iron mold fillout

[charger 1]

Getting a nice accurate boolit from a 45 iron mold. Just would like to see the nice corner filling other guys get. I got the tin,and I've been all over the heat range. Ideas welcome

[Bass Ackward]

Getting a nice accurate boolit from a 45 iron mold. Just would like to see the nice corner filling other guys get. I got the tin,and I've been all over the heat range. Ideas welcome


Stay low on the tin and take the temperature up. If you still aren't where you need to be, then take a stone and make a slight bevel on the top of the blocks. You are just looking to break the edge for venting. You can test first by making sure your sprue plate is really lose and see if things improve. If so, then tighten the sprue plate back to where it just stays in place and stone your bevel.

[Doughty]

Charger,

You didn't say how big a 45 you are talking about, but especially if you are talking about a long 45 rifle bullet, you may have to do all of the above, plus perhaps open up the diameter of the sprue cutter hole. Also you may need to let the lead run a little longer, to allow time for it to be pulled in to the corners.

[Glen]

Sounds like a venting problem to me. I keep a dental pick on hand to clean out the vent line on the face of a mould. If that doesn't help, then I would do the bevel trick described above.

[sundog]

I think Bass is on the right track. Almost every iron mould I own has been stoned on the block face mating edges. Like he says, "just enough to break the edge."

How are you pouring? Ladle, dipper, bottom? Play with the sprue plate tension a little. Are you absolutely sure the cavities are clean? Have you tried smoking? If you use mould release, try putting it on a q-tip and use the q-tip to swab the cavitiy instead of spraying it on directly.

Then..., hold yern mouth right, whisper voodoo incantations. When all else fails..., well, hmmmm. One other thing when ALL other options have been exhausted. Clean the block faces AND cavities and then cold blue them.

I've had problem moulds that I finally took a bronze parts brush to and scubbed with solvent, really vigorously. If it just happens to be a Lyman mould, per chance, and has one of the thin sprue plates, get a thick replacement plate and try that. Also, don't forget to smooth the bottom of the sprue plate. One other thing to try is with blocks closed, sprue plate swung open, smoke the cavity openings with a wood stick match. Lots of tricks to try. sundog

[felix]

Just do it:

http://www.savetheinternet.com/=act

felix

[BABore]

You might try washing the mold, several times, with Dawn soap and really hot water. Use a tooth brush and scrub it good. I made the assumption that brake cleaner would remove all of the oils from machining and storage. Wrong! Had terrible fillout problems until I did it. Look for patterns as to where problems occur to. Is it always in the same spot?

All of the above comments are also pertinent as well. Big bullets are said to be harder to fill out with a bottom pour pot. Don't really know as I use a ladle. When I was using a Lyman ladle I would use one full dipper for each cavity. Keeps the fill pressure the same.The ladle hole was drilled out to give a higher flow rate which helps. Think I had it a 0.170 or so. Now I use a Rowell #1 ladle and have no problems.

You didn't say if this was a multi-cavity mold or not. If it is, do you have fill out problems on both cavities, or just one. If it's a venting problem it usually shows up on the second cavity of a 2C mold. Try switching cavities to verify if this is the case.

[Bent Ramrod]

I've had a few Lyman/Ideal molds where one or two of the vent lines toward the base of the bullet are interrupted by a blockage of some sort near where the alignment pin or hole comes out the mold half. Don't know whether this is a burr thrown up by the drilling of the pin hole or displaced metal when the pin is put in, but sometimes extending this vent line to the pin edge with a three-corner or knife file will eliminate that one irritating rounded band (generally on one side of the bullet) towards the base.

The bluing is a good thing to try, too. I do it simply by casting very hot for a few sessions and leaving the mold open to the air until it cools. Eventually a layer of gold, purple or blue oxidation forms and this is often accompanied by better casting the next time.

I always liked Elmer Keith's diagnosis, too: "Other times it seems to be nothing but pure unadulterated cussedness on the part of the mold.":???: