Are there boolits usable?

[Paulinski]

Can I shoot these boolits. They surface feels smooth but as you can see they are not the best boollits.

Is contamination in my pot that is causing this? If not what is it?

Thanks in advance.

Paul

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e193/Dragnaath/DSCN1744.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e193/Dragnaath/DSCN1741.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e193/Dragnaath/DSCN1743.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e193/Dragnaath/DSCN1740.jpg

[beagle]

I suspect you have a little contamination in the pot. You might be able to flux and then let stand for about 30 minutes and then skim and get it cleaned up.

They don't look bad at all and I've darned sure shot worse than those./beagle

[JSnover]

What Beagle said. Clean your alloy a little. Looks like your temperature fluctuated a little but the more you cast the less trouble you'll have with that.

[Paulinski]

Thanks guys. Its a Lee pot so I' m having some problems with temp control.

I'm going to invest in a Lyman pot in a future.

I will flux it then.

[243winxb]

The 2nd photo likes like Frosted bullets with some Bull Plate Sprue Plate Lube getting into the cavity, is my guess.

[Springfield]

I have got some Bullplate in my cavities before and it didn't leave anything like that. On a hot mould once I purposely coated the cavity with Bullplate and it didn't really do much of anything at all after the second pour. Now, bullet lube in the cavity is a different story.

[canyon-ghost]

I get contamination like that from burning the clips and stuff off with wax. It's just black stuff suspended in wax. You can shoot them, lead is really pretty forgiving. Usually something like that changes the weight and accuracy a little. As long as the base is sharp and good, you can shoot 'em.
Don't get too carried away with the 'perfect bullet syndrome', I still have lines in the nose of some of mine and if they make weight, they get shot. Mostly, you won't notice the difference.
Ron

PS: I just use a little Lyman Mini-mag, nothing fancy.

[stubshaft]

The short answer is yes the are usable. I have has similar frosting in the center of some of the big boolits that I cast. As far as contamination there is a small amount of it. The bigger the boolit, the easier it is to see. Like the other guys said flux a little more and you should be able to skim it off.

[357maximum]

What is the alloy?

How much TIN did you add to the mix?

Looks to me like you may have a tin to antimony imbalance if the alloy is wheelweight based. If that is the case a very good fluxing or two and adding about 5 to 10% more pure lead to the mix will make it go away. I call this tin poisoning and it is usually self induced by the "making it better" syndrome.

[HollandNut]

Well if they are 45 cals , hhhmm , think ya needs to send them to me and I will do some flight training with them :drinks:

[Paulinski]

They are .50 cal :)

Honestly I have no clue what the alloy is. I went to a place that sells cast bullets and bought 20LB of hard lead to get me started.

I'd like to smelt wheelweights tho.

[LAH]

Your bullets show the classic sign of frosting. If you will mike these you will find the frosted part of the bullet will show a void. The mould blocks are too hot causing the lead to vaporize at the hot spot thus leaving a void. You should try casting at 625-650 degrees.

If you are casting at that temp now you need to slow you casting rate. You didn't mention the size/weight of these bullets but from the picture I would guess 45 caliber, 500 plus grains. Large heavy bullets require longer periods of cooling between fillings. I would bring the mould to casting temperature and once the first good bullets are cast make a note of the time between dropping the bullets and refilling with alloy.

I would drop the bullets and wait at least 15 seconds before refilling. While casting I use a large clock with a second hand. If the bullets begin to frost you will have to lengthen the time to 20 seconds. It's by this trail and error you find the correct timing.

I have several 2 cavity moulds for the Master Caster. The 38-147-RN mould can drop bullets every 15 seconds. The 45-265-SWC can drop bullets every 35 seconds. Please note this is with the help of a furnace mounted cooling fan. I fill the mould and as soon as the sprue becomes solid I move the mould under the fan till time to dump.

The worst offender I've used was a Lyman 4 cavity which cast a 45 caliber 500 grain bullet. I could open this every 2 minutes. Any quicker the bullets would frost.

Hope this helps.................Creeker

[Phat Man Mike]

:cry: what kinda of problem are you having with that LEE smelter? that your going to junk it?:-o

[AZ-Stew]

The bands are filled, but you have some contaminant inclusions. I've fired thousands of boolits like these. No problems. Don't lose any sleep over it. You also have some frosting. The mould's a tad hot, but as long as the frosted spots don't cause small diameter spots where they cross the driving bands, again the best thing to do is shoot them. When you get a better pot you'll be better able to control mould temp by varying your casting rate. When you hit the sweet spot you'll cast hundreds of shiny, filled-out boolits that will have little weight or diameter variation. These will shoot well.

Regards,

Stew

[Paulinski]

:cry: what kinda of problem are you having with that LEE smelter? that your going to junk it?:-o

My only complain is that I'm having hard time keeping the temp constant.

[Paulinski]

Your bullets show the classic sign of frosting. If you will mike these you will find the frosted part of the bullet will show a void. The mould blocks are too hot causing the lead to vaporize at the hot spot thus leaving a void. You should try casting at 625-650 degrees.

If you are casting at that temp now you need to slow you casting rate. You didn't mention the size/weight of these bullets but from the picture I would guess 45 caliber, 500 plus grains. Large heavy bullets require longer periods of cooling between fillings. I would bring the mould to casting temperature and once the first good bullets are cast make a note of the time between dropping the bullets and refilling with alloy.

I would drop the bullets and wait at least 15 seconds before refilling. While casting I use a large clock with a second hand. If the bullets begin to frost you will have to lengthen the time to 20 seconds. It's by this trail and error you find the correct timing.

I have several 2 cavity moulds for the Master Caster. The 38-147-RN mould can drop bullets every 15 seconds. The 45-265-SWC can drop bullets every 35 seconds. Please note this is with the help of a furnace mounted cooling fan. I fill the mould and as soon as the sprue becomes solid I move the mould under the fan till time to dump.

The worst offender I've used was a Lyman 4 cavity which cast a 45 caliber 500 grain bullet. I could open this every 2 minutes. Any quicker the bullets would frost.

Hope this helps.................Creeker

The boolits I'm casting are 700 grain 500 S&W.

Thanks for the info.

Pauli

[stubshaft]

My favorite boolits start with the numeral 5!

[lwknight]

One of the first steps in weeding out varibles is to use a thermometer.
A thermometer helped me more than any other single thing.

[thx997303]

Your bullets show the classic sign of frosting. If you will mike these you will find the frosted part of the bullet will show a void. The mould blocks are too hot causing the lead to vaporize at the hot spot thus leaving a void. You should try casting at 625-650 degrees.


I'm sorry, vaporizing? You do know that lead "vaporizes" above the melting point of steel right?

[Tom Myers]

I did not see in your posts where you stated whether you were ladle pouring or bottom pouring your bullets.

My experience has been that large bullets will nearly always resemble yours when they are bottom poured but, if they are poured from a ladle, the will be nearly perfect, without the blemishes and appearance of contaminants.

I have not been able to determine why this is so, although I have tried may different procedures to try and figure it out. Nor has anyone else, that I know of, come up with a good explanation for the cause of this phenomenon.

Just use a ladle and I'll bet the problem goes away.

Hope this helps.

[cbrick]

Creeker is a man I have a lot of respect for and he knows of what he speaks but . . . vaporize?

Many years before the internet and the ability to read of others experiences I would occasionaly get what at the time I named "heat voids", usually inside one or more of the lube grooves. It would always be in the same place and with some moulds more common than others and if I kept casting it got worse.

I came up with the swag that the mould was holding more heat at that spot, possibly the first place the mould started to get too hot. Slowing the casting rate a bit to cool the mould would always cure the problem. Except for HP's that I cast at 750 degrees I always cast WW at 700 degrees. Even so, casting to fast will get the mould too hot.

I also use a fan to cool the mould but if you do this be sure to not have it blowing across the top of the pot. Blowing across the stream of alloy from a bottom pour will increase the oxidation rate fast enough to make well filled out bullets very difficult.

Rick

[DLCTEX]

You didn't say if the boolits are water dropped. Water dropping into hard water will cause speckling on the surface of the boolits.

[LAH]

I'm sorry, vaporizing? You do know that lead "vaporizes" above the melting point of steel right?

Sorry, poor choice of words. In fact I'm not sure what causes the void other than the mould is too hot at the point of the frost. I do know as the temp goes down the frosting goes away. With multi-cavity moulds the frosting always begins [at least for me] at the area between cavities.

[armyrat1970]

You have small problems as others have posted but all in all I would just seat 'em and shoot 'em. They should work fine. Work out your problems later. Not bad looking boolits. And if you are going to run them through a sizer die, a lot of the "bad" looking spots will disappear. When they are twisting through that bore they won't know a difference. The perfect boolit thing is just a wish, so to speak. I haven't seen a factory bullet in either lead or jacketed that I thought was perfect. We may strive for it but in all probability will never attain it. I think you did a good job.

[Paulinski]

Thanks guys.

I do have a thermometer and I'm ladle pouring. I will shoot these and flux the mold.

All in all I find casting enjoyable once again thanks for all your help.

[Tazman1602]

Can I shoot these boolits. They surface feels smooth but as you can see they are not the best boollits.

Is contamination in my pot that is causing this? If not what is it?

Thanks in advance.

Paul






Paul,

Shootem! and if you're going to toss that Lee smelter give me a 'holler first..............

Art

[XWrench3]

i dont think your problem is with your pot. a BIG part of casting quality boolits is patience. if you rush (and that is pretty much what we all have been taught to do for the last 20 years) you are going to get temperature swings in both the mold and pot. just slow down and take your time. if you get some bad ones, just throw them back in and remelt them. are there some contaminants, maybe. i double flux, using parafin for the first flux, and saw dust for the second. stir both in very well, and scrape the gunk off. i leave the sawdust in the pot after i flux with it. are they shootable, you bet. are they perfect, nope. but the really don't need to be unless you are trying to go after some kind of record. if you shoot an animal with them, the LAST thing it will complain about is the looks of the boolit! LOL!!

[armyrat1970]

Thanks guys.

I do have a thermometer and I'm ladle pouring. I will shoot these and flux the mold.

All in all I find casting enjoyable once again thanks for all your help.

Hope you missed typed and meant flux the melt, or alloy. Don't flux the mold.[smilie=w:

[HORNET]

If you're real concerned about the temperature swings, take a look further down the index page at the casting equipment section. there are threads on using a rheostat (a router speed controller from Harbor Freight) as a temperature control to reduce the variation. If you want to go more expensive but with better control, there are also threads on re-fitting the pots with full P.I.D. controls and thermocouples. Depends on how much you want to spend.