets that had every-so-slightly curved base edges. The keepers all had sharply-defined bottoms. Here's are two pictures showing one of the culled bullets on the left and a keeper on the right. Was I right to discard any bullets with a slightly curved bottom? Does it matter? And what can I do to try to keep the bases sharp? I'm hoping that holding the ladel spout against the sprue will help in the next casting session.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/bevel1.jpg
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm26/jsmithsmithj/casting/bevel2.jpg
So, anyways, that's the story of my first casting session. I can see why everyone here enjoys casting so much. It's very rewarding to converting junk lead into something usable. I'm hoping that I'll luck out and quickly stumble on an accurate load for this bullet; one that I can use for deer hunting this fall. The other moulds that I have to try over the next few casting sessions are a Lyman 358627 (215gr GC Keith), Ranch Dog 35-180, the NOE 360180WFN Group Buy, and a Lee TL358SWC.
I'd appreciate any and all comments about the bullets and my process. Seeing as I have no prior experience with cast lead bullets, there may very well be some flaws in my keepers that I'm not seeing. In fact, just looking at the closeup pictures of the "keepers", I can see that the middle one looks pretty soft around the edges.
Happy casting,
Stirling