All newbies please read!!

[waco]

Hello all
this one important thing will go a long way and help you with a lot of problems in the begining as far as casting your first boolits. Heat, heat, heat, heat!!!!!!
I hear so many say.... Wrinkles, did not fill out, under sized...ect....
Crank up the heat, get the mold HOT, and start making keepers from the start with few rejects. Go spend 10 bucks at wallgreens and buy a small hot plate to pre heat your mold while your lead is comming up to temp. Clean your mold well!!!!
My favorite way is to scrub with an old toothbrush and dishsoap, then boil in water for 10 min.
These few simple tips will go along way to helping you cast good keeper boolits from the get go.
So.... Clean it, heat it, cast it, then show me how well they shoot!!!!!
Hope this helps someone.
Waco

[JSAND]

I agree with waco, like in almost everything, proper preparation will prevent piss poor performance. I am very new to casting, but bought into this simple principal from the start and have had no issues thus far with any of the boolits that I have cast. I clean my moulds thoroughly at the start and let them heat up on my melter, I do a couple of cast and usually by the second cast I'm making boolits. I guess I got lucky with my lee's from the way alot of people on here talk about them ( the double cav anyway), my 309 cast the prettiest boolits of all my moulds I believe with a Lyman 4 cav 38 next. I don't heat to frosting, but I run my lee bottom pour pretty hot, just seems to work better for me when the lead is really flowing.

[Bret4207]

Yeah, good point. Learn the difference between POT HEAT and MOULD HEAT. 2 different things. Pot heat is relatively unimportant, don't worry about what number someone else runs their pot on. As long as the alloy flows freely you can make boolits. MOULD HEAT is the numero uno concern. Let that sucker get HOT! Cast fast till you get the mould up to heat. Every second it's empty it's cooling off. Quit looking at and playing with the freshly dropped boolits. It's fine if it seems the sprue takes too long to cool and solidify. That's your clue to slow the casting tempo a bit. You'll get to a point where your tempo and pot temp reach a happy medium and you'll drop great boolits every pour.

Of course then your pot will be empty and you have to start over again. That's why I use a pot holding 30+ lbs!

[cajun shooter]

I go one step further. I purchased a good hot plate, single burner to use for my casting. RCBS only makes 2 cavity molds so I have three 427098's for my 44-40 guns. I not only preheat on the plate but keep using it during my casting session.I fill a mold and put it on the plate and after all three are full I start by dumping and refill and move on to the next one. This allows my mold to stay at just the right temp to give me those perfect bullets that I look for.

[sqlbullet]

I gotta +1 this as well. Anytime I see a 'My First Cast' thread, I know what I am going to read. I am sure I can open every one and post 'More heat' and be at least partly right.

And it is mold head that is the real killer. Most guys don't try to cast lead at the oatmeal stage. But they don't pre-heat the mold enough, and then they spend so much time looking at the bullets and thinking about what might be causing them to be all wrinkly the mold can't get hot.

So, clean it, heat it, then cast 100 bullets as fast as you can. Don't inspect, don't even look at them. Fill, let the sprue cool for a count of 4 after you see the lead freeze, cut, dump, close and fill. Increase your count a little if sprue's are starting to smear. I never worry about a little tearing.

[SharpsShooter]

All good advice. I'll add that for relatively little cash output you can and should use a proper thermometer. It will go a long way toward the elimination of the the "Is it hot enough?" question. Take good notes. All moulds have a preferred temperature range that will produce the highest percentage of keepers. The thermometer allows you to be consistent and consistency breeds accuracy.

SS

[mooman76]

Another thing I might add. I think some of the newbees are fussing too much over getting good bullets from the start. If you are so busy fussing over the bullets instead of getting into a cycle of casting, the mould will never get up to and remain the proper temp for dropping good bullets.

[sucngas]

Ok, I am a newbie. I have done all of the above, the problem I have is quite the opposite, if I am using a large mold, 45 cal 405 gr, or 50 cal 325 gr, the problem I have is the mold gets too hot after 40 or 50 bullets. The sprue takes a long time to solidify (more than 10 sec.), the bullets are very heavily frosted, and the bullets begin to deform when they are dropped on a soft towel. I am using lee molds. If I switch molds, and let one cool down, everything goes back to normal. Just wondering if I am doing something wrong, or if this is normal. Is my alloy too hot (no thermometer)? I am using a lee 10 lb bottom pour pot, and run it between the 3 and 5 on the setting. However, I can cast 30 cal 180 gr bullets one right after another until my arm falls off, so I am thinking possibly this is just a problem with large molds.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Quit looking at and playing with the freshly dropped boolits.

Now that's just funny! [smilie=l:

[badgeredd]

Ok, I am a newbie. I have done all of the above, the problem I have is quite the opposite, if I am using a large mold, 45 cal 405 gr, or 50 cal 325 gr, the problem I have is the mold gets too hot after 40 or 50 bullets. The sprue takes a long time to solidify (more than 10 sec.), the bullets are very heavily frosted, and the bullets begin to deform when they are dropped on a soft towel. I am using lee molds. If I switch molds, and let one cool down, everything goes back to normal. Just wondering if I am doing something wrong, or if this is normal. Is my alloy too hot (no thermometer)? I am using a lee 10 lb bottom pour pot, and run it between the 3 and 5 on the setting. However, I can cast 30 cal 180 gr bullets one right after another until my arm falls off, so I am thinking possibly this is just a problem with large molds.

You need to slow your tempo a bit. Aluminum molds will heat up faster and soon will get too hot to make good boolits if you don't adjust your tempo. Large boolits have more alloy to cool to set a boolit and therefore heat the mold more than small boolits. You have seen the cure; by letting the mold cool some, you can again make good boolits... so it is fairly certain that you are casting too fast. Likely your alloy isn't way to hot...just that your tempo is too fast for the size of the boolits. As for alloy temp...the potentiometer used on Lee pots are not that consistent one to another or sometimes to themselves....save yourself a lot of problems and guessing...get a thermometer...you,ll find that you will use it less as you gain experience but you'll also find you use it to get better consistency regularly. Good luch and good casting to you.

Edd

[sucngas]

Thanks Edd, kind of what I figured, but it's nice to have someone with more experience confirm my suspicions. Thanks again. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, casting with two molds (when one gets hot, I swap, then go back and forth).

[casterofboolits]

wACO is right, preheating your molds will result in almost no rejected boolits.

Another little trick is to smoke the cavities of the mold using a Bic lighter. Then I spray the top of the mold and the bottom of the sprue cutter plate with graphite dry film lube to prevent galling and lead build up. NEI mold prep works well too.

I preheat my molds on the top of my RCBS 10 kilo pot. Three Lyman four cavity molds can be preheated at the same time as the pot comes up to casting temp.

I have three of the RCBS 10 kilo pots and approximatly 100 Lyman four cavity molds plus Saeco four and eight cavity molds. Also H&G four, six and eight cavity molds.

Needless to say, I custom cast for local shooters to get my pocket money.

[spelunkerrn]

I just wave my open mold in front of my burner for a few minutes. it seems to work.

[jdgabbard]

Thanks Edd, kind of what I figured, but it's nice to have someone with more experience confirm my suspicions. Thanks again. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, casting with two molds (when one gets hot, I swap, then go back and forth).

Sucngas, something else you might try is to alternate molds. And by this I mean pour in on mold, set it on a piece of wood, then pour the next mold. Then take the first mold and cut the sprue and drop, then fill the mold again. Sit it down and grab the second, cut the sprue and drop, pour, ect... By doing this with LARGE boolits you are able to retain enough heat to stay at a good medium if you figure out your timing...

[Three44s]

I have read about folks setting up a box with a small fan moving air through it and a shelf to place your mold upon to speed cooling.

Three 44s