To say I am discouraged is an understatement

[armoredman]

I had the pot going, everything dialed in, and I knew that a 5 cavity mould would take a bit of heating. So, into the top ofthe Lee 10 pound production pot it went. I knew that wouldn't get all the cavities, but would be a start. Yeah, right.
When the lead fell off, I started, and for the first 50-100, not a single boolit was complete, partials and tails. OK, warm up time. I started speeding it up, trying to warm up the mould, and soon, complete and what looked to be good boolits were dropping. I kept the speed up, and was happy.
Until it came to to inspect them. Now remember, I am a low volume caster, so this was a lot of boolits for me. Out of about 200-300 cast, not ONE was good, all with incomplete fill out and severe wrinkles. All right, I dialed up the pot to 8, (whatever that is, no lead thermometer, I just make sure the lead isn't steaming, don't want to breathe lead vapors, bad for the health plan), and dump everything back in the pot. Wait for it all to melt and get up to temp, dip the mould again, and start over. Now the mould started off warm, so it was only a few casts before boolits were towel dropping again, and from where I could see, they looked good. Onward and upwards!
Yeah, right. Out of that 200-300 casts, I ended up with 11 usable, not good, mind you, but usable boolits. Same story, incomplete fill out in the lube grooves/driving bands, and wrinkles on the sides.
I haven't had this issue with my cheapie Lee 2 cavity moulds, what can I do? Do I need to jack the temp up even higher on the pot? I cast with two ways, one was raise and lower the spout on each cavity, the other to let it run as I moved the mould underneath it. No difference. Lead poured straight in, or swirled off the side of the funnel in the sprue plate, no difference.
Ideas? This was, for me at this time, a big monetary investment, and I would love to get it working right.

[Ben]

I didn't notice where you described how you cleaned the mold ? The cleaning is SUPER impt. If there is a spec. of oil or grease in the cavities, you'll just continue with your problems.

If the mold is clean, the alloy isn't contaminated, and the alloy is hot enough, that mold will throw good bullets.

[armoredman]

No, I didn't clean it, any suggestions? Hadn't had to do that before.

[excess650]

I use dishwashing liquid and hot water. Scrubbing with an old toothbrush doesn't hurt.

I suspect that you still didn't have enough heat. A casting thermometer isn't all that expensive and will give you a good idea as to where your various molds like to be working.

I can generaly cast really good bullets at 720*, but my Lee 6 cavity 30cal wants 800* or more!

[finishman2000]

i gave up on lee and all aluminum molds years ago. the six cavity would never give me six good heads. The 20 year H&G used 8 cavity that replaced the lee gave me 8 good heads every time.

[44man]

I just plain stay away from those huge molds. I use two cavity and would rather cast with two at the same time as fight with mold heat.
I am not a frantic caster and don't want to be one.

[mpmarty]

I use a thermometer and don't even try to cast at below 750* F. With some of my six cavity molds I go to 800* before they start working right. Nearly all my molds are LEE my only iron molds are an RCBS 45/70 single cavity that works but is too slow to be worth messing with.

[Artful]

Clean mold (nail polish remover, alcohol, Mineral spirits, lighter fluid) then use detergent and hot water, smoke the cavities or mold prep them, hot plate to warm mold on before casting, not sure what temp your Lee pot is set too but if it wouldn't frost a normal 2 cavity your probably not hot enough, and I tend to cast faster with Aluminum gang molds. I tend to not to have to push with iron gang molds but the Aluminum seem to want to be done faster -

Lee Mold manuel (tri fold)

If you're an experience bullet caster, forget most of what was true...Aluminum mold blocks conduct heat fast, the metal must be extra hot for good bullets.

Oh and watch out for the sprue handle start off just casting in the front two then front 4 then all of the caviities.

[wiljen]

I spray my molds with Brakleen to clean them out then rinse them in hot water.

[armoredman]

Well, to get what i wanted, I went with what was available, and the 5 cavity was what there was. I haven't had any issues with aluminum moulds, have gotten great boolits from the Lees I have.
I wasn't bad mouthing the mould, I knew it was something I was doing/not doing. Since it's cooling off, I can try again later.
Dagnabbit, wife threw out all the old toothbrushes. I think I heard something about pencil erasers?

[cbrick]

Clean the mold and when you think it's clean start over and clean it again. New molds can be a real PITA. I use denatured alcohol and a brass tooth brush to cut the oil.

Pre-heat the mold on a hot plate or carefully use a propane torch, don't over do it with the torch. Pot temp of 700-750 degrees is all you should need if the mold is properly pre-heated.

I'll bet you are extremely discouraged if you tried to cast with a new mold with no cleaning. You could burn off the machining oil by casting with it but I wouldn't want to find out how long that might take, down right depressing just thinking of it.

Get a thermometer so you can see what's what and why and where to.

I'm not much of a beleiver in smoking molds, the best possible that it can do is cover up a problem. Much better if there is a problem is correcting it, not covering it up.

Rick

[merlin101]

I spray my molds with Brakleen to clean them out then rinse them in hot water.

How often do you do this, just when there new or every time?

[CJR]

Armoredman,

Here's what I recommend;
1. First clean your mold thoroughly with brake cleaner.
2. Then thoroughly clean with dishwasher soap and a toothbrush. Scrub each cavity really well.
3. Let molds dry and then smoke each cavity with safety matches until each cavity is black with soot.
4. When you cast initially, run the pot at a higher temperature so that the bullets are frosted.

The more cleaning/casting you do with the mold will clean-up the mold more. Then you can cut the pot temperature back and get well filled out and shiny booits.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

CJR

[armoredman]

That's the thing, it isn't new, I bought it used. Not very used, previous owner said he used it once. Should be cooled off, I guess I can trythe lighter fluid thing - no toothbrush, washcloth work for now?

[cbrick]

3. Let molds dry and then smoke each cavity with safety matches until each cavity is black with soot.

CJR

Please explain the purpose/reason for smoking the mold?

Rick

[Recluse]

I just plain stay away from those huge molds. I use two cavity and would rather cast with two at the same time as fight with mold heat.
I am not a frantic caster and don't want to be one.

Same here. I enjoy casting, same as I enjoy reloading. No hurries, no worries.

Armoredman. . .

I'm assuming this is the 130 gr boolit for your 7.62x39 mold we're discussing?

I've got the EH Harris mold from Lee in that boolit and only way I can get nice boolits is to keep the mold HOT and to ladle pour. But it gives me extremely nice boolits. Anything less than high heat and ladle-pouring, and my language gets pretty foul. :)

Don't know if you have a ladle handy. . .

Also, is your tin content in the alloy high enough? I generally add just a bit to alloy I'm going to be pouring long boolits with.
:coffee:

[armoredman]

I am using wheel weight lead, no alloying metals available. Me loooow tech caster. I do have a ladle, but it's a bottom pour Lee pt, don't know how well that would work with the valve stem going across the pot. Edit to add, this boolit is shorter than the Lee 160 grainer, no issues with that one. Didn't know Lee ever made a mould in this flavor, would LOVE to see Lee make a 2 cavity tumble lube 130 grain boolit at .313.
No hot plate, any reccomendations on that,how hot does it have to be able to go to?
I guess I was just extremely lucky with me previous moulds never needing this treatment.
I also agree, I am not casting frantically, just trying to be fast enough not to lose any heat. I also feel casting and loading are an enjoyable hobby- if it stops being fun, I'll stop doing it.

[CJR]

Rick,

Smoking aluminum/cast iron molds is an old trick to get new molds to fill-out properly. I suspect the heat from the match tends to vaporize and burn off oil vapors from the pores of the metal. I believe at one time Lee advocated smoking their molds. Some have even talked about the insulating effect the soot has to slow down the heat loss. Whatever the proper reason, super cleaning and smoking new molds has aways worked for me.

Best regards,

CJR

[armoredman]

Ok, here's what I did. I found an old gun cleaning toothbrush, hang on, I never use it, but cleaned it as best I could first! I dribbled lighter fluid into the cavities, and scrubbed. I then used hot dish soapy water and scrubbed again. Then I rinsed with plain water, and carefully dired with a soft towel. Now the two halves are sitting, becoming thoroughly dry, and I figure in an hour or so I'll give it another go. I used my Zippo to smoke it last time, as I have always smoked molds. I do have some wooden matches I can try next.
Does that sound about right?

[cbrick]

CJR,

Not trying to belittle you, just trying to pass on a little info. Smoking molds is an old wives tale still being passed on and on and on. Lee still suggests using beeswax to lube molds, another old wives tale that causes all sorts of grief.

If the mold is clean to begin with, the blocks align and there are no burs etc. smoking can accomplish nothing but messing up the clean molds. Try not smoking them then cast with a clean mold and see what you think.

If you feel that smoking a mold has helped you cast better bullets it's only because it's covering up a problem. Figure out what the problem is and correct it, then cast with a clean mold.

Rick

[docone31]

It is gonna take heat!
You will need to get the mold hot, as well as the pour. Crank up the heat!
You cannot possibly get lead fumes with the equipment you have, so don't worry there. With the wheel weight alloy, it should fill the corners real well.

[jameslovesjammie]

That's the thing, it isn't new, I bought it used. Not very used, previous owner said he used it once. Should be cooled off, I guess I can trythe lighter fluid thing - no toothbrush, washcloth work for now?

I've had a few new Lee moulds and group buy moulds that needed very little cleaning to get casting, and I've had ones that seemed like they were caked in cutting fluid. Even after cleaning the mould with brake cleaner and washing it in Dawn while scrubbing it with a toothbrush, it still takes a couple of sessions before I get good boolits.

I just got the 358-158-RF 6 cavity in the mail. The cavities are full of metal shavings and fluid. I am confident it will take lots of cleaning to get good boolits.

FWIW, some of my moulds like to be smoked, some fill well without. If I spent the time to Leement them, I am confident none of them would need it.

[docone31]

Take the mold, put it in mineral spirits for a couple of days, then cast!
No need for smoking.
That is the best way I have found to get good castings.
Once I did that, all my molds performed like an expert was using them!
I did the dish soap, brake fluid, toothbrush technique, what ever that is. Nothing. Wrinkles, creases, bad fillout.
Mineral spirits, then heat.

[armoredman]

I'll bite - what do the mineral spirits do?

[Doby45]

Put that thing on top of your pot, it will dry. All I have ever done with my molds is boil a pot of water. Once it is boiling put a drop or two of dish detergent in it. The mold/molds have been in the pot since I put it on the stove, so they are hot too by now. Then I pull th emold out and scrub it with an old teethbrush and then dunk it back in the boiling hot pot of water. Then scrub it again and set it on the counter. The mold is so hot that it is dry within a minute. Then I just start using it. I also use a hotplate that my molds sit on as the Lee pot is coming up to temp and by the time lead is flowing from the pot, I am casting keepers from the first cast. 2cav, 3cav, 6cav whatever they all do the same. Brass, aluminum, steel they all do the same.

EDIT: For the record I have never put a match anywhere near any of my molds. Never needed to. Never used minerals spirits, gasoline, rubbing alcohol, denatured alcohol, mouth wash or anything else. Just boiling hot water and soap.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

Is this a NOE mould? did it get the directions passed along with it?

I have one that I was in a hurry with . . . did similar as yours . .. brake cleaner is your friend!

[cbrick]

It is gonna take heat!
You will need to get the mold hot, as well as the pour. Crank up the heat!

Yep, crank up the heat . . . especially if your goal is to oxidize the tin out because that's just what will happen. Yet another old wives tale that covers up one problem by creating another. Even if you manage to keep some tin in your melt the reason for having it there is to reduce the surface tension of the stream of alloy into your mold (and to a lesser degree the alloy on top of the pot). Tin looses it's ability to do this much past 750 degrees. The more tin looses it's ability to reduce surface tension and/or the less tin in your melt the more heat you'll need to keep the mold properly filling out.

Your molds should cast well filled out bullets with good alloy at about 100 degrees above liquidus temp with a properly pre-heated, clean mold. Adjust your casting pace to keep the mold at the temp correct.

Rick

[Doby45]

Correct. The MOLD needs to be hot, much more so than the lead. 750 on the lead and your good IF your mold is nice and hot.

[armoredman]

OK. BTW, this is an NOE mould, a very nice one, are there some special instructions for them as one poster suggested

[geargnasher]

Correct. The MOLD needs to be hot, much more so than the lead. 750 on the lead and your good IF your mold is nice and hot.

I almost misunderstood you! You mean it is more IMPORTANT that the mould be hot than the alloy. You'll never get the mould hotter than the lead. If you did the lead wouldn't solidify.

750 is WAY too hot. It's the MOULD temp that makes boolits fill out, NOT the ALLOY temp.

Gear

[Doby45]

LOL, tell me about it. I have had my mold so hot before that I could fill it and the sprue would not set and you could pour the lead back out of the mold. This was after the lead sat in the mold for about a minute. Needless to say it had to cool a bit.

[RayinNH]

Hot soapy water is all that is needed. I have used brake cleaner on occasion. Some of the fluids mentioned as well as the Zippo lighter will in themselves leave an oily residue...Ray

[geargnasher]

Alright, time to bust some myths and wive's tales, here are the facts, you should listen to CBRick as he's about the only one on this thread dispensing valid advice.

#1 Smoke does nothing good for mould cavities.
#2 Wax or Boolit lube is for boolits, not for moulds.....Bullplate sprue lube is for moulds.
#3 Casting with straight WW alloy is fine, and doesn't need to have the temp turned up beyond, as has been said, 100*F above full liquidus.
#4 Casting with one million degree alloy WILL NOT make good boolits from a COLD mould. You need to get your mould temperature up to at least 400*, 450 is better if your pot temp is 600-650 or so. You can only accomplish this on a big heat-sinking aluminum gang mould by preheating on a hot plate on it's highest setting for about ten minutes. I cannot overemphasize how important having a HOT HOT mould is when using aluminum. Run your alloy as cool as possible and cast as fast as possible to keep the mould temp up. Don't slow for a second once you get going. It only takes 15 seconds for the mould to lose casting temperature.

More important info: All moulds are practically immersed in cutting fluid to keep the machining heads and cherries cool, and this fluid is forced into the pores of the metal at many tons per square inch while the process is going on. Your new mould will likely have never been cleaned properly. This oil WILL ***** you boolits unless it is completely removed, and often it takes either soaking in mineral spirits, boiling for an extended time in soapy water, or repeated cleanings with brake cleaner and a tooth brush.

Lee's recommendation for smoking is purely to mask the effect of the leftover machining oil and the tendency for the edges of the aluminum cavities to have burrs which make it hard to tap the boolits out.

Gear

[462]

I have Ideal, Lee, Lyman, and RCBS moulds and have never smoked them. A clean, burr free, and properly aligned mould is all that is needed.

Though the mould is used, perhaps the previous owner never cleaned it and was so disappointed with the results that he sold it. Or, he oiled it after the last casting session. Either way, it needs a THOROUGH cleaning.

[geargnasher]

Hot soapy water is all that is needed. I have used brake cleaner on occasion. Some of the fluids mentioned as well as the Zippo lighter will in themselves leave an oily residue...Ray

I forgot to add that. Naptha is very oily, and carburetor cleaner is no good either as it contains a slight bit of oil for anti-corrosion and lubrication of the moving parts.

Gear

[geargnasher]

I copied and pasted this from Bret4207 on another recent thread, hope you don't mind, Bret!

"Originally Posted by sourceofuncertainty
Geargnasher, could you explain the smoke part a little? I'm not a newbie to casting but I'm not that experienced either. I found that with the 6-gang Lee pistol moulds, I couldn't get the boolits to easily drop free until I'd smoked the mould. Once I smoked my pistol moulds, most seem to drop the bullets much more easily.

What is the downside to smoking the moulds?

(Bret): First off, you get smaller boolits. That's usually a problem for most of us. Second, you're insulating the mould from much needed heat. Third, you're blocking your venting. Fourth, you're using a bandaid approach to getting the mould to work right. Clean it, lap it, deburr it, whatever, but fix the darn thing! (Bret).

I think he covered that pretty well.

Gear

[armoredman]

Oh well, I did use thehot soapy water after the lighter fluid.

[Doby45]

Not tap hot, boiling hot..

[geargnasher]

Yep, crank up the heat . . . especially if your goal is to oxidize the tin out because that's just what will happen. Yet another old wives tale that covers up one problem by creating another. Even if you manage to keep some tin in your melt the reason for having it there is to reduce the surface tension of the stream of alloy into your mold (and to a lesser degree the alloy on top of the pot). Tin looses it's ability to do this much past 750 degrees. The more tin looses it's ability to reduce surface tension and/or the less tin in your melt the more heat you'll need to keep the mold properly filling out.

Your molds should cast well filled out bullets with good alloy at about 100 degrees above liquidus temp with a properly pre-heated, clean mold. Adjust your casting pace to keep the mold at the temp correct.

Rick[/COLOR]

This is such correct and important advice that it should be made into a locked sticky.

Anyone who owns the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook should have already read and understood this.

Those who don't, PLEASE re-read and understand what Rick was pointing out. Tin keeps lead moving by creating an oxide shield, and if you think that a hot pot is going to fix your cold mould problems you are creating more by turning up that dial.

I routinely cast with aluminum moulds where the mould runs about 420* (checked with an infrared thermometer) and the alloy (WW +2% tin) runs between 600 and 650. The pour rate for a two-banger is four a minute, sprue cooling time is six seconds. For six-bangers from Lee, that's three pours a minute, cut the sprue the instant it comes out from under the pot (aluminum six-banger sprue plates lose heat faster than even the thin steel Lee two-banger ones).

Gear

[cbrick]

750 is WAY too hot. It's the MOULD temp that makes boolits fill out, NOT the ALLOY temp.

Gear

Yep, correct, right on, couldn't have said it better myself.

I don't know if 750 degrees is WAY too hot but it is too hot and serves only to create more oxidation.

As long as your alloy is about 100 degrees above liquidus temp AND your mold is PROPERLY pre-heated your good to go.

PROPERLY pre-heat the mold and cast with 700-725 degree alloy, adjust the casting pace to keep the mold at it's best casting temp. I do this with all of my molds, iron, aluminum, brass, 2,3,4,6 and 8 cavity and have no problems with fill-out.

The ONLY molds I cast with over 700 degree pot temp is HP molds where I use 725 to help keep the spud temp up and not get the mold temp too high by casting too fast.

Crank up the heat is simply another of the old wives tales that relentlessly keep getting passed on and on. Keep passing it on or maybe learn a new way.

Rick

[armoredman]

The sprue plate on this MOE looks to be pretty thick steel.

Edit to say, OK, I am going to turn the pot back on and see how it does now, quick run.

[Doby45]

I have been running at 750 since I started casting and I BET that is why I get the light frosting that I do on my Mihecs. I also pre-heat my molds so I am going to try about 700 next time I run them..

[geargnasher]

NO, wrong again, partly. Frosting is caused by mould cavity surface temperature. Drop 1000 degree alloy in a 200 degree mould and it will not frost. Drop 600 degree alloy in a 450 degree mould and it will frost lightly. If your boolits are frosting it is likely because you preheat properly and the alloy temp keeps the mould very hot.

Gear

[Doby45]

I prolly need to drop my temp on my melt slightly, and then cast just a tad slower, so the mold has time to drop just a bit. This is also VERY light frosting with my MiHec molds, both the 40 and the 45

[armoredman]

Melting slowly...dropped the temp to 7 on the Lee dial...whatever that means.

[geargnasher]

This is primarily for Doby, but is general as well: If you drop your temp to 600-650 you can cast about as fast as you want, your wait time on sprue freezing will diminish greatly.

Humor me, do this next time you cast: Get that mould HOT, and then back your pot temp down until either the spout freezes or you start getting poor fillout, whichever comes first. Just for your own satisfaction, check the lowest temp you can still cast at, you'll be surprised.

You still want to regulate mould temp with casting speed, so when you get to the point in lowering alloy temp that the sprue freezes in three seconds you might want to hustle some more.

Gear

[geargnasher]

Melting slowly...dropped the temp to 7 on the Lee dial...whatever that means.

Mine likes six to six and a half, but that means nothing since they are so different pot-to-pot.

Let it cook for a while and stir occasionally, it takes a while to get up to temp even though the thermostat starts cycling. Give it an extra 15 minutes after liquidus, stir it and then try. How are you preheating your mould?

Gear

[cbrick]

Many years ago I read an article (I think HandLoader but not sure) on mold cleaning that said the only readily available cleaning solvent that leaves NO residue upon drying is denatured alcohol. Break Cleaner does, naphtha and carb cleaner and the like can be as bad as the original oil your trying to get rid of. Been using denatured alcohol ever since and have no oily mold issues.

My last three new iron molds (2 Lyman and an RCBS) were cleaned in the Hornady sonic cleaner with citric acid, not the Hornady solution. They were then cleaned with alcohol and I was pre-heating them in 10 minutes.

Clean mold, clean alloy, a properly pre-heated mold, a sensible pot temp and a practiced casting pace. Pretty simple stuff.

Or we can keep passing on old wives tales and smoke the molds and crank up the heat. Don't forget to use beeswax in your molds, if you have any hair left you'll be pulling it out with that one.

Rick

[CJR]

This has been a lively and enjoyable thread to read! Everyone has a preferred way to clean moulds and most likely that way has produced clean moulds for them. So that way is THE WAY.

It has been my experience that the cutting fluids used to cut metals can be either simple or very complex chemically. The cutting fluids are basically coolants and lubricants and can range from simple water-based chemicals to highly complex synthetic compounds or mixtures of both. Some can be be very resistant to solvent cleanup. The scientific literature is full of studies on how to test the effectiveness of specific solvents to remove specific chemicals. Unfortunately, as mould users, we don't know what chemical residues remain in our new mould cavities from the cutting process. Likewise, we don't know how effective the mould manufacturer's cleaning was. So it would appear to me that a little experimentation with different solvents, hot water/soap cleaners, ultrasonic, etc. may be in order to get our moulds really clean. I personally don't see one way as the only way to clean moulds.

Best regards,

CJR

[armoredman]

It certainly did get interesting fast, didn't it? I was just out there, pot is liquid but sluggish, more like slush. Will recheck shortly.
I wish ther temperature settings WERE a little more uniform, would be nice!

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

What I got with my five cavity 314129 SP:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/NOE.jpg

[atr]

I'm with 44 Man on this one...a two cavity mold is hard to bet

[Doby45]

This is primarily for Doby, but is general as well: If you drop your temp to 600-650 you can cast about as fast as you want, your wait time on sprue freezing will diminish greatly.

Humor me, do this next time you cast: Get that mould HOT, and then back your pot temp down until either the spout freezes or you start getting poor fillout, whichever comes first. Just for your own satisfaction, check the lowest temp you can still cast at, you'll be surprised.

You still want to regulate mould temp with casting speed, so when you get to the point in lowering alloy temp that the sprue freezes in three seconds you might want to hustle some more.

Gear

I will do that this weekend Nasher.. I have to say I cast well, I am not some lost sheep, BUT I do want to get it better and I think your advise will help me do exactly that. Thanks.

[armoredman]

Nope, zero improvement. Shut down for the rest of the day, going back frustrated is not the right frame of mind.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

Nope, zero improvement. Shut down for the rest of the day, going back frustrated is not the right frame of mind.

Keep trying . . . it takes awhile to get that big mold up to temp by just dumping lead into it . . . Put the mold in your oven set at 400º let it get warmed all the way through . . . use gloves!;)

[armoredman]

Never thought of that...might try that next time - won't hurt the handles?

[cbrick]

Never thought of that...might try that next time - won't hurt the handles?

Yes, it will. Take the handles off first.

And as 123.DieselBenz says, use golves. And I might add, good leather gloves.

Rick

[armoredman]

That's what I thought - I have some welding gloves a guy gave me. :)

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

Don't bother heating the allen screws that hold the handles on, they are small, and much easier to handle when they are not 400 degrees!

[armoredman]

I can understand that one....

[Big Ryan]

Just a FYI but if you want a easy way of hardening up your lead insead of using those straight wheel weights, just add alittle bit of Tin solder, you know those spools you use to solder with. I use about a 2% mix for 90% of my castings. Besides being clean, and good thick smoking on the mold is very important. Even after all of that your first 20-30 still may look crummy till your mold starts to heat up properly.

[Recluse]

Hell, I must be an old wife. . . :)

With my Lee two-bangers, I run my alloy hot with a thick layer of flux on top, but use the BruceB method (wet towel/sponge) for keeping the molds at a fairly constant temp to keep the casting rhythm going.

Good fillout, no frosting.

It works for this old wife.

:coffee:

[armoredman]

I think I identified a problem. I am used to the method I was taught, to try to swirl the melt around the opening in the sprue plate, to get an even fill out. This mould doesn't allow that, with frequent plugs forming in the sprue plate. I just measured with the handy dandy calipers. All Lee sprue holes measure between .40 and .60, (for the older one), while the biggest sprue hole in the new mould is .32, with two measuring .15! No wonder I can't get a good fill out - I can't get a good stream INTO the thing.
Does that sound like a likely villian? The sprue plate is VERY thick, .185", compared to the wider holed Lee, (that just don't SOUND right! :) ) is at .12". Being detached from the mould, it doesn't heat like the mould does, and being such a small hole, it freezes the melt far earlier than the mould itself does.
Of course, I might be grasping at straws here...thoughts?

Edit to add, I am going to figure this thing out one way or another, I never had a real quality mould before, and I ain't getting rid of this one!

[Char-Gar]

Armorman.... You can be assured the problem is operator error at some point. It maybe pollution in the mold, alloy at the wrong temp. or wrong technique. Molds are individuals and often require different techniques.

I find these kind of threats very frustrating as the problem could be solved quickly if an experienced caster was standing by your side. But when you throw it out to a board like this you get all sorts of advise and opinions, some good and some bad. Everybody thinks they are an expert and you have no way to sort through the stuff you get.

You would be better advised to purchase a good book on the subject or pick out one person you want to work with and do the exchange through private messages.

I have no problems with multi-cavity aluminum molds, but they are individuals. Rest assured your mold will do a good job if you operate it correctly. There is a finite number of errors you can make. You just have to eliminate them one by one until you find your current problem.

[Charlie Two Tracks]

I feel your pain. It took me quite awhile and a lot of advice here before I got boolits that would work. I did need a thermometer and I got a electric heating burner for heating the mould. It helped a lot. There is an art to casting. It took and will take me awhile to get it all right. The distance that you have the mould from the bottom of the pot makes a difference. The speed at which the lead comes out of the pot makes a difference. The amout of sprue that you have on the mould makes a difference. The time and technique you use to cast makes a difference. I had cast two (yes two) full Folger coffee cans of boolits and had to melt them all down. I kept reading and asking and trying new things and finally it is paying off. I really enjoy casting now but there was a time that I thought I had made a big mistake and that the guys on this forum were using some kind of magic to get their boolits. Practice and patience was what worked for me. Be careful. 800 deg. can burn bad. Real bad. I have not found this out first hand and don't care to. You can do it.

[casterofboolits]

I think I identified a problem. I am used to the method I was taught, to try to swirl the melt around the opening in the sprue plate, to get an even fill out. This mould doesn't allow that, with frequent plugs forming in the sprue plate. I just measured with the handy dandy calipers. All Lee sprue holes measure between .40 and .60, (for the older one), while the biggest sprue hole in the new mould is .32, with two measuring .15! No wonder I can't get a good fill out - I can't get a good stream INTO the thing.
Does that sound like a likely villian? The sprue plate is VERY thick, .185", compared to the wider holed Lee, (that just don't SOUND right! :) ) is at .12". Being detached from the mould, it doesn't heat like the mould does, and being such a small hole, it freezes the melt far earlier than the mould itself does.
Of course, I might be grasping at straws here...thoughts?

Edit to add, I am going to figure this thing out one way or another, I never had a real quality mould before, and I ain't getting rid of this one!

Small holes in the sprue plate will restrict the flow of lead into the cavities and will allow the lead to cool enough to ause wrinkles and voids. Trying to sworl the lead going into the cavity will do the same.

Just checked several brands of sprue cutters for hole size:

Lyman two cavity (two moulds) .150

RCBS two cavity ( one mould ) .200

Lee two cavity ( thee moulds) .175

Lyman four cavity (four moulds) .190

NEI four cavity (two moulds) .125

IMHO the problem you are having is due to the small holes in the sprue plate choking the lead flow into the cavities. [smilie=s:

Regards

[armoredman]

Sounds like some of your are even smaller, hmm.

Chargar, I appreciate the backup, but you make it sound like there has never been a bad mould made. :) i only know one person who is a caster, and he stated he hasn't turne on his pot in 2 years, owing to the fact he made thousands of boolits then, and hasn't burned through them yet. He's also my bosses boss, makes it a little difficult to ask him to drop by. :)

[longbow]

I have recently bought two NOE moulds 316299 and the 0.314" x 129 gr. in four cavity and find that they like really hot lead and casting temperatures as does my Mihec Cramer brass mould.

I am a ladle caster and use a 2 burner gas hotplate. I pre-heat the mould on one burner and the lead on the other. I pre-heat the mould until it takes a pour of lead a few seconds to harden then all is good to go.

I get the most perfect boolits I have ever seen out of my NOE and Mihec moulds casting this way.

I also use straight wheelweights and/or range scrap. Nothing fancy and no special alloys.

I do not use a thermometer so cannot give exact temperatures but I keep the lead hot enough that I often have to cool 2 cavity iron moulds.

Also, I think the fast pour from the ladle helps with fillout.

In short, I think heat is your friend and a fast pour can't hurt.

Not sure if that helps but that is what I do and it works for me.

Longbow

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

On my NOE five cavity mold, because the mold was not up to temp I had difficulty getting the cavity filled, the sprue would solidify too fast . . . so . . . I just kept filling . . . till it ran over the edge . . . let it absorb some heat for 15 sec, then cut it, and dump what boolits had started inside, and start over . . . that large sprue plate is gonna take a bit to come up to temp . . . try getting it started in the oven.

[smilie=s:

[Heavy lead]

I must be simple, always use hotter than hell water and dawn, hot enough water that the mould is hot enough so most of the water just evaporates off. While the pot is heating up I let dry on the pot, then after it's completely dry use denatured alcohol (I buy this 1 gallon at a time and have a spray bottle with some in for degreasing purposes) sprayed in the cavities. After I've got the lead fluxed and ready to go I stick one end (NOT SUMMERGED) in the melt for 30 to 50 seconds depending on how big the mould is, then go to it, usually the first pour is fine, if not it just takes a couple more and off to the races. A wet rag is kept near to cool if necessary.
This is the same regardless of moulds, from 2 or 4 cavity iron, several 3 cavity aluminum mountain moulds, 5 cavity NOE, 6 cavity Mihec, 4 cavity RG NOE or whatever they are. Even though I do have a couple Lee 2 cavities, I dispise the things. I run the Lee pot at about 7 and crank down to 6 or so as I get moving, have perfect boolits most of the time as long as I swirl the lead in, always get better results this way rather than straight down the sprue hole.

[geargnasher]

I will do that this weekend Nasher.. I have to say I cast well, I am not some lost sheep, BUT I do want to get it better and I think your advise will help me do exactly that. Thanks.

:oops: My bad, I wasn't assuming you were an amatuer, I know better, just that by trying what I suggested you you can learn a lot and make better informed decisions about alloy and mould temp regardless of what the rest of us think. That was a little excercise I figured out when I was first learning, and often check with a new batch of alloy just to see how it does. I don't use a thermometer much, because the alloy will tell you when it's happy, and a thermometer will only tell you the temperature!

Ok, I feel a rant coming on, ya'll are warned!!!

Anybody that thinks me and Rick are full of it, that's fine, but there are certain things that, for many reasons, are done a certain way because it works best. I will concede that if you are happy the way you are doing it, that's all that matters. But if you're not, try it my way and see. I challenge anyone who thinks smoking a mould is the way to go and casting with ternary alloys at 750-800 degrees is good for metallurgy to just try what I have recommended. Also, you might also go read a good book on casting nonferrous alloys or the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook and see we are simply using proven industry methods. I spend a lot of time trying to find what works best, even relearning and reinventing processes based on the recommendation of others, this is the best way I've found so far, and I've been the smoke/wax/high temp/no tin route plenty of times. I've learned more from the collective here than I could possibly have learned in five lifetimes of casting because the membership brings many big guns of education and experience from an amazing array of fields with just the parts pertinent to casting distilled down, so you can get facts on boolit alloys from professional metallurgists, chemists, and doctors, facts on lube from petroleum engineers, beekeepers, benchies, you name it, you get the idea. Again, many things in life and this hobby have many ways of being done correctly, but in some cases the physical properties of the materials with which we work demand certain practices for best results, and I feel like I have named a handfull of practices that are best, based on a lot of doing it other/not-so-good ways myself. Just tryin' to pass it along and cut through some of the pitfalls and bravo sierra that have pervaded my own casting experience.

Rant off.

Gear

[Doby45]

LOL, sometimes you and I just miss it in the translation of the text. I was not saying you made an assumption that I was an amatuer. I was saying I cast fairly well and I think your suggestions are great. I am not so proud or prideful to disregard better wisedom than my own simply cause it was not mine first. Rock on Rick and Nasher, I think what you both have said is deadnuts on.

[Echo]

Sounds like some of your are even smaller, hmm.

Chargar, I appreciate the backup, but you make it sound like there has never been a bad mould made. :) i only know one person who is a caster, and he stated he hasn't turne on his pot in 2 years, owing to the fact he made thousands of boolits then, and hasn't burned through them yet. He's also my bosses boss, makes it a little difficult to ask him to drop by. :)

No problem at all to ask him to drop by. He should be pleased, and honored, that you thought enough of his expertise to ask his assistance. I would be...

[doghawg]

Rick and gear...

Lurking here paid off! I just came upstairs from trying a cooler alloy and hotter mold and I'm convinced. Last nights maiden voyage with the new Waage pot was at 750 degrees and tonight I ran it at 700 with better results and easier bullet release with the RCBS 270 SAA. Thanks!

[Doby45]

My molds are always good and hot by the time the pot is up to temp. I am gonna try it at 650-675.

[casterofboolits]

Sounds like some of your are even smaller, hmm.

Chargar, I appreciate the backup, but you make it sound like there has never been a bad mould made. :) i only know one person who is a caster, and he stated he hasn't turne on his pot in 2 years, owing to the fact he made thousands of boolits then, and hasn't burned through them yet. He's also my bosses boss, makes it a little difficult to ask him to drop by. :)

Sorry, I thought you were saying the holes in the spruecutter was .040/.015. :oops:

Holes not the problem then.[smilie=1:

[geargnasher]

Sorry, I thought you were saying the holes in the spruecutter was .040/.015. :oops:

Holes not the problem then.[smilie=1:

Maybe you did what I do a lot, being used to just "seeing" measurements to three decimal places, when someone just posts two (which is fine) I automatically add a zero in front in my mind. Used to automotive and boolit meaurements, always to the thousandth or beyond.

Gear

[armoredman]

Sorry, not an engineer, nor do I play one on TV. :) I guess I will have to find a hot plate somewhere, any old dimestore cheapie wil work?

[a.squibload]

Harbor Freight, Walgreens, Walmart, about $10.
Don't lean your elbow on it while casting!

[sargenv]

Personally... I get my mold, I apply bull plate on the important pivot points, I do not clean the mold with anything.. The more I futz and clean the thing, the more frustrated I get. My method for warming up a Lee 6 banger or an LBT 4 banger is to move the sprue cutter to the side and just pour the lead from my pot into the moulds so you get 4 or 6 bullets joined by a sprue that is connected. I do this 4 or 5 times and figure by the time the last one is poured, the mold is pretty much up to temp. To open, I simply use the sprue cutter to dislodge one side of the mold, then I lightly whack the all stuck together lead out of the mold, close it up and repeat.

Maybe it's because I don't care that each and every bullet has to be absolutely perfect.. I don't know.. but once the mold is up to temp, I pour and pour, and cast, and pour until it's time to fill the pot again. Actually I put two corn cobs of WW or whatever alloy I am using on top of the pot to warm up. When I hit about a pound or two poured, I drop a heated ingot into the pot, which melts quickly but never gets to the point where it stops pouring. My pouring temp according to the thermo is about 725 deg. When I drop the ingot in, it drops to about 675, but then quickly recovers and I keep on pouring. My Lee pot is set to about a 7.

I also turn down the speed at which it pours. I found that if the lead was going too fast, it would cause more problems than if I nearly shut it off. Usually I get it down to a dribble, and then open it back up about a 1/4 turn and that is about perfect for pouring anything from 110 to 190 gr boolits. I use a Lee 4-20 bottom pour pot. I have about 5 or 6 - Lee 6 bangers from a 105 Gr .358 cal semi wadcutter to the 175 gr .40 cal truncated cone-TL. I have a few 2 cav molds.. but they take too long to get any number of bullets so I rarely use them. I also have an LBT 4 cav - 185 gr pointed RN in 40 cal that makes all the perfect (to me) boolits I want.

[madsenshooter]

Armoredman, something I've found with my little Lee pot, is that over time, the element gets thinner and thinner. I used to be able to cast with the knob set a bit above 7, now it is nearly all the way up to get the same temp. I have a new element waiting on the sideline for when this is one is completely gone. I was trying to cast with straight WW's, and like you, was about to give up, when I grabbed my little digital thermometer, which was sitting there all along, and found the alloy temp way below what had previously worked for me. I'm in the habit of leaving my pot on for long periods of time. The elements don't last long under those conditions. Despite arguments to the contrary, crank it up until it starts working, if it still doesn't work, chances are it isn't getting hot enough. And find a cheap digital thermometer. Here's what I have: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Atkins-Digital-Surface-Thermometer-Pyrometer-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem43a1aacd38QQitemZ29047 5134264QQptZMotorsQ5fAutomotiveQ5fTools $23.99 and accurate.

[casterofboolits]

Maybe you did what I do a lot, being used to just "seeing" measurements to three decimal places, when someone just posts two (which is fine) I automatically add a zero in front in my mind. Used to automotive and boolit meaurements, always to the thousandth or beyond.

Gear

Yup, comes from making precision insert tooling for stamping dies in my youth. Plus .0002 minus .0000. Also a 2 to 4 micro finish on cartridge case drawing tools.

Then teaching people in the UK and Japan to do the same. Fun times! Luckily I speak Japanese, but I learned that I do not speak English! :groner:

[Cord]

Any caster, new or experienced, who could use an inexpensive hotplate
for preheating should immediately check your local Walgreen’s for the:

“Kitchen Gourmet” Single Buffet Range

Regularly $10, they are closing them out for only $4.99

I bought my first one for $10, and when I heard they were on sale for $5
I went right out and bought another one, they work great for me –

Be advised that the cord is only 2 feet long, and it is an open coil type,
so open the package and check to see that the coil is flat in the center.

Hard to get something useful like this for $5 nowadays.

.

[Recluse]

OK Geargnasher. . . :)

Now, as most here know, I'm never one to ever go on a rant of any type. . . (y'all hang on for a second while I look for that little smiley face that has the nose that grows like Pinnochio)

With my hard-metal molds, everything you said is dead-on square-up the Caster's Hallowed Truth.

But with some of the Lee soft-metal two-bangers, I've simply found over the years that a hotter alloy works better in those molds. Now, there's a trick and that is to not let the molds themselves get too hot, or you pretty much negate everything--hence the wet towels/sponge off to the side. Sprue plate gets a slap on it every casting--base of mold gets one every second/third casting.

Beautiful, well-filled out boolits this way.

I agree about not smoking molds. Biggest waste of time I've ever tried and never had it do anything positive. When the boolits drop easy, it's because they're too small. Lee-menting will fix you right up and then you don't need the matches and beeswax, etc.

Keep in mind that I haven't seen Lee update their directions on existing products in years, and sometimes decades. So what might have been acceptable twenty years ago is no longer today.

Now when it comes to old wives tales and boolit LUBES. . . if you try telling me that smearing the sign of the Sacred Cast Boolit on my nekkid chest with liquid alox while dancing around the hot griddle plate on a moonless night in my backyard is an old wives tale and does nothing to help my lube concoctions perform better, we might just have a problem.

Because next thing you know, you'll be telling me that sacrificing those Butterball roaster chickens and lighting my Hoppes #9 candles has no effect at all on the Gods of the Lubes in determining whether my sacrifices are pleasing or not!

That would be blasphemous and I wouldn't want to be anywhere near you when the Gods have been angered enough. Hope you understand; nothing personal, I'm just trying to squeeze out an existence here when it comes to boolit casting and lubricating.

Feller's got to do what a feller's got to do.

:coffee:

[Bret4207]

Okay, since Recluse and some others have done the mini-rant thing, I'm going to jump in too.

First off, whoever was producing boolit "heads"- they aren't "heads". Heads are those things on top of our necks. You are producing boolits/bullets/projectiles. I could even accept slugs but not heads/pills/tips/etc. That's just a personal peeve of mine. Makes no real difference in this old world, but I feel the need to vent.

Second- DO NOT SMOKE YOUR MOULD. If you have to resort to smoking to get good fill out or boolits to drop you're just masking another problem. Also, tin is a darn poor (and expensive) way to harden a trimetal alloy, not that we need HARD CAST to start with. Tin is for fillout, antimony and tin combined are for hardening, NOT THAT YOU NEED HARD CAST!!!!!!!!! Standard run of the mill WW will work for probably 90% of the guys out there 90% of the time.

Third- Pot temp and mould temp are two completely different things. You regulate pot temp by altering the heat setting, be it electric, gas or solid fuel heat source. Mould temp you regulate by casting tempo. Some moulds simply need to run hotter than others. And Recluse mentioned the BruceB Speed Casting Method, a very handy way of running your mould nice and hot and yet not having to wait an eternity for the sprue to cool. Try it, read the sticky- it works great.

Fourth- Gear and CBRick are 2 of the smartest, most humble and best looking guys that ever lived. They are beloved by children, dogs and beautiful women every where. I know this because they agree exactly with what I would have said. Listen to them.

[Bass Ackward]

These threads are always informative but never complete. No guideline is really ever acknowledged that covers 99% of all situations. So I'll try.

From my friends and family's experience, you need 200 degrees over the melt temperature of your mix for ladle casting and 250 to 300 for bottom pouring. Works for any practical mix. (IF you want to add copper to a mix as an example, temp requirements rise.)

The difference or variance is speed of fill and the weight of the sprue vs the weight in the ladle. Ladling is a force fill method.

The variables of bullet diameter and weight, drive band width, and mold material, plate hole sizes may require up to 100 degrees from any mix more from the 200 degree norm without there being any problem. Examples are doing 22 caliber bullets or designs with less than .070 band / groove widths. Or bottom pouring too slowly.

That means 650 for lino to 900 for pure lead. As long as you are in that range, you are right with everyone else. If this guideline is breached, say you need 750 for lino by a certain mold, or that you must ladle to make a mold work, then either the mold is cold, dirty, or there is a venting problem. Simply, the lead is pouring / filling too slowly.

It's just that simple to identify the correct temperature range or a problem if one exists. If you have to do something extra like more heat or smoking a mold, you are missing the real problem.

[lwknight]

From my friends and family's experience, you need 200 degrees over the melt temperature of your mix for ladle casting and 250 to 300 for bottom pouring. Works for any practical mix. (IF you want to add copper to a mix as an example, temp requirements rise.)

I don't think I've even had to run my pot at over 700 degrees.
A 5% tin alloy will cast just fine as low as 620 degrees.
Maybe it depends where the temperature is measured from.
I keep the probe near the bottom spout.

[Bass Ackward]

That's great. From my RCBS pot, at 620 degrees with a 20-1 mix, (5%) you won't get any flow at all unless you are wide open. Then if you are already wide open, you have wide range of arm movement and no control to open further as the weight of the lead declines and empties.

Important point is not below those guidelines but above so folks can identify problems. Perfection is always welcome.

[CJR]

Time to roll another grenade into the room about smoking moulds to improve booliit quality.

For the record, old Schuetzen riflemen often smoked their bullet moulds to produce better bullets. Some of their record cast bullet groups still stand today. Also, the National Rifle Association did testing on smoking bullet moulds to improve bullet quality. The NRA found and documented that smoking a bullet mould DID improve the quality of the bullets, see NRA's Cast Bullet Handbook, pg.81. In my view, the NRA did more important research into cast bullet research than anyone I'm aware of.

When I started bullet casting in 1956, every now and then I would encounter a problem mould. I tried every solvent or cleaning solution/technique available to clean the problem mould. When I read the NRA article on smoking the mould, I tried that and it worked for me. So I'm a believer in smoking moulds and use it all the time. But that's been my experience. Use whatever cleaning procedure works for you.

Give me a minute to get my helmet on and get down behind this rock before all the incoming rounds. I'm ready, let the barrage begin.

Best regards,

CJR

[Recluse]

Time to roll another grenade into the room about smoking moulds to improve booliit quality.

Give me a minute to get my helmet on and get down behind this rock before all the incoming rounds. I'm ready, let the barrage begin.

Best regards,

CJR

Not from me, my friend. :)

I'm the biggest proponent in the world about "I care more about the results than I do the methods." (Why do you think I dance in the dark of night around my hot griddle plate with alox smeared on my nekkid chest when making lubes? All I know is it works. The one time I didn't do it and fired a boolit, my trigger finger fell off, and I couldn't shoot any more that day until I found a way to reattach it. Ever since then, I've sworn by making lube the way I make it.)

At the end of the day, what tells the tale is where the hole from the boolit scores--be it on paper, man or beast. How you get it there is your beeswax. (a little cast boolits lube humor, there :))

:coffee:

[Doby45]

I http://i56.tinypic.com/2rp77tv.jpg you Recluse.

:redneck:

[Springfield]

OK, first off, I just don't see how someone who uses more than a couple moulds can do it properly without a temperature guage. I mean, I CAN do it, but it just makes repeatability that much more difficult to attain. Second, I rarely run my pot over 675 deg. I DO preheat my moulds by dipping the end in the molten lead. Works for me, haven't warped any of my 69 moulds in the last 5 years, so I do it. Third, I don't smoke my moulds, per se. I have found that my best performing moulds are the older ones that have darkened cavities from so much use, so I guess you could call them smoked if you want. But on the few occasions I had a balky mould and I purposely smoked it I did not find they worked any better. Whereas getting out my magnifier and getting rid of any hidden burrs DID make a world of difference. And as to cleaning, I usually take my LEE 6 cavs and wash them with dishsoap and a toothbrush. But everyonce in a while I get a new LEE or Mihec and get in a hurry to use it and just cast as is out of the box, and they worked fine also, after a few casts. Seems to me the oil is going to burn out of there eventually anyway, and my casting has shown this to be true. This works better if the mold isn't full of chips, though, like some of the older LEE's I bought. Mihec moulds don't have this problem. FYI, I use a 40 lb Magma pot, so I may have a more consistant temp due to the larger volume, but even so, I believe mould temp is much more important than pot temp. As to Armoredman's problem, the only NOE mould I have is one for .223, 4 cav, and it worked perfect out of the box. I suspect his problem is the mould is too cool and his casting tempo is too slow to heat it up. Preheat that thing until the sprue takes 15-20 seconds to solidify, and then let it cool from there. Works for me.

[cbrick]

Time to roll another grenade into the room about smoking moulds to improve booliit quality.

Give me a minute to get my helmet on and get down behind this rock before all the incoming rounds. I'm ready, let the barrage begin. Best regards, CJR

Didn't see a single post in this thread that said there is only one way to do things. Not a single post that said anyone had to do it this way or that way. Did see a few posters with their eyes held very tightly shut and their hands over their ears that refused to see any method or reason for it that's different than their way.

A hundred years ago the old timers did some incredible shooting, therefore nothing has been learned since then. There are no better mold materials or better machining tools and methods since then to produce higher quality, bur free, easier to use molds, right? The NRA book is an incredible book, I wish they would do a reprint because it would be a huge service to casters new and seasoned but it is 60 years old, nothing been learned since then, right? This book says that Alox is the best lube ingredient, nothing new since then right?

Point is that if you have been doing any part of this hobby in a way that your happy with your results then by all means you should do it that way. There are nearly as many ways of casting as there are casters but that's no reason to close your eyes to anything new or different. Heck, even "cranking up the heat" to assure there is no tin in your alloy or waiting far too long for the sprue to solidify is viable if it works for you but that in no way means there isn't a different or better way. After all, the metals industry goes to the extent they do with alloys simply because they have too much time and money on their hands, right?

In the interest of new or prospective casters the option of learning a bit of the metallurgy should be available including the reasons for doing it in a particular way. No, we do not need to be metallurgists but an understanding of the basics is important and can go a long way to achieving better results.

Not a single post in this thread has suggested anything that I haven't been through or tried over the years including burning the tin out and dancing in the backyard. Lucky for me I'm curious and continued my attempts at learning and achieving better results. Still do, after all that's why I'm a member of this forum.

Rick

[sourceofuncertainty]

Lee's recommendation for smoking is purely to mask the effect of the leftover machining oil and the tendency for the edges of the aluminum cavities to have burrs which make it hard to tap the boolits out.


Is there a recommended way to deburr the cavity edges? Seems like that's a really critical area of the mould so I assume that just going at it with fine sandpaper is a no-no.

Thanks again for the feedback, guys. I've started getting all the smoke off my moulds and will try the clean, hot mould approach instead.

[Doby45]

You can use a piece of a wooden stick, like soft pine. Thats what I use.

[Suo Gan]

Time to roll another grenade into the room about smoking moulds to improve booliit quality.

For the record, old Schuetzen riflemen often smoked their bullet moulds to produce better bullets. Some of their record cast bullet groups still stand today. Also, the National Rifle Association did testing on smoking bullet moulds to improve bullet quality. The NRA found and documented that smoking a bullet mould DID improve the quality of the bullets, see NRA's Cast Bullet Handbook, pg.81. In my view, the NRA did more important research into cast bullet research than anyone I'm aware of.

When I started bullet casting in 1956, every now and then I would encounter a problem mould. I tried every solvent or cleaning solution/technique available to clean the problem mould. When I read the NRA article on smoking the mould, I tried that and it worked for me. So I'm a believer in smoking moulds and use it all the time. But that's been my experience. Use whatever cleaning procedure works for you.

Give me a minute to get my helmet on and get down behind this rock before all the incoming rounds. I'm ready, let the barrage begin.

Best regards,

CJR

The Col. is a god until he starts talking about things like smoking molds :neutral:. But, for some reason smoking molds does work for occasional problem child (read Lee 2 banger). I guess that Phil Sharpe was wrong about Dr. Hudson. I mean they (shutzen shooters of the 19th cent) were pretty well childlike in their empirical knowledge about casting and shooting [smilie=1:. This is a scientific hypothesis. We have used the scientific method to get to come to our way of thinking too. We have a stubborn mold. Usually a Lee mold. It has incomplete fill out in one or more cavities and they don't drop worth a hoot either. We have cleaned it, are running it at a good casting temp, our alloy is good, and at the right temp, we are using another mold practically like the stubborn one and it is working fine!!!! , and we think "Smoking, what have I got to lose? And you know what? It works! Would it be better to stop everything, and get out all the stuff necessary to Leement that bugger to come to the same conclusion? There is usually more than one way to skin a cat.

EDIT: Just read Ricks response above, and it is a good one. If everyone on here was as knowledgeable as Rick we really would not need this forum I guess. And that is not a put down at all. I have not been doing this for that long in the whole scheme of things. What I pride myself in doing is following a few key rules to the nth degree. One is that I have bought and READ all the available literature on casting boolits that I can get my hands on. To my knowledge I have read 99% of everything that has been dedicated to the boolit. When you do this you come to an understanding. You begin to realize (just as Rick has said) that there are conflicting reports made by people in the know, the true founding masters of the sport. Is this because they were lying? Not that I can see, it is just as Rick has said, they had found a successful way of getting the results they wanted. Were they above learning a new way? I don't know the answer to that. But what they did was state of the art at the time they did it. In fact, with everything we are capable of today, with the dissemination of knowledge what it is, we are very hard pressed to actually get the results that they did 100 or more years ago. Like most children, we have been spoiled into believing we do not stand on the shoulders of greater men. The best part of what we discuss on this site, the nuts and bolts of casting a good boolit, was known by a FEW shooters way back when. The only real difference I can see is that this old, once highly regarded (and secretly held) knowledge is now free for the taking. So I would argue that the real difference between now and then is not technology and us modifying our techniques around it, but rather the amount good boolit shooting knowledge is held by far more than it was back then. The stuff we take for granted here, were trade secrets 100 years ago. One of them was smoking a mold.

So with that being said, when a shooter finds a technique that works and he gets good results with it, he generally sticks with it come hell or high water. Is this because he is innately stupid and stubborn or because he knows it works? Does he realize that there might be better ways? I would say "No and Usually".

Just KISS, that is the best advice for this hobby IMO. Don't get frustrated when guys with a PhD in Boolits (like Rick) get the results they do. Casting is no different from anything else in life. Most of us learn by doing, over and over and over. What you think is cool beans today, might be old taters in a year or even tomorrow. Just pick a jumping off point and do it well. (That jumping off point should be finding a boolit that FITS your gun, and mastering casting technique!) Would you ask your third grader to do fractions all day? Or would you present the knowledge to him and leave off on a good point? Do you think you could race alongside Lance Armstrong without practice? You might not ever get there, but it does not mean you should not try, or be satisfied with realistic results. Alloy X, and alloy y, and alloy z are not as important as some would have you believe.

PS Please defer all your complaints to CJR :)

[Suo Gan]

Is there a recommended way to deburr the cavity edges?

If it is a Lee 2 cavity mold, I have been known to deburr them by letting them season for eternity at the county landfill. :violin:

Read up on Leementing a mold, I think that is what you are after.

[fishnbob]

I once read here that sometimes you just have to show the mold who's boss and just get a firm grip on the handles and your temper and force the scoundrel to conform to your wishes or else. After scrubbing the hell outta it with HOT water & dish washing liquid with a toothbrush and getting your pot up to about 900 degrees, I did the very same thing to my last MiHec and forced it to succumb to my desires. I too prefer a 2 cavity mold. It's easier for me to get 2 good ones than to have to worry about 4 others acting up! Hang in there and just keep throwing them back and pouring them out and sooner or later it'll give up.

[armoredman]

I never thought to ignite such a firestorm...:) I think the biggest culprit is the sprue plate. My first cavity's sprue has already hardened by the time the last one emerges from under the spout. I really like this boolit, and I did size up and gas check the 11 I did get, so I am willing to work on getting it to run right. They sized up to .311 nicely, bte. I am thinking the hot plate idea might work well, gonna need a power strip in the garage for the hot plate, pot and vent fan! I have box fan that blows the fumes from fluxing out the open garage door. Neighbors haven't complained yet...
This has been the most gentle disagreement of experts I have witnessed, much calmer than, say, a Taiwanese governmental dispute. :D

[geargnasher]

Let me restate some facts of the properties of tin and antimony in a lead alloy, because it seems to have been missed.

First off, WW alloy has very little tin to begin with, so "cranking the heat" up to 750+* probably isn't hurting you in a way you can tell, and extra heat does aid filloutwith low-tin alloy. So you can say "it doesn't hurt anything" within that context and almost be right. However, to say that you can run the pot with a higher-tin alloy that hot is to draw the wrong conclusion from experience with straight wheel weights or similar ternary alloy. Excessive heat multiplies the oxidation rate of the tin and defeats the purpose of using it as an oxidation shield in the first place.

But if you start wtih Lyman #2 with 5% tin you will most certainly tell by the way the oxide front forms and white patches appear on your boolits from being overheated and making the oxidation rate of the tin go into warp speed. You'll also note, with as little as 1-2% Tin in the mix and pot temp too hot, that the oxide scum layer on the top grows exponentially. If you run the pot cooler this is drasticall reduced.

Second, tin and antimony bond in approximately equal parts to each other in a ternary lead alloy to form an "intermetallic bond" to each other, in effect making the distinct element "SbSn", which is what gives "toughness" to our ternary alloys. Tin alone doesn't do much. If tin is more available than antimony, all excess tin that has to antimony with which to bond becomes "free" in the mix, and, while tin is infinitely soluble in lead, the excess of our tin can still form little pockets of tin in our finished alloy because of different liquidus temperatures between pure lead and pure tin. I call this "overtinning". If an excess of antimony is present, it hardens first and forms dentrites with molten liquid pure lead and SbSn floating around it. This makes the "crystalline slush" at certain temperatures that we experience with WW and Harball alloys where there is more antimony present than tin.

Tin and Lead binarys also have a lengthy slush stage, but that's due to the crystalline nature of pure tin itself, same as antimony, but in a ternary we are not dealing much with pure tin crystals because the tin is mostly consumed as "SbSn" unless the alloy is "overtinned", so the slush stage of ternaries is either from pure antimony and/or SbSn or just the SbSn if the alloy has equal parts tin and antimony present.

Now, why run an alloy with a decent amount of tin in it at over 700*? If you're not getting good fillout, you have alloy or mould contamination of some sort, a venting problem, or the mould is too cold.

One more thing, about thermometers: If you're using one to determine the ideal alloy temp for casting, how do you know beforehand what temp you are wanting to achieve? Do you say "alloy X that I'm using right now needs 725* for good boolits in X mould"? If you do, you've likely found the sweet spot between mould and alloy and documented it. This is the only real application for a themometer, Duplicating sweet spots. Otherwise, and to establish that sweet spot in the first place, trial and error with an educated guess was probably what was used to begin with. One of the reasons I don't cast with a thermometer very often is, like I said before, A THERMOMETER WILL TELL YOU THE TEMPERATURE, BUT THE ALLOY AND MOULD WILL TELL YOU THE CORRECT TEMPERATURE. So a thermometer is best used for dupicating what you already know works.

Gear

[Doby45]

You get you a small hotplate from Walgreens and you will NOT be disappointed. It changed how I cast completely. I seriously set the mold on the plate and turn it on HI when I turn on my Lee pot. BY the time the pot is ready that mold is beggin for some lead to be poured in it. And other than thinking I may be running my lead a tad too high, I cast keepers from the very first pour. Even with my Mihec molds.

For the record I use an old circular saw blade on the hotplate as my surface to rest the molds on. The handle pivot bolt props perfectly on the tip of the blade and holds the molds flat on the surface. I will get a pic for ya when I get home.

[geargnasher]

If the sprue from the first boolit is solid before you finish pouring the last one, THE MOULD AND SPRUE PLATE ARE TOO COLD.

I can't iterate enough how important it is with aluminum gang moulds to have them HOT. You might think it's hot at 200*, but it won't throw good boolits. Then you turn up the pot, thinking hotter alloy will help, add tin, clean the mould, bore out the sprue plate holes, and still have troubles. Preheat the mould to at least 400* on a hot plate or whatever, then adjust your casting rhythm to maintain that temperature. At 400*, if you don't have a good way to tell, the sprue on a Lee gang mould will take about five seconds to set after poured if you'r using WW alloy plus a little tin at 650* Straight WW at 750 will take a little longer.

Gear

[geargnasher]

You get you a small hotplate from Walgreens and you will NOT be disappointed. It changed how I cast completely. I seriously set the mold on the plate and turn it on HI when I turn on my Lee pot. BY the time the pot is ready that mold is beggin for some lead to be poured in it. And other than thinking I may be running my lead a tad too high, I cast keepers from the very first pour. Even with my Mihec molds.

For the record I use an old circular saw blade on the hotplate as my surface to rest the molds on. The handle pivot bolt props perfectly on the tip of the blade and holds the molds flat on the surface. I will get a pic for ya when I get home.

OOOH, SUPER idea about the old saw blade, I was going to make one of those ovens our of an electical box like someone did on the Special Projects forum, but I already use an inverted coffee can with a cut in the side of it, just needed a base for it, and a sawblade would be perfect.

Gear

[Suo Gan]

All that is great if you understand what you said. Ternary this, and binary that don't make a hill of beans to average Joe caster. Average Joe should be able to go through a process of elimination when coming into a problem. What I am trying to say is that boolit casters routinely make simple problems into a series of highly sophisticated WAGS about what is actually going on. Mold wrinkly = Mold cold? Alloy cold? Not enough tin? mold dirty? alloy contaminated? mold not vented properly? Go down the list from easiest to fix to hardest. It ain't rocket science...thank the Lord.

[Doby45]

I already use an inverted coffee can with a cut in the side of it, just needed a base for it, and a sawblade would be perfect.

Gear

And I never thought about putting a coffee can on top of it. Now I gotta find me a coffee can. WOOOOHOOOOOOOOO.

[Recluse]

One more thing, about thermometers: If you're using one to determine the ideal alloy temp for casting, how do you know beforehand what temp you are wanting to achieve? Do you say "alloy X that I'm using right now needs 725* for good boolits in X mould"? If you do, you've likely found the sweet spot between mould and alloy and documented it. This is the only real application for a themometer, Duplicating sweet spots.

Gear

Actually, in all seriousness and with (most) all joking aside, that is precisely what I use my thermometer for.

I've written here on various occasions how I segregate and organize my different ingots of different alloy blends. I know what kind of temps I need with which alloys and which molds to give me ideal casting production.

I learned that from a fellow who isn't around here anymore, Floodgate.

On another note, I've been lurking here before this place (officially) became Cast Boolits. Some of the folks I have learned the absolute most from include, but are not limited to:

Rick (CBRick)
Bret (Bret4207)
Waksupi
Ken (45Nut)
Felix
Carpetman
Junior
Beagle
Chargar
Larry Gibson
35 Remington
Glen
Buckshot

There are others, of course, but the above make up an encyclopedic base of knowledge and experience that is simply unmatched anywhere in the casting and shooting world.

And I am 100% guilty of that myself as well. We all have our days and our moments.

But at the end of the day, there is incomprehensible knowledge and experience here to learn from. But these folks will also be the first to tell you, "If it works, then what can we say?"

I often kid and joke about the "mysticism" surrounding casting boolits, but it is truly where science meets art meets technique. The "mysticism" for me comes when there are things I simply cannot explain.

If I were smarter, I'd turn to the masters here along with Glen Fryxell and I'm positive I could have my mysticism turned into rational explanations.

But sometimes, you know, the mysticism is more fun. :)

:coffee:


Sometimes they will come across as gruff and sarcastic or smart-alecky, an

[geargnasher]

Recluse, what is more fun are the esoteric rituals revolving around the simple act of making boolit lube. I've found chanting in Swahili to be particularly useful to get the subgods of the lube world to smile upon me. That and sacrificing a rubber chicken beforehand :kidding:

Gear

[geargnasher]

All that is great if you understand what you said. Ternary this, and binary that don't make a hill of beans to average Joe caster. Average Joe should be able to go through a process of elimination when coming into a problem. What I am trying to say is that boolit casters routinely make simple problems into a series of highly sophisticated WAGS about what is actually going on. Mold wrinkly = Mold cold? Alloy cold? Not enough tin? mold dirty? alloy contaminated? mold not vented properly? Go down the list from easiest to fix to hardest. It ain't rocket science...thank the Lord.

The basic problem is that Joe Caster is perfectly capable of understanding all this quite well, it's just that because it involves a couple of new words and some concept involving basic chemistry people automatically shut down with "no way I can understand anything that complicated" and then one is self-condemned to ignorance, mysticism, and confusion. This isn't complicated, just misunderstood.

Alloying an casting boolits requires no more brainpower, education, or knowledge of material handling than it does to be able to make a batch of biscuits plus a little more knowledge of safety practices, but you throw a college word in there and some people throw up their hands screaming. Maybe it could be explained in more common language, and that would be just fine, but there exists already the proper or accepted terminology and I feel that perhaps we should take the approach of expanding our knowledge to meet the task rather than going to such extremes to keep our knowledge and vocabulary level. Don't blame me, I can't help that I come from a long line of teachers of Kindergarten through college!

I was explaining the properties of boolit metals so that people could see, and hopefully understand, exactly WHY it is that folks like Rick, Bret, and myself give the advice we give. We, along with many others here, understand what is going on from a practical and scientific perspective, and while none of us will claim to be the Dog's Gift to boolit casting, there are very good reasons why we dispense advice and stand behind what we say. Old wive's tales get blown to smithereens with a little proper application of scientific reasoning, chemistry, and the laws of physics.

And like Sundog says, "It ain't rocket science, it's boolit science!"

Gear

[armoredman]

Must the chicken be rubber, or is latex a good substitute? :)

OK, sounds like the crux is that the big gang mould is just simply too cold, and a cheapie hot plate will help. Just to remove any doubt, I buy a hot plate, heat it with the mould sitting flat on it, or on it's side, to get the sprue plate too, let it heat for how long, then grab and go? Hot plate next to the pot, make it convienant?

[Doby45]

My mold heater...

$10 hotplate from Walgreens
Old saw blade.
Coffee can I just found in my garage.

This is how my mold/molds rode on the hotplate prior to finding my coffee can. ;)

http://i54.tinypic.com/34ss17p.jpg

Shows how the hinge pin bolt actually rests on the blade.

http://i52.tinypic.com/oqvkat.jpg

Finally, this is with the addition of my new coffee can lid, thanks to gearnasher's suggestion.

http://i52.tinypic.com/2rmb049.jpg

[geargnasher]

PERFECTION!

Gear

[Doby45]

Actually, I now need to dial a temp in for my burner. Before I just turned it on full burn and by the time the pot was hot, my mold was hot and could cast immediately. NOW, the coffee can lid/oven enclosure does such a good job heating the mold that my first cast keep the sprue liquid for approx 2 minutes and it only cooled down when I sat the mold on the concrete floor in the garage. WAY to hot, next time I will try the medium setting. ;)

It has to be hotter than dutch love inside that tiny oven..

[azcruiser]

Armoredman up late read through this post some where you said you were swirling it around.Or
something like that . When I cast out of my lee bottom pour pot I have found now to me that a cigar box under the spout or something that you can set the mold on that brings it very close but not touching the spur plate gets me better results.Because I kind of have tremors but holding the mold still and having inline so you just slide from hole to hole kind of front to back or back to front works for me. I just today finished doing 600 -152 gr 311 dia and 500- 180 gr 311 dia that look pretty good to me .But then again I don't see that well which sometimes is a good thing . Going to shoot them in my SKS and my SAKO FINNISH whatever it is 762x54
rimed loaded with trail boss because that 762x 54 bruises me with all the blood thinners I'm on. If you want a hand full of them let me know cast with a lee mold smoked ?I was married 37 yrs have to follow directions it's habit

[Bret4207]

Time to roll another grenade into the room about smoking moulds to improve booliit quality.

For the record, old Schuetzen riflemen often smoked their bullet moulds to produce better bullets. Some of their record cast bullet groups still stand today. Also, the National Rifle Association did testing on smoking bullet moulds to improve bullet quality. The NRA found and documented that smoking a bullet mould DID improve the quality of the bullets, see NRA's Cast Bullet Handbook, pg.81. In my view, the NRA did more important research into cast bullet research than anyone I'm aware of.

When I started bullet casting in 1956, every now and then I would encounter a problem mould. I tried every solvent or cleaning solution/technique available to clean the problem mould. When I read the NRA article on smoking the mould, I tried that and it worked for me. So I'm a believer in smoking moulds and use it all the time. But that's been my experience. Use whatever cleaning procedure works for you.

Give me a minute to get my helmet on and get down behind this rock before all the incoming rounds. I'm ready, let the barrage begin.

Best regards,

CJR

No one has any more respect for Col Harrison, Pope, Zischang, Barlow, etc. than I. But, we gain knowledge through he years. One of the really neat things about this site is the wives tales we laid to rest and new view we've gained. Smoking often works to mask the problem, but the problem remains. Same with the wives tales about needing harder alloy to reduce leading. It's just not that simple.

No offense intended or taken.

[sundog]

Bret, you've offered up an opinion that smoking a mould only masks a problem. Well, I've been at this casting thing for awhile, too. While I basically agree that many moulds need a little TLC on arrival into the fold, I have also have some that continue to demand attention well past any others. Here's my take. The material used to cut the mould is not always perfect. The surface of the cavity can have 'micro interuptions' either by method of cutting, the tooling itself, the metal, or any number of other reasons. They might not hold and release heat consistently. These moulds can make 'perfect' boolits, but never cast a really good one when absolutely clean down to the metal surface. I have a few like this that are quality moulds and refuse to work well when clean. When treated with smoke, pencil coloring, or the q-tip rub-down with release agent, voila. And by the way, with the measuring tools I have, I cannot tell in the least than anything detrimental effects the diameter - in fact fill out and detail improves. In conclusion, it is my studied experience that every mould, as every every barrel and chamber, as every action, is different. My job is to make it all work. To do that, I often need an array of tools and methodologies. As a parting example, I have a few moulds that work absolutely bestest on cool rainy days, or as Felix has explained to me, an evaporating atmosphere. I am sure that there is a perfectly suitable scientific explanation for this other than Voodoo, and that's fine. If I tried to compare all of the world's snowflakes, I would not have time to shoot. Actually that would be the edge of insanity, same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

edited: after thinking about that, he may have said condensing atmosphere. No bother, it is cool, rainy days that work best, and since I am neither a metalurgist nor a meteorologist, and don't play one on the internet, well, no bother.

[Bret4207]

Corky, no argument on the practical side of things, but the "what" that smoking masks...that's the key, isn't it? Just as some moulds really need a ladle with a particular guy and particular alloy or your moulds that want to work best in certain weather, it's the variations in individual moulds or casters that produce these anomalies. Smoking, or even using mould release works for some people, for others it's just a bandaid. I don't expect anyone to change anything they do, but the basic idea that smoking covers up a problem seems pretty common sense to me.

My experience is that smoking does produce smaller boolits. Again, maybe that's part of individual variance, but a half a thou or so over 10-15 examples over several moulds seems pretty conclusive to me.

[longbow]

armoredman:

Call me simple but as I said before heat is your friend in my opinion ~ both mould and lead.

The hotplate will help for sure and good hot lead will too. If my sprue hardens before I put down my ladle my opinion is that the mould and/or lead are too cool and I generally find that boolits are wrinkled or have rounded edges.

As mentioned, I have a two burner propane stove and the mould gets heated on a pice of 3/16" steel plate while lead is melting.

Not very scientific but if spit or water on the end of my finger doesn't sizzle like on a pancake griddle the mould is not hot enough.

I find the NOE aluminum and Mihec brass moulds require even more heat to cast well but they do cast well for me. I thought that pointy little nose on the NOE 0.314" x 129 gr. would be a problem to fill but when the mould and lead are hot they come out great.

Don't give up, you will get it. Lots of good advice in this thread.

Longbow

[cbrick]

Call me simple but as I said before heat is your friend in my opinion ~ both mould and lead.

The hotplate will help for sure and good hot lead will too. If my sprue hardens before I put down my ladle my opinion is that the mould and/or lead are too cool and I generally find that boolits are wrinkled or have rounded edges.

I find the NOE aluminum and Mihec brass moulds require even more heat to cast well but they do cast well for me. I thought that pointy little nose on the NOE 0.314" x 129 gr. would be a problem to fill but when the mould and lead are hot they come out great. Longbow

Longbow, let me ask a question.

Is it possible to have the pot/alloy temp at a temp that's healthy for the alloy (under 750 assuming a Pb/Sn alloy) and at the same time have the mold at a proper casting temp?

Or to put it another way, is it necessary/needed to increase the pot/alloy temp to increase the mold temp?

Or another way, is it possible, if your mold casts well with a mold temp of 425 (as an example) to keep your mold temp at 425 with an alloy/pot temp of 700 degrees? Is it necessary/needed to crank up the pot temp to get/keep the mold temp at the proper casting temp of 425?

An indisputable fact: A Pb/Sn alloy will cast exceptionally well at 700 degrees which is well over 100 degrees over it's liquidus temp and yet well under 750 degrees. Don't confuse liquidus temp with melting temp. Melting temp is the temperature which the alloy begins to melt. Liquidus temp is the temperature at which all of the metals in an alloy are completely melted. Melting temp is easy to know, it's the temp where you can see the alloy begin to melt. It's from difficult to impossible for a bullet caster to know an exact liquidus temp with a given alloy. This is the reason I use 700 degrees as a casting temp, it is over the liquidus temp and plenty hot to cast exceptionally well.

With 700 degree alloy/pot temp it is extremely easy to get your mold up to and even well past it's ideal casting temp.

For well cast bullets it's the mold temp, not the alloy/pot temp that will get you the results your looking for.

Rick

[casterofboolits]

Smoking a moulds cavities may mask a problem, but (BS word) it also solves the problem. Lyman moulds ( I have about 70 four cavity) almost always have to be smoked to produce good boolits.

I'm not talking casting a few hundred or a couple thousand either. In one nine month period I handcast 50,000 38-158-RNPB for 38S IPSC shooters and a distributor in Toledo. I averaged 50,000 plus per month. I used three four cavity Lyman moulds and could empty a 10 kilo RCBS pot in twenty minutes, approx. 500 boolits. Fill the pot with alloy and start on the second 10 kilo pot that was ready to go. When the second pot was done, the first was ready to go. I normally cast eight to ten pots a day. Paid all the bills till I found another job.

The Lyman moulds would not, NOT, cast a good boolit until they were smoked. An old wives tale? Not in my experience. This includes H&G, Saeco, and Lee. IMHO, Bic is my friend.

Too much build up is not good, so I clean my moulds before I smoke them a second time. I clean my moulds with a diluted solution of Dawn and a tooth brush. Otherwise, you get undersize boolits.

Smoking moulds works for me, so I'll stick with it. YMMV

[CJR]

Has the barrage of incoming rounds stopped yet? I think I hear more rounds on the way. I'd better play it safe and stay behind my rock!

Best regards,

CJR

[geargnasher]

Smoking a moulds cavities may mask a problem, but (BS word) it also solves the problem. Lyman moulds ( I have about 70 four cavity) almost always have to be smoked to produce good boolits.

I'm not talking casting a few hundred or a couple thousand either. In one nine month period I handcast 50,000 38-158-RNPB for 38S IPSC shooters and a distributor in Toledo. I averaged 50,000 plus per month. I used three four cavity Lyman moulds and could empty a 10 kilo RCBS pot in twenty minutes, approx. 500 boolits. Fill the pot with alloy and start on the second 10 kilo pot that was ready to go. When the second pot was done, the first was ready to go. I normally cast eight to ten pots a day. Paid all the bills till I found another job.

The Lyman moulds would not, NOT, cast a good boolit until they were smoked. An old wives tale? Not in my experience. This includes H&G, Saeco, and Lee. IMHO, Bic is my friend.

Too much build up is not good, so I clean my moulds before I smoke them a second time. I clean my moulds with a diluted solution of Dawn and a tooth brush. Otherwise, you get undersize boolits.

Smoking moulds works for me, so I'll stick with it. YMMV

If it "worked" for you, it worked. You did it right with a Bic instead of a match or candle like Lee recommends, and didn't let it get thick. However, just because you couldn't get any of those moulds to cast a good boolit until smoked doesn't mean that it is a general truth. I means that, with the particular technique you used to cast, it was deemed necessary by you. If you're interested, come over to my house sometime with ANY of your moulds and I'll show you how I do it without smoke. In many cases, especially with rifle boolits needing flawless consistency, smoke throws a monkey wrench in the works as far as diameter, fillout of the edges, surface "finish", and weight consistency. A clean mould run at a constant temperature with a consistent alloy compostition and temperature are key to making consistent, accurate boolits. In .38 Spl I doubt anyone would know the difference.

Gear

[geargnasher]

armoredman:

Call me simple but as I said before heat is your friend in my opinion ~ both mould and lead. I don't know what you base your "opinion" on, but I base mine upon facts of metallurgy, and explained earlier in this thread the scientific reasons why running the alloy too hot is bad. You are correct about having a plenty-hot mould.

The hotplate will help for sure and good hot lead will too. If my sprue hardens before I put down my ladle my opinion is that the mould and/or lead are too cool and I generally find that boolits are wrinkled or have rounded edges. Again, you are drawing the wrong conclusion on the lead temperature. If the lead will pour it is hot enough. If you have wrinkled boolits, or the sprue freezes too fast, your mould is what is too cool and you need to increase your casting pace to impart more heat to it.

As mentioned, I have a two burner propane stove and the mould gets heated on a pice of 3/16" steel plate while lead is melting. Nothing wrong with that setup, sounds pretty good to me.

Not very scientific but if spit or water on the end of my finger doesn't sizzle like on a pancake griddle the mould is not hot enough. That's for sure, but even if it does sizzle it still may not be hot enough. Depending on mould and alloy, my moulds run somewhere between 350 and 500* (the higher only for pure lead or lead/tin alloy) and they will sizzle spit at 220*.

I find the NOE aluminum and Mihec brass moulds require even more heat to cast well but they do cast well for me. I've found that to be true as well, but I run my alloy the same temp as I would for any other mould, but preheat a bit more and cast at warp speed to keep them hot. Aluminum and brass have an extremely high coefficient of thermal conductivity (they lose heat fast) and fast casting is needed to keep the heat up. I thought that pointy little nose on the NOE 0.314" x 129 gr. would be a problem to fill but when the mould and lead are hot they come out great.

Don't give up, you will get it. Lots of good advice in this thread.

Longbow

Longbow, this is an example of the "wive's tales" we've been talking about. Experience has taught you that heat is important to good boolit casting, but if you're using alloys containing tin, you won't get the best results from overheating your pot. Just try a cooler pot and faster casting pace, you might like it!

Gear

[CJR]

Gear,

Your statement:

"In many cases, especially with rifle boolits needing flawless consistency, smoke throws a monkey wrench in the works as far as diameter, fillout of the edges, surface "finish", and weight consistency".

Has not been my experience. The NRA recommended smoking the mould and then brushing out the mould with a very well cleaned brush. My diameters are fine, fillout of edges is fine, and surface finish is excellent. Weight variation is expected as I do a lot of casting and use different scrap leads. etc. I solve that by separating my bullets into batches that vary no more than a grain. I shoot as many cast bullets for rifle as I do for pistols. That's been my experience.

Best regards,

CJR

[Bret4207]

If it "worked" for you, it worked. You did it right with a Bic instead of a match or candle like Lee recommends, and didn't let it get thick. However, just because you couldn't get any of those moulds to cast a good boolit until smoked doesn't mean that it is a general truth. I means that, with the particular technique you used to cast, it was deemed necessary by you. If you're interested, come over to my house sometime with ANY of your moulds and I'll show you how I do it without smoke. In many cases, especially with rifle boolits needing flawless consistency, smoke throws a monkey wrench in the works as far as diameter, fillout of the edges, surface "finish", and weight consistency. A clean mould run at a constant temperature with a consistent alloy compostition and temperature are key to making consistent, accurate boolits. In .38 Spl I doubt anyone would know the difference.

Gear

Agree, what works for one guy, regardless of how many he casts, isn't the answer for everyone. My experience is opposite casterofboolits. I have several 4 cavity Lymans, a bunch of 6 Cavity Lee and a 10 cavity H+G. The last thing I need is soot in the cavities. But, I use a basic WW alloy, a hot mould and it works for me. I question that all your moulds "needed" smoking, but wonder if rather you found it to work so just made it a practice. That's what I did for a long time when I was casting a lot and smoking things.

Who knows, I have a fever anywy today, maybe this will all seem dumb tomorrow.

[casterofboolits]

If it "worked" for you, it worked. You did it right with a Bic instead of a match or candle like Lee recommends, and didn't let it get thick. However, just because you couldn't get any of those moulds to cast a good boolit until smoked doesn't mean that it is a general truth. I means that, with the particular technique you used to cast, it was deemed necessary by you. If you're interested, come over to my house sometime with ANY of your moulds and I'll show you how I do it without smoke. In many cases, especially with rifle boolits needing flawless consistency, smoke throws a monkey wrench in the works as far as diameter, fillout of the edges, surface "finish", and weight consistency. A clean mould run at a constant temperature with a consistent alloy compostition and temperature are key to making consistent, accurate boolits. In .38 Spl I doubt anyone would know the difference.

Gear

Gear,

I sure wish I could drop by for a casting session, but it's a bit far. I don't do rifle boolits or gas checks.

My moulds have been tuned to match and my alloy mixed to throw exact weights in my moulds. If it's a 158, my boolits are Plus/minus .5 grains from both moulds I'm using. The alloy is triple fluxed when smelted and then fluxed again in my bottom pour pots. The smelt is usually 50/50 WW and indoor range lead. I add a mix of Lino (90%) and tin (10%) to the to get the boolet weight I want. I do this by weight and usually do this 65# at a time and make one pound and half pound ingots. My casting temp is 750 F by my Lyman thermometer. My Lyman moulds like to run hot.

I supplied cast boolit to IPSC shooters for twenty years till health problems put me out of business.

I'm not trying to upset any one, just stating my experience.

What worked for me may not work for others, as I said YMMV.

[geargnasher]

I'm certainly not upset, hope no one else is either! I think you'll find that if you had cast with one gang mould at a time (to keep mould temp up) and run your alloy at 650-700 degrees you would never have had to smoke your moulds. But you did what you had to do to get the production you needed.

I wish some of us lived closer together, but I guess meeting on line is better than never meeting at all!

Gear

[a.squibload]

Used to smoke molds, thought I was supposed to.
Never cleaned a mold before, ever. Water is bad for 'em!
Only pre-heated a mold for a few seconds by dipping corner in melt, scared of warping.
I like the saw blade, and coffee-can oven.

Bet I'll get better boolits now! Used to have a high rejection rate.

Still need to make a burner and stand, cut the propane tank for a pot, heat-cycle the new NOE molds,
slug the bores, fix the brakes, paint the house, someday I'll go shootin' too...

[geargnasher]

Gear,

Your statement:

"In many cases, especially with rifle boolits needing flawless consistency, smoke throws a monkey wrench in the works as far as diameter, fillout of the edges, surface "finish", and weight consistency".

Has not been my experience. The NRA recommended smoking the mould and then brushing out the mould with a very well cleaned brush. My diameters are fine, fillout of edges is fine, and surface finish is excellent. Weight variation is expected as I do a lot of casting and use different scrap leads. etc. I solve that by separating my bullets into batches that vary no more than a grain. I shoot as many cast bullets for rifle as I do for pistols. That's been my experience.

Best regards,

CJR

The NRA also thinks that 50/50 is the best possible boolit lubricant and don't get me started on what they say about fillers. The NRA staff at one time did a lot to dispell myths and put a little R&D into the then-contemporary cast boolit world. They did us all an invaluble service, but that shouldn't limit the rest of us to the knowledge of a few bright men from the 1950's forever. There are a lot of things we know better how to do now, so let's keep moving forward.

Can you explain to me exactly WHY the NRA articles recommended smoking the cavities? Were there any aluminum moulds in existence at that time? I want to know the exact reasons, because if there is something I missed about the technique of smoking moulds I want to know what it is.

Gear

[geargnasher]

Used to smoke molds, thought I was supposed to.
Never cleaned a mold before, ever. Water is bad for 'em!
Only pre-heated a mold for a few seconds by dipping corner in melt, scared of warping.
I like the saw blade, and coffee-can oven.

Bet I'll get better boolits now! Used to have a high rejection rate.

Still need to make a burner and stand, cut the propane tank for a pot, heat-cycle the new NOE molds,
slug the bores, fix the brakes, paint the house, someday I'll go shootin' too...

I know, ME TOO! It said so in the instructions for the first mould I ever owned (a Lee two-banger rn .30 cal GC mould). I also used beewax to lubricate the sprue plate and alignment pins, fluxed with candle wax, ran the pot on "9", and cussed a lot. Never made very pretty boolits, either, until I started experimenting. Then I went back and quizzed the gentleman who showed me how to cast in the first place, and he said he didn't know, he always used iron or Mehenite (sp) moulds and all they ever needed was a good cleaning and maybe a bronze brush wrapped in steel wool spun in the cavities once in a while. I was cautioned to add tin solder and keep the pot temp down. Now I know why. I tried cleaning the Lee mold and doing what he said. Voila!, good boolits. He also showed me the trick of dipping the corner of the mould in the melt, but never said it would warp the blocks. Good thing I didn't know it would warp them, 'cause I've been getting dozens of moulds scorching hot by dunking the blocks in the melt and it would have ruined them if I'd have known :mrgreen:.

This is exactly why myself and a few others come here and trumpet what we do, perhaps we can obliterate some of the common BS about casting, and if I can save even one person who is new to casting some of the trouble I went through learning how, it will have been worth it.

{edit}There are 13 people currently viewing this thread, including four lurkers, hope I have helped some of you in some way.


Gear

[buck1]

[QUOTE=cbrick;1000847]Many years ago I read an article (I think HandLoader but not sure) on mold cleaning that said the only readily available cleaning solvent that leaves NO residue upon drying is denatured alcohol. Break Cleaner does, naphtha and carb cleaner and the like can be as bad as the original oil your trying to get rid of. Been using denatured alcohol ever since and have no oily mold issues.



Rick
End quote.


More wives tales...
I must say in the several years I have been casting I have used break clean with -0- trouble from residue. If it does leave a residue , it does not give any trouble.
Denatured alcohol, wile a good cleaner is loaded with additives and dyes. to make it poision to drink. these additives varry a lot. Dont take my word on it , look it up.
I am not saying it does not work . I am just saying its not the only game in town, and is not the ultra pure cleaner it sounds like....my $0.02 ....Buck

[CJR]

Gear,

Your request:

"Can you explain to me exactly WHY the NRA articles recommended smoking the cavities? Were there any aluminum moulds in existence at that time? I want to know the exact reasons, because if there is something I missed about the technique of smoking moulds I want to know what it is."

From the NRA article I answer your questions as follows:
1. The NRA recommended smoking the moulds to improve the quality of the bullets.
2.There were aluminum moulds available at that time.

And now for a little background on the NRA's research on cast bullets. The late Col. Harrison, who authored many of the NRA's articles/books, I believe ran the Army's Aberdeen Proving grounds. On retirement he joined the NRA and investigated many subjects including the cast bullet development. He obviously had a very technical background and was well versed in conducting detailed scientific experiments. Col. Harrison surrounded himself with cast bullet competitors who actively shot in matches up to a 1000yds with cast bullets. Some of these gentlemen set some cast bullet records. I corresponded with Col. Harrison a few times and found him to be very astute in cast bullets. He developed the NRA's Alox 2138F/beeswax cast bullet lubricant, but also tested virtually hundreds of other lubricants. Likewise, he evaluated existing cast bullet designs and documented what were poor designs. Shortly thereafter many mould manufacturers quietly dropped those bullet designs from their catalogs. I very greatly respect the NRA's work on cast bullet technology because they published what they discovered for all to see and critique. I know of no one else that has advanced the state of the art of cast bullets as the NRA has. If the NRA recommended "smoking" a bullet mould to improve bullet quality, I know they conducted detailed experiments before making that recommendation. Col. Harrison and his staff were very knowledgeable about casting quality bullets and worked with a lot of the mould manufacturers. If producing quality bullets was just only proper cleaning of the moulds, the NRA would have advocated it. Instead they advocated proper cleaning, smoking, and brushing out the mould.

Best regards,

CJR

[Recluse]

[QUOTE=cbrick;1000847]Many years ago I read an article (I think HandLoader but not sure) on mold cleaning that said the only readily available cleaning solvent that leaves NO residue upon drying is denatured alcohol. Break Cleaner does, naphtha and carb cleaner and the like can be as bad as the original oil your trying to get rid of. Been using denatured alcohol ever since and have no oily mold issues.



Rick
End quote.


More wives tales...
I must say in the several years I have been casting I have used break clean with -0- trouble from residue. If it does leave a residue , it does not give any trouble.
Denatured alcohol, wile a good cleaner is loaded with additives and dyes. to make it poision to drink. these additives varry a lot. Dont take my word on it , look it up.
I am not saying it does not work . I am just saying its not the only game in town, and is not the ultra pure cleaner it sounds like....my $0.02 ....Buck

Well, one thing that is not a wives tale is that any residue left over from brake cleaner, when heated up, can do you some serious, as in deadly, damage if you inadvertently inhale the fumes.

When I Lee-ment a Lee mold, I use some Shooter's Choice to clean the lapping compound out of the cavities and any residue that got in the vent lines. I next use brake cleaner to get rid of the Shooter's Choice, then I use 91% isopropyl alcohol on a Q-tip, generously, to get rid of the brake cleaner. Molds then go on top of the furnace to pre-heat, then a dozen or more casting runs to completely burn off any remaining residues.

Works for me.

:coffee:

[frankenfab]

I have really enjoyed reading this thread, guys. I noticed the day I joined this site how perfect the boolit in Cbrick's avatar was. I don't always make boolits like that, but I am no amatuer, either. I think alot of the things brought up and explained in this thread might enable me to make the really pretty boolits on a more consistent basis.

Thanks to all of you.

[geargnasher]

[QUOTE=cbrick;1000847]Many years ago I read an article (I think HandLoader but not sure) on mold cleaning that said the only readily available cleaning solvent that leaves NO residue upon drying is denatured alcohol. Break Cleaner does, naphtha and carb cleaner and the like can be as bad as the original oil your trying to get rid of. Been using denatured alcohol ever since and have no oily mold issues.



Rick
End quote.


More wives tales...
I must say in the several years I have been casting I have used break clean with -0- trouble from residue. If it does leave a residue , it does not give any trouble.
Denatured alcohol, wile a good cleaner is loaded with additives and dyes. to make it poision to drink. these additives varry a lot. Dont take my word on it , look it up.
I am not saying it does not work . I am just saying its not the only game in town, and is not the ultra pure cleaner it sounds like....my $0.02 ....Buck


Actually, Buck you need some better information. Brake cleaner, years ago before the OSHA, CARB, and EPA started making it, contained some things like chlorine that left a residue behind. Not so much anymore. You can clean glass with it, just about anyone's formula. They also used to use heavier hydrocarbons as propellants and that left oily residues.

You are correct about denatured alcohol having additives, but you don't get the whole story, and that is a shame. The "additives" are simply other alcohols, mainly Methanol, which serve only to poison the base ethanol to the point that it can be considered tax exempt from the perspective of the agencies responsible for taxing and regulating drinking alcohol, aka booze. Those additive alcohols do not detract from the effective degreasing quality of the product. The dye, had to go to Wiki-paedea (NOT the greatest source) says that the purple dye is Aniline dye which I doubt very seriously actually affects the cleaning/degreasing properties.

Gear

[badgeredd]

Maybe I missed it but has anyone suggested checking the mold venting? I know that decent venting really helps to fill a mold so it occurred to me that possibly trapped air may also be a factor.

Edd

[geargnasher]

CJR, you have told me nothing. "Because Col. Harrison said so" alone isn't a good reason.

You gave me history, facts about Co. Harrison, etc. but NO reasons why smoking is good for moulds. I readily acknowledge the good work done by him and the NRA staff, writers, and researchers. I did so a couple of posts ago, as a matter of fact. I also refuse to be stuck in a mid-19th century way of thinking. If we all were, we wouln't have the internet or the technology that makes the PC possible. We would be posting letters to each other that were written with Royal typewriters. We might not be shooting cast at 2500+fps because we might have thought that antimony was a wive's tale and never added it to our mix, since Lord Elmer was so stuck on his beloved 16:1. All I'm saying is technology advances, and if you don't understand the reasoning behind techniques you're using, you may well be doing things the hard way or not the best way.

Nowdays, we have things like Felix lube, which is FAR, FAR, superior in every way to the NRA formula, although it doesn't contain any space-age ingredients. In fact it is made from 17th century ingredients, just put together with a 20th-century understanding that came about from research in petroleum plastics. We also have Veral's lube, and let's not discount the magical properties of certain modern lubricants such as that in Bullplate sprue lube or Polydimethylsiloxane compounds. Soooo, I challenge again a simple, scientific reason why carbon particles in the cavities make better boolits, because my experience has been otherwise, mainly because they don't make a brush with fine enough bristles to get the soot out of the corners of the cavities.

Gear

[geargnasher]

Maybe I missed it but has anyone suggested checking the mold venting? I know that decent venting really helps to fill a mold so it occurred to me that possibly trapped air may also be a factor.

Edd

Edd, that's one of my peeves about smoke: It plugs vent lines. I don't think anyone mentioned it specifically, but Leementing was.

Armoredman, you might do well to go to Castpics.net and read that article on "Leementing" a mould, it includes a brief description of how to scribe the vent lines on Lee moulds, but I don't think your mould really needs it, just clean the soot out of everything and try again.

Gear

[geargnasher]

I have really enjoyed reading this thread, guys. I noticed the day I joined this site how perfect the boolit in Cbrick's avatar was. I don't always make boolits like that, but I am no amatuer, either. I think alot of the things brought up and explained in this thread might enable me to make the really pretty boolits on a more consistent basis.

Thanks to all of you.

Says sumphin', don't it?

Gear

[RayinNH]

...and then there's the folks who spray Kroil into their molds. Obviously spotless cleaning isn't the be all and end all. Crazy hobby. So much to learn...Ray

[azcruiser]

i think i identified a problem. I am used to the method i was taught, to try to swirl the melt around the opening in the sprue plate, to get an even fill out. This mould doesn't allow that, with frequent plugs forming in the sprue plate. I just measured with the handy dandy calipers. All lee sprue holes measure between .40 and .60, (for the older one), while the biggest sprue hole in the new mould is .32, with two measuring .15! No wonder i can't get a good fill out - i can't get a good stream into the thing.
Does that sound like a likely villian? The sprue plate is very thick, .185", compared to the wider holed lee, (that just don't sound right! :) ) is at .12". Being detached from the mould, it doesn't heat like the mould does, and being such a small hole, it freezes the melt far earlier than the mould itself does.
Of course, i might be grasping at straws here...thoughts?

Edit to add, i am going to figure this thing out one way or another, i never had a real quality mould before, and i ain't getting rid of this one!

i would think they all should be the same dia. On a mold ?? IF their different that doesn't sound right to me going from .32 to .15 sounds like maybe someone skipped a step.The right Drill should fix that I think Also you said the spurs get hard make me think with a bigger mold you need a bigger piece of wood /bat/dowel to hit the sprue plate

[looseprojectile]

BUT I have read all 139 posts and replies and only one person has mentioned using a propane torch to heat a mould. Kroil has been mentioned once.
I don't want to come off as being an expert or a know it all but I try to keep it simple and just use some common sense.
Occaisonally I have some dificulty trying to cast perfect boolits. Most of the time when I start to cast I heat the mould with the torch and the first pour delivers perfect boolits. That being said I would never play the flame of a torch on the sharp corners of the inside of the mould blocks. My torch has a four or five inch long about half inch in diameter flame and it would take some serious effort to melt aluminum with it.
I had a four cavity mould once and I gave it away, too heavy. I now have about thirty eight boolit moulds and all are one or two cavity.
Armoredman would be well advised to go with a single or two cavity mould to start with so that he could enrich his expertise with experience.
Use enough heat!!!!!!!

Life is good

[buck1]

True, ANY chem fumes are on my list of things not to inhale. I am no chemist, but I have read of various things used to denature alcohol including gasoline (no foolin) and I dont want to breath them eaither. But when dry there cant be much left IMHO.
Its all toxic to some extent but chlorine is in the water we drink , alcohol is also consumed etc, so good luck staying away from it all 100%. All of it deadly in the right amounts. So dont sit there and sniff the stuff wile evaporating .
Notice I did not condem denatured alcohol (a poision by definition and law) as a cleaner, I just said break clean was -ALSO- a good cleaner . And after drying and pre heating I sure cant find any left nor can my hot lead find anything to cause defects.
Quite honistly if you re read my post I dont see any arguement made except that I disagree with handloader or other mag that it was read in about break cleaner being not good to clean a mold. If something else was sugested it was not my intent.
Always cast and use cleaners in a well vented area reguardless of what you clean your mold with. Heck thats basic common sence...:groner:

[CJR]

Gear,

With all due respect, I don't propose to be your instructor in understanding how smoking a mould improves the quality of cast bullets. I'm just relating documented information on what the NRA tested and recommended, i.e. smoking bullet moulds to obtain high quality bullets. Whether you believe or accept that recommendation is of no consequence to me.

Best regards,

CJR

[codgerville@zianet.com]

I use brake cleaner to clean and de-grease all my molds. I have never found any residue left in the molds. I have a couple of bottles of the old NEI Mold Prep which I use with a Q-tip to lightly coat the cavities and the sprue plate.

[armoredman]

looseprojectile, I appreciate your support, but I have been casting for a couple of years with Lee 2 cavity moulds. Never had this issue with them, always dipped the corner of the mould into the melt to heat up, and when the lead didn't stick to it, it was warm enough to get started. This was a special opportunity, a real custom boolit that I wanted, something to make my vz-58 and CZ 527M sing with cast, as the only mould I have for 7.62x39mm is the Lee 160 grainer, which is a bit heavy for the caliber. So, when I saw this opportinuty, and with full co-operation from the better half, I jumped on it, and I NOT unhappy I did, I will always be grateful to the seller for letting me have this at a great price, as I am grateful to all the posters here with great advice. I just want it to work right, and I think the main culprit here, after reading ALL of the responses, is cold mould. The way I pre heated moulds works great with the aluminum two bangers, but with a 5 slot it isn't enough, I see now. So, on pay day, I will drop by the thrift store for a cheap hot plate to pre heat the mould.
The last question I had was how long to warm up, and that was answered with, "Start when the pot starts, pots is ready, mould is ready", roughly translated. :)
So one cheap hotplate, if I can squeeze it out, (bad payday), and we will be in business!

[skimmerhead]

all my molds steell, aluminum, brass are treated with kroil. when time to use i use a little acetone in a small container with a 1/2" brush or tooth brush, first i let soak ten minutes then scrub, remove, blow with compressed air. empty container put fresh acetone and repeat. clean mold.

skimmerhead

[Recluse]

We might not be shooting cast at 2500+fps because we might have thought that antimony was a wive's tale and never added it to our mix, since Lord Elmer was so stuck on his beloved 16:1. All I'm saying is technology advances, and if you don't understand the reasoning behind techniques you're using, you may well be doing things the hard way or not the best way.

Nowdays, we have things like Felix lube, which is FAR, FAR, superior in every way to the NRA formula, although it doesn't contain any space-age ingredients. In fact it is made from 17th century ingredients, just put together with a 20th-century understanding that came about from research in petroleum plastics. We also have Veral's lube, and let's not discount the magical properties of certain modern lubricants such as that in Bullplate sprue lube or Polydimethylsiloxane compounds.

Gear

Interesting observations here that I'll throw in on. . .

I will hypothesize that there are more people casting their own boolits today than there were when Colonel Harrison and Elmer Keith and Skeeter and those pioneers were casting their own.

Harrison, Keith, Skelton and others were the trailblazers in the field of using lead to make our favored and beloved projectiles. . . like John Browning and Arthur Savage, Samuel Colt, (Horace) Smith & (Dan) Wesson, Dr. Richard Gatling, and John Garand to just name a few, were to the modern firearms we so love today.

But does anyone really think that the engineers and Glock or Sig or H&K turn their nose up at Browning, Savage, Garand, and company? Having visited those corporate headquarters, and many others, I can personally tell you that is not the case.

At the same time, the engineers will tell you the best way they can honor their predecessors is by making better and stronger firearms. Likewise, I think John Browning would be fascinated by today's semi-automatic handguns. John Browning would be amazed at firing the Barrett .50 calibre rifle, and Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson would be blown away by what Glock did with polymer frames.

There are those who accept the status quo and there are those who do not. I wasn't satisfied with Lee's Liquid Alox, so I took what I'd read by the folks ahead of me on Cast Boolits and what they'd tried and experimented with and finally settled on this 45/45/10 blend.

Now, Glenn (Larson) is looking to take the idea of a "liquid" tumble-lube and take the alox right out of it and in doing so, he very well may revolutionize the entire concept of tumble-lubing. . .maybe lubing altogether. Who knows? But it will be fun to watch and try.

Felix lube is a PERFECT example of utilizing today's knowledge with yesterday's resources. Likewise, the Freechex gas-check punch system and our fellow casters experimenting with aluminum as a cost-effective way of reducing leading in high-velocity cast boolit rounds.

Look over at the Special Projects section of this forum. What some of our members are doing and developing will blow you away.

Look at the sticky on Lee-menting. Amazing! You can take a $20 mold and in less than an hour, have it casting perfect boolits like a $100 mold. Not saying aluminum will be as durable or easy to work with as steel or iron, but what I'm saying is that for those who like Lee molds or who do not have the cash to spend on a more expensive mold, the problem with mass-produced aluminum molds now has a solution.

NOW, compare our solution with that of Lee's, with both their aluminum molds and the lubing of their tumble lube boolits. OUR solutions blow Lee's away. Period.

So not everything that is "written in stone" is the absolute end-all or be-all. In our case, here in the cast boolit world, many of those "stone tablets" are seeing signs of erosion. Some are just flat starting to crumble away.

:coffee:

[armoredman]

LLA in tumble lube boolits works for me...I never did do pan lubing. :) But, that's just me. Maybe someday I will step into the 21st century and get a lubrisizer. :D
In the meantime, hot plate.

[frankenfab]

Interesting observations here that I'll throw in on. . .

I will hypothesize that there are more people casting their own boolits today than there were when Colonel Harrison and Elmer Keith and Skeeter and those pioneers were casting their own.

Harrison, Keith, Skelton and others were the trailblazers in the field of using lead to make our favored and beloved projectiles. . . like John Browning and Arthur Savage, Samuel Colt, (Horace) Smith & (Dan) Wesson, Dr. Richard Gatling, and John Garand to just name a few, were to the modern firearms we so love today.

But does anyone really think that the engineers and Glock or Sig or H&K turn their nose up at Browning, Savage, Garand, and company? Having visited those corporate headquarters, and many others, I can personally tell you that is not the case.

At the same time, the engineers will tell you the best way they can honor their predecessors is by making better and stronger firearms. Likewise, I think John Browning would be fascinated by today's semi-automatic handguns. John Browning would be amazed at firing the Barrett .50 calibre rifle, and Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson would be blown away by what Glock did with polymer frames.

There are those who accept the status quo and there are those who do not. I wasn't satisfied with Lee's Liquid Alox, so I took what I'd read by the folks ahead of me on Cast Boolits and what they'd tried and experimented with and finally settled on this 45/45/10 blend.

Now, Glenn (Larson) is looking to take the idea of a "liquid" tumble-lube and take the alox right out of it and in doing so, he very well may revolutionize the entire concept of tumble-lubing. . .maybe lubing altogether. Who knows? But it will be fun to watch and try.

Felix lube is a PERFECT example of utilizing today's knowledge with yesterday's resources. Likewise, the Freechex gas-check punch system and our fellow casters experimenting with aluminum as a cost-effective way of reducing leading in high-velocity cast boolit rounds.

Look over at the Special Projects section of this forum. What some of our members are doing and developing will blow you away.

Look at the sticky on Lee-menting. Amazing! You can take a $20 mold and in less than an hour, have it casting perfect boolits like a $100 mold. Not saying aluminum will be as durable or easy to work with as steel or iron, but what I'm saying is that for those who like Lee molds or who do not have the cash to spend on a more expensive mold, the problem with mass-produced aluminum molds now has a solution.

NOW, compare our solution with that of Lee's, with both their aluminum molds and the lubing of their tumble lube boolits. OUR solutions blow Lee's away. Period.

So not everything that is "written in stone" is the absolute end-all or be-all. In our case, here in the cast boolit world, many of those "stone tablets" are seeing signs of erosion. Some are just flat starting to crumble away.

:coffee:

WOW! That was very well written, quite true, and DEEP!:razz::holysheep

I didn't come here to learn how to cast, but I did come her to learn how to cast BETTER, and enjoy the company, of course!:cbpour:

[buck1]

If we can see far , it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants..

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I have cast boolits 3 times now.
(that is 3 casting sessions, about 300 boolits each time)
some success, some failure.
I have read through this thread...all 150 comments.
Lots of valuable info here, I can't wait to fire up the pot tomorrow.
I wish I had a thermometer to know where 700º is on my Lee 4/20 pot adjustment dial.
Jon

[sha-ul]

I use brake cleaner to clean and de-grease all my molds. I have never found any residue left in the molds. I have a couple of bottles of the old NEI Mold Prep which I use with a Q-tip to lightly coat the cavities and the sprue plate.
One thing that some folks are forgetting, is that not all brake cleaners are the same, yes CRC's brakleen is chlorinated, but I prefer Oreilly's non chlorinated, which is pretty much spray acetone.

[geargnasher]

Gear,

With all due respect, I don't propose to be your instructor in understanding how smoking a mould improves the quality of cast bullets. I'm just relating documented information on what the NRA tested and recommended, i.e. smoking bullet moulds to obtain high quality bullets. Whether you believe or accept that recommendation is of no consequence to me.

Best regards,

CJR

Look, you don't have to act cornered, I just want to pin you down on WHY smoking moulds is the prep method you prefer. If "Col. Harrison said so" is the only reason why, that's ok with me, I just want to know. If you have an understanding of the properties of carbon soot in a mould that I don't that makes your boolits better than mine, I'd like to learn about it so I can improve. Fair enough?

This is starting to remind me of the old story of the new wife who always cut the end off the roast before putting it in the oven and gave the explanation "that's the way my mother always did it". Three generations back, same answer, until the great-grandmother was asked, and her reply was "we were too poor to afford a large roast pan, so I cut the end off to make it fit." I feel that it is important to know WHY we do certain things, especially if we're going to advise someone else on the same thing.

Gear

[armoredman]

If we can see far , it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants..

I like that. :)

[Bret4207]

I would bet that smoking the mould came from way, way back. If you read the very old gunsmithing and mechanical texts, even farming texts, you'll find reference to using soot from a lamp or candle for a variety of things from close fitting of parts to using it as a medicine. We'll probably never know from sure, but chances are some guy who cast iron or something passed sooting the mould onto an early caster who passed it on to someone who made Harry Pope look like a young whippersnapper and thus down through to Col Harrison.

I "learned" to cast from Elmer, Phil Sharpe, George Nonte, ancient Lyman manuals and old Rifleman Mags. Plus, I had a copy of the NRA Cast Bullets book and a mess of Handloaders from the get go. It took me a loooong time to figure some stuff out. My far from perfect boolits shot okay, they were cheap, they leaded and looked like garbage. I actually won some chickens using boolits I'd toss back in the pot today. The biggest change in sucess for me came when I stumbled onto a website called "shooters.com" and found a section just on cast boolits. Suddenly my eyes were opened! There were guys talking about crazy ideas there, like that the answer to leading might just not revolve around HARD CAST but around proper fit, that popping a boolit with a fast powder and making it obturate wasn't always a good thing and that smoking moulds simply wouldn't address mechanical issues and filthy alloy. There were even real pagans there that said a light frosting wasn't death to accuracy and that your mould wouldn't instantly warp into a figure 8 if you dipped a corner in the hot alloy!!!

Times change, best we learn from the past and the new.

[462]

Other than Lyman’s Cast Bullet Handbook, I started casting solo. I smoked my first mould because Mr. Lee’s directions said to, and when my first batch of boolits leaded, I started water-quenching, to make them harder. After experiencing continual leading problems, an Internet search lead me to Cast Boolits. Since then, I’ve been learning from the best mentors ever assembled in one place.

I removed the soot from that first mould, have never smoked another, and quit water-quenching. I learned that mould temperature is more important than pot temperature, when it comes to producing quality boolits. I learned how to beagle a mould to make fat boolits to fit fat cylinder throats. I’ve applied Kroil with mixed results, and swear by polydimethylsiloxane. The casting knowledge I've learned is both broad and deep.

However, the most important aspects that Cast Boolit members have taught me are that patience and an open mind are absolutely necessary.

Patience to not become frustrated when the results are not what were expected. Patience in that a failed experiment is actually a success, because something that didn't work was discovered and eliminated.

Though science and centuries of casting experience (old wives’ tales?) should never be overlooked, there are times when an open mind and the willingness to experiment (voodoo and black magic?) will overcome a problem and produce the desired results. To me, that is what this site is all about.

YMMV…

[cbrick]

Bravo 462, very well said and precisely the reason I am a member of this forum. I've learned and also re-learned many things from the forum members. Both things that do work and many that don't.

EDIT to add: Here is a fascinating casting/handloading tip from sagacious that is a perfect example of the knowledge here. This therad is in the Shooters sticky forum. I don't care how long I cast bullets this is something that I never would have thought of. This is extremely effective, economical and quick. It's not really off topic from this thread because I took this idea and used it to clean molds. Very effective and fast.

Citric Acid Brass Cleaning (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=83572)

Rick

[geargnasher]

The only experiment that fails is the one that fails to prove anything conclusively.

Gear

[codgerville@zianet.com]

Geargnasher, you are right on about experiments. Likewise the old saying that the only dumb question is the one you don't ask. This is the very best forum I have ever visited, the people here have "been there, done that" We never stop learning, or at least we shouldn't stop learning. Been casting a loooong time yet I learn something every time I come here.:drinks:

[sundog]

Allow me to offer up a couple more of my experiences. First, I have moulds that have no vent lines, just flat mating surfaces. They make very good boolits. Next, I have a mould, I think made by Barnett, that makes a great boolit for my single shot (which shoots lights out). The mould WILL NOT cast a good boolit when clean. So, I lightly smoke it and get very good boolits. My RCBS 30-180-SP has won or placed many military bolt matches, even besting some of the finest jacketed BTHPs shot by competent competitors. It's shot both smallest groups and highest scores quite regularly. That particular mould makes its best boolits when cleaned and then 'painted' with mould release and buffed with the dry endof the q-tip. I doubt seriously that whatever is left on the metal could be measured with instruments that normal casters and hand loaders use. Do I advocate this for everybody and all moulds? Of course not. Always and never are big words. Here's another idea. Ever hear of cold bluing a cavity on an iron mould. I've done it, and it helps. Point here is that if you have things that help make life easy, well..., I like life easy. I will agree that fit is king. And case prep is queen.

Bret, you are right about all that came before shooters.com was good. But since that first day after logging in and talking with the rest of the 'real boolit' world, life has changed for the better.

[mikeystew]

Armoredman, i am casting with a 5 gang NOE mold also and i agree with what you hypothesize regarding the sprue plate.

what i do (and my bullets drop perfik) is first give the mold a blast of brakleen and dry with a shop towel. I set it on top of the lee pot to heat up while the lead is melting but when i flux i remove it so i don't rely on that to get it up to operating temp.

With the pot set to high for melting, i drop it back to 8 for casting once it's been fluxed. i then fill the cavities by pouring directly into the mold trying not to let the stream touch the sprue plate whatsoever, letting a good heaping pile of lead form on the top of the sprue once it's full. the first castings i will cut the sprue and open the plate but leave the bullets in the closed mold for 5-10 seconds to heat the mold. this is also the time i apply bullplate to the sprue hinge, the top of the blocks, and alignment pins and bushings. i usually repeat this process less the lubing 4-5 times.

i will discard the first 4-5 castings as they usually are not as flawless as i prefer my bullets to be. after that though it's off to the races. i typically pour like it's a race with this mold to keep it hot, and let it cool somewhat after 100-150 bullets cast to re-apply bullplate.

[Crash_Corrigan]

Now you have to understand that this is coming from the fella that knew nothing about Lee siz banger molds when he started. He was so dumb that he casted for two years before he knew that they had handles to keep his hands cool.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=41217

I struggled thru many years of hit and miss casting of ww boolits and by being open minded and reading everything I could lay my hands on I tried a lot of things to improve my batting average.

I learned to Leement my molds properly before I ever cast a boolit.

I learned how to boil the mold in hot water and dawn again and again to get them clean.

I learned how to dip one end of the mold into hot alloy to heat it up until the alloy did not stick to the metal.

I learned about the magical properties of Bull Plate Sprue Lube.

I learned how to use Bruce B's Speedcasting Methods.

I bought and use a thermometer to help me duplicate the desired temperatures of the alloy to match the mold. I have kept records of the optimum temps used that got the best results with each individual mold.

I learned that all molds are not the same.

I learned that ladeling is not a practice that I enjoy or am any good at.

Keeping a clean casting pot and maintaining the proper flow of the silver stream depends on how full the pot is and the setting of the flow valve.

I learned that filling up the cavity in the mold by allowing the flow of the silver stream into the center of the hole is important and a good sprue pile is a casters friend.

I learned that straight ww's either air cooled or water quenched will probably serve 90% of most casters needs (Thanks Bret4207)

I learned that smoking or blasting a layer of gunk onto your mold is a waste of time and money.

I learned that proper casting attire includes safety glasses, long denim pants, boots, long sleeved flannel shirts and a leather apron.

I learned that a few layers of newspaper on the floor around the casting area prevents those nasty burned spots on the Kitchen Floor coverings.

I learned that keeping a small aloe vera plant in the kitchin window will come in handy when the tinsel fairy visits. (Break off a piece and apply gook to affected area)

I learned how to keep good records whenever I fire up the pot to cast. I can duplicate a good casting session from years ago by using the same temperatures and practices that worked before just by looking up my notes and following the same recipie and practices.

In light of the foregoing I also learned that every casting session is different. The humidity in the atmosphere, temperature of the room and such can affect each session accordingly.

I learned that I do not know it all but I am only a student of the practice.

Every mold is different just like every woman you knew is different.

I learned that this keeps life interesting but the molds are a lot cheaper and they do not have doctors appointments, hairdresser appointments, nail tech appointments and they are a lot less needy and whining then the females of species.

I am now hunkering down in my bunker..........

[geargnasher]

Corky, you know what you're doing, have a lot of casting and shooting experience, and understand the properties of soot and graphite. I see you using them as tools to judiciously improve the casting qualites of tempermental mould. What I don't see you doing is blindly smoking the bejeezus out of every mould you have just because you "thought" or "read" that it aways makes better boolits. This is a distinction that I think is important.

Gear

[geargnasher]

Dan, I think you pretty much laid out the Cardinal Rules of Casting right there! Very nice.

Gear

[Bret4207]

Corky, your Barnett mould is one of those abberations. If it was a novice caster or someone whose word I don't trust completely I might think it's just a lack of trying. But with you, an experienced caster and all around good guy (even if you were Army!), I'm sure it's just one of those moulds that demands a certain treatment. I have one of those finicky moulds, a 358156 of all things that simply demands a ladle and a drop of about an inch. Most of my moulds respond well to spout contact and that 156 will throw me for a curve every time till I remember what it likes.

I wonder what guys like George Nonte, Phil Sharpe, Col Whelen, Ashley Haines, Ed Crossman or CS Landis would say if they had access to todays components and equipment? I wonder what Franklin Mann would think or Harry Pope? My belief is we're living in the golden age of casting and we don;t even realize it.

[Bret4207]

Ell Tee- That part about long pants....comon'! I've seen those CSI shows and watched a lot of mid 70's mob movies. I was under the impression out there in gamblers heaven all the chickies were practically nothing and the guys all wear polyester leisure suits- mostly in lime green and robins egg blue. Oh yeah, and they all have Wayne Newton hair.

Did I forget anything?

[buck1]

:drinks:Well said crash!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cbrick]

Every mold is different just like every woman you knew is different.

I learned that this keeps life interesting but the molds are a lot cheaper and they do not have doctors appointments, hairdresser appointments, nail tech appointments and they are a lot less needy and whining then the females of species.

And the mold never asks . . . Does this sprue plate make me look fat?

When she asked, does this dress make me look fat? Being a pretty honest guy I would have to answer no, not at all . . .

It's all the ice cream, pie, cookies and chips that make you look fat.

Rick

[armoredman]

Crash, that was great. Wating for payday to get a hot plate...I hate waiting...and all my coffee "cans" are plastic. I don't think that would work too well. :)

[462]

Steel coffee cans make excellent boolit storage containers...both one and three-pound cans.

[geargnasher]

Armordman, in the meantime, if you have an old circular saw blade and either an electic or gas stove, you can preheat your mold in the kitchen (handles and all) and then take it out to your casting area and go to town. This of course assumes all (if any) SWMBO clearances have been granted to do so in advance. I have been permanently banned from the kitchen due to a little incident involving boolit lube :roll:

Boolit casting is all about resourcefullness! Use whatever you already have if you can, no need to strain the finances at the moment, but a hot plate is truly a worthwhile investment for many things casting/lube related when you can afford one.

Gear

[armoredman]

I just recieved word that I may have payment for a sold item tomorrow, so maybe a $5 hot plate won't be too far outa line.
No saw blade, but I think the small burners would be just the right size for that length of mold.
No problems with the kitchen, but I would have to stay and monitor - 1 child and 5 cats. At least the dogs stay off the counters....

[cbrick]

I have been permanently banned from the kitchen due to a little incident involving boolit lube :roll: Gear

What? She has no sense of humor? [smilie=1:

Rick

[Mrs.Geargnasher]

No, I just have nasal passages that work really well. The Ivory soap tears me a new one.

[sha-ul]

that reminds me of the time I used the oven to bake on a linseed oil finish onto a 16thC breastplate.
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s294/russell_smith93/smilies/oops.gif

[armoredman]

Now THAT I'd like to see!

[geargnasher]

(but she does lift the ban around the holidays so I can make my famous whole-wheat crust pies).

Gear

[cbrick]

What? She has no sense of humor? Rick


No

Wow, that's a bummer.


soap tears me a new one.

Now that's a real bummer.

Ok, just funnin with ya. I was just recently divorced (in 1978) and I just can't resist such an opportunity.

Rick

[sha-ul]

Now THAT I'd like to see!
it is a late 16C style known as a peascod, breast& back, this particular one is made from 18ga mild. take boiled linseed oil, brush it onto your piece, put it in the oven@400* until it quits smoking and you have a period finish. the first 2 pictures are of it after a couple years fighting in it so it bears many scratches from usage
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s294/russell_smith93/forum%20source%20pics/100_2591.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s294/russell_smith93/forum%20source%20pics/100_2592.jpg

a shot in action when it was newer
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s294/russell_smith93/forum%20source%20pics/sha-ulinharness.jpg

[Bret4207]

I just recieved word that I may have payment for a sold item tomorrow, so maybe a $5 hot plate won't be too far outa line.
No saw blade, but I think the small burners would be just the right size for that length of mold.
No problems with the kitchen, but I would have to stay and monitor - 1 child and 5 cats. At least the dogs stay off the counters....

Since we're already going off on a tangent, I'll follow up the armor post with this question. Why do people own cats? Filthy, miserable, arrogant, unappreciative shedding cats. They not only have them, they keep them IN the home and TEACH them to krap IN THE HOUSE. And then they feed them so much they can;t possible get up the gumption to do any mousing.

I don't mind a cat or 2 in the barn, but between my families cats getting in the clean laundry (I am now a laundress in my retirement), spreading litter all over the floor, getting in my garage and either hacking up on my tools and paperwork or krapping on it or knocking expensive tools off seemingly secure shelves, etc. and then attracting feral males who pee on every surface they can find.....let's just say in my list of blessings I don't count cats. And then, when one gets hit in the road it requires a State Funeral complete with grave marker and tears!

Rant off.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Since we're already going off on a tangent, I'll follow up the armor post with this question. Why do people own cats? Filthy, miserable, arrogant, unappreciative shedding cats. They not only have them, they keep them IN the home and TEACH them to krap IN THE HOUSE. And then they feed them so much they can;t possible get up the gumption to do any mousing.


continuing off tangent.
I have lived alone in the house I currently live in, since 1993. Almost went crazy from loneliness in 2000 (btw, the Y2K BS that I fell for didn't help). I got two cats that year, yeah they shed, one of them is arrogant (the alpha), yeah they krap in the house (but so do I), they will only eat the most expensive cat food, they will chase a laser spot but not a mouse, they make perfectly good furnature look like they were made out of old shag carpeting, they try their darnest to sneak into rooms they have been forbidden entry (ie closed door of the reloading room:cbpour:) then cry and cry when they get trapped in there. But I love them, and they keep me sane. Oh, and when these two decide to fight each other, it is the best entertainment...until they bust up the place :)
Jon

[Bret4207]

Jon, they make these things called dogs.......

[Crash_Corrigan]

Bret: I have been living in Vegas since I started casting seriously ('93) and I confess to not owning anything that is worn with synthethic fabric. The only time I wear shorts is when I am hanging out around the house. I find myself wearing long sleeved shirts most of the time to prevent excess exposure to the sun along with a wide brimmed hat when outdoors. We are sitting here at about 3,000 feet above sea level and the sun is strong most days. I have already had some cancerous growths removed from my face and ears etc and I do not enjoy being cut on. Old guys heal slow and are naturally grumpy anyway.

When riding my motorcycle I wear a long sleeved armored mesh jacket along with a full face helmet, gloves, heavy boots and a water soaked vest under the jacket to keep me cool by evaporation. Those items along with the proper sidearm, ammo and a iced down container of water or gatorade in my saddle bags make for a pleasant day on the roads.

Otherwise I usually wear a clean pair of blue jeans or even overalls. They have to be some of the most comfortable garments every devised. Mucho pockets and no constriction about the waist or the family jewels. This is important in this very hot and dry area. I can pack most of my boy toys in various pockets or an ankle holster.

With the high crime enviornment here in Sin City I seldom have less than one weapon concealed on me. This includes time spent indoors in my tin trailer.

AS far as cats go......If you call a dog he may come to you immediately.....call a cat and they take a message and they may get back to you sometime.....My ex was given a cat found in the desert on 7/5/09 in terrible condition. Black tounge, emaciated and dehydrated and about dead. I cannot begin to tell you of the many hours that we have spent laughing with this cat as she goes through her shennagins around the house. She adores empty brown paper bags. Give her two of those and she will play with them for weeks and eventually they will be worn out, soft and torn. Give her some new ones and she is in heaven.

She is a great companion and very sensistive to the EX SWMBO's moods and feeling. When she recently had carpel tunnel surgery on both hands the cat was there draped around her neck to provide comfort when the pain was bad and she was lonely. Now that she is more recovered and the pain is being held at bay with decent pain killers the cat has moved off and is doing her own thing.

My dog SGT. Rambo a Chiweenie (Chihuahua and Dauschound mix) of 12 pounds is slowly establishing a relationship with the cat Rocki. Now they plan ambushes and frontal assaults all over the house. Recently I was asleep on the pull out bed of the couch at about 0430 when the cat attacked Sgt. Rambo in the bed.

The whole thing took about 8 seconds and was over quickly and we both rapidly fell back into the arms of Morphius. No damage done but it was a big surprise.

I love pets and both cats and dogs in low numbers are a blast. However some people like to have large numbers of cats in the house and I do not find that agreeable. A couple or three at most is enuf for me. Same with Dogs.

[Recluse]

No, I just have nasal passages that work really well. The Ivory soap tears me a new one.

That's what my wife says about my chili.

I just hand her a bottle of mentholatum and tell her to dab it in her nostrils. Won't smell a thing after that.

(You reading this Gear?)

:coffee:

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Jon, they make these things called dogs.......

I do love dogs too.
Dogs do take more work, although that isn't the problem.
I spiradically travel,
the cats can take care of themselves for 4 days,
whereas a dog cannot.
Jon

[armoredman]

We love our pets, all 7 of them, all rescues. They do tend to leave my reloading gear alone, except for the little Cocker Spaniel, Cocoa Puff, who keeps wanting to lick the powder measure. No, nothing bad happened to her, or to the Uniflow, but I moved it out of tounges' reach!
We will be going down to two dogs, two cats, through natural attrition, as five IS a bit much, but they helped keep my wife sane through many trials and tribulations.
Back to the thread, ran through WalMart today before work, NO hot plates! Can you believe it?

[geargnasher]

Try the stove!

Gear

[armoredman]

Going to, on my Friday. :) Thanks for all the help, guy!
Hmmm, now I wonder what setting...where is 400 degrees on a top burner on a 10 year old electric stove... :) Eh, cook on high for 20 minutes, oughta do it!

BTW, Crash, cute dog, NICE bike!

[snuffy]

Here I thought I knew how to cast boolits! I've only been doing this for 45 years! just tried out several tips mentioned on this thread.

The main one/tip is a single burner stove to pre-heat molds. Today, I just bought the Walgreens Sylvania 1000 watt model, $12.99. Set on low it runs at about 450 according to my laser thermometer. Before, I was using a propane single burner camp stove, made for back packers. It simply screws on the top of a cylinder.

I set a lee 6 banger, TC 230 452 TL on it while the lee 4-20 was getting up to temp. I have a PID for a thermostat for it, I had it set at 715. After it was @ 715, The mold cast the first pour produced keepers. I found that as the mold increased in temp., I was able to reduce the temp on the melt. And still have perfectly filled out boolits. I actually eventually got down to 700, still well filled out boolits. A hot mold does not need real hot metal. Dropping "muffins" in to replenish, the temp dropped to 650, I could still cast good boolits because the mold stayed hot.

I never heard the term "burning lead". Referring to having the lead temp too high. I always say that alloyed lead does not "separate", like some believe. Another old wives tale. But, saying the tin is the most easily oxidized of the metals in the alloy, AND is most reactive with the oxygen in the atmosphere, means keeping the temp downs saves tin. I noticed that the surface of the melt had a LOT less slag build up on it at the lower temp. I had been casting at 750, sometimes 775 for some molds.

The alloy I'm using is range lead I saved from an indoor range. Sweetened with a little Midway pure tin, it produces boolits that are right on for the weight the mold is supposed to make. The BHN has been right around 12-14 for AC boolits.

[94Doug]

I'm a little late here, but when the talk was focused on spray cleaners for moulds, I thought of a spray cleaner that was used for electronics. CRC markets one that goes by QD or something to that effect, for auto electronics. It was formulated for the newer circuits, as opposed to the old "contact cleaner" and was advertised not to leave a residue. Just wondering if that has been tried?

Doug

[giz189]

DANGER Guys DON"T DO THIS I have been casting for several years, never heard of "smoking the moulds". How do you guys do it without burning your lips?

[cbrick]

snuffy, by golly I think you've got it. Your correct, the alloy doesn't seperate but it does oxidize and the higher the temp the faster the oxidation and the tin oxidizes first.

Here's another tip for you and this one will save you money. Click on the link at the top of this page for "Roto Metals". There you will find pure tin at a much better price than at Midway. In addition to being less expensive Roto Metals is also a sponsor of this forum, a big plus for those of us that love this place.

Rick

[sha-ul]

DANGER Guys DON"T DO THIS I have been casting for several years, never heard of "smoking the moulds". How do you guys do it without burning your lips?

really big papers?




:ducking tomatoes:

[geargnasher]

Yes, Snuffy, you do gots it! I was doing it the same way as you for about a third as long before I found this place and learned a few things. Yesterday I was looking at some boolits I cast many moons ago and realized how cruddy they looked. Poor fillout, sometimes overly frosted, just generally poor.

One other thing that casting cooler does happens within the mould. Tin riding on the surface of the metal as it flows into the cavity continuously oxidizes as the alloy flows and breaks through, kind of like oak tree bark as the tree grows. The less that oxide builds up in the fraction of a second it takes to fill the cavity, the less dross in the cavity and fewer voids, inclusions, and uneven patches of oxide on the boolit surface. The best boolits I ever case were contact ladle-cast after I purged the mould cavities with Argon/CO2 from my back-purge nozzle that I use for certain kinds of TiG welds. NO oxygen in the cavites, no oxide on the metal coming in, virtually perfect conditions for fillout.

Gear

[sha-ul]

The best boolits I ever case were contact ladle-cast after I purged the mould cavities with Argon/CO2 from my back-purge nozzle that I use for certain kinds of TiG welds. NO oxygen in the cavites, no oxide on the metal coming in, virtually perfect conditions for fillout.

Gear

I may be mistaken, but isn't Argon heavier than air? would it be possible to purge a metal coffee can, or bucket& maintain a trickle of inert gas into that bucket, so that when you open& close your mold, it by default would fill with an inert gas?

[a.squibload]

I may be mistaken, but isn't Argon heavier than air? would it be possible to purge a metal coffee can, or bucket& maintain a trickle of inert gas into that bucket, so that when you open& close your mold, it by default would fill with an inert gas?

Dang, this is starting to sound expensive!
I would think the hot mold and boolits would cause a thermal imbalance, and exchange the gas with outside air.
How fast is the question. Might be worth a try.

Side note/hijack:
I haven't made my pot yet.
You made me think about purging the propane tank before cutting, water would be cheap but messy,
gas from the mig would be easier to deal with but would it hang around long enough to be worth it?
Could plug the hole where the valve used to be before cutting.
Otherwise I figured on using the air grinder with a cutoff wheel, no electricity, no problem splashing water.
Friend loaned me a GFI pigtail but I still don't like the idea of getting water in my electric grinder.

[Bret4207]

I'm a little late here, but when the talk was focused on spray cleaners for moulds, I thought of a spray cleaner that was used for electronics. CRC markets one that goes by QD or something to that effect, for auto electronics. It was formulated for the newer circuits, as opposed to the old "contact cleaner" and was advertised not to leave a residue. Just wondering if that has been tried?

Doug

I don't know what the electronics cleaners use or what residue they might leave. Personally, when I want something really clean I spray it down with ether/starting fluid. Rust will appear with in minutes in the right weather.

[Bret4207]

DANGER Guys DON"T DO THIS I have been casting for several years, never heard of "smoking the moulds". How do you guys do it without burning your lips?

You use a pipe of course! Dr Grabow makes the "Keith", the "Loverin" and the "Veral" models. You can usually order the "Lee Special" or the cadillac of them all- "The Royal Hensley Meerschaum". The last one comes with a derrick that attaches to your scalp and forehead to support the weight. Very chic!

Burn your lips indeed. Bosh! :groner:

[cbrick]

Dropping "muffins" in to replenish, the temp dropped to 650, I could still cast good boolits because the mold stayed hot.

Try pre-heating your muffins on the hot plate while your casting. If you drop in muffins at say 375-400 degrees you'll drop the pot temp far less than dropping in room temp muffins. When you use any of the pre-heated muffins from the hot plate replace them to keep some ready to use.

I use the Magma 40 pound pot with the PID controller so the temp would drop less except I use 5 pound ingots, therefore I pre-heat the ingots.

EDIT to add: Adding alloy to your pot can easily drop the pot/alloy temp below the liquidus temp of your alloy. The alloy may still look melted but some of the metals such as antimony with a much higher melting/liquidus temp may no longer be completely melted. Add new alloy slowly to prevent this, yet another reason for using a thermometer.

Rick

[snuffy]

#200?
I tried putting the 2# muffins on the stove. Also a couple balanced on top o' the pot to pre-heat them. Both worked, BUT i need to find something like a saw blade to make the stove more user friendly. It's also very lightly built, the coils easily deflect when weight is set on them.

I had another mold to pre-heat, another thing mentioned in this thread about the Lyman 358156. I just got one to try to duplicate Skeeter's favorite loads in my new GP-100 6". Problem is, the Ruger has .358 throats, and the mold insists on throwing .357 boolits. I wanted to try ladle casting, with the lead having a bit more tin in it. It worked!:-) They're dropping @ .3585. But ladle casting is my least favorite thing to do, it's so slow! If I come up with a good load, I'd be spending a lot of time just casting![smilie=b: Upside is they are absolutely bootiful looking boolits!:grin: I guess you pays yer money, you'd better dance to the tune! With the Hornady gas check, they're hardly free!

I compared the prices for tin between the Midway ingots, and roto metal. About a buck difference, NOT counting shipping. I've been meaning to go buy some lead-free solder at the fleet farm, but finances right now are severely limited. I'm recovering from prostate cancer surgery, a davincci robotic prostectomy. Caught it early, it all came out with the prostate and seminal vesicle.

[462]

Snuffy,
Try pressure casting, with your bottom-pour pot. Hold the mould against the pot's spout, open the valve, fill the cavity, remove the mould from the spout, repeat with the next cavity, then pour a sprue to cover the cavities. I have a mould that requires pressure casting, in order to get base fill-out.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Snuffy...or anyone else looking for tin.

I just seen this group buy today and signed up.
about 2/3's the price of midway.
Hopefully the tin will be delivered this fall.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=84432

[snuffy]

Snuffy,
Try pressure casting, with your bottom-pour pot. Hold the mould against the pot's spout, open the valve, fill the cavity, remove the mould from the spout, repeat with the next cavity, then pour a sprue to cover the cavities.

I thought of that long after turning the pot off yesterday.:x I suspect I would end up with fins from the vent lines with a full 20 # lee. At least that's what I got the last time I tried pressure casting. That would certainly speed things up. I really hate the mess with a ladle. Spills, splashes, and the irregular sprue give me fits![smilie=b: I realize that contact ladle casting IS pressure casting, just the pressure is far less than 20# of lead can create.

Jon B. I saw that months ago. I almost put my name in, but now would have to retract it. Maybe if it lasts a couple more months, I can get in after returning to work. Looks like the grand canyon 50 cal mold is getting close. I'll need to scrape the cash together for that one!:lol:

[giz189]

You use a pipe of course! Dr Grabow makes the "Keith", the "Loverin" and the "Veral" models. You can usually order the "Lee Special" or the cadillac of them all- "The Royal Hensley Meerschaum". The last one comes with a derrick that attaches to your scalp and forehead to support the weight. Very chic!

Burn your lips indeed. Bosh! :groner:

Bret, somebody had to say it!:bigsmyl2:

[geargnasher]

Oh, Bret, don't forget the "Gates" model, he gets a little huffy when not credited!

Gear

[Recluse]

Try pre-heating your muffins on the hot plate while your casting. If you drop in muffins at say 375-400 degrees you'll drop the pot temp far less than dropping in room temp muffins. When you use any of the pre-heated muffins from the hot plate replace them to keep some ready to use.

EDIT to add: Adding alloy to your pot can easily drop the pot/alloy temp below the liquidus temp of your alloy. The alloy may still look melted but some of the metals such as antimony with a much higher melting/liquidus temp may no longer be completely melted. Add new alloy slowly to prevent this, yet another reason for using a thermometer.

Rick

Wondered if I was the only one who "preheat" ingots while casting. I set an ingot on the edge of the pot, and by the time I need to put it in, it's already pre-heated quite well.

As far as the thermometer? It's kind of like calipers and micrometers. I don't know how I managed to reload before I had a set of calipers. Yeah, everything turned out okay, I guess, but when I can be precise, it eliminates that series of variables as to what I did right/well or what I did wrong/poorly.

:coffee:

[armoredman]

Gotta get a thermometer. Wow, this thread really took off...
Mold preheating.

[armoredman]

AHA!
OK, heated the mold both bottom and side, to get the sprueplate. I used the stove top setting of about medium, coudn't think of what the settings are in real world degrees. It sat heating until the melt was fully liquid and fluxed. Then I armored up, grabbed the mold, sat down, and...I didn't put any bullplate on...to late, let's go!
BIG difference. First, pot temp back down to just above 7, where I had always had it, good liquid, fluxed well with old wax. First cast was fully bullets, not cold stubs like last time, but they were still wrinkled with poor fill out. Well, of course, that was the first cast!
I picked up speed, and even with being interrupted twice by the better half, I got a good rythym going. Then the lead ran out. Whoops. I had meant this to be kind of a trial run, a test, and I got some interesting results, but, I had only put in about 5 pounds of lead..
First, once the MOLD was up to temp, just like everyone said, I got GOOD boolits! Slightly higher melt temp and preheating at a higher stove temp will probably help.
Mold dropped boolits with no issues, NO smoking done since I cleaned it.
I had a high rate of rejects, from the pre heated mold not preheated enough, BUT, nowhere NEAR the rate from last time. Also got a tiny bit of finning on the very pointed noses of the good ones, no problem, comes right off.
Interesting was I measured how fast this went. Plugging in the mold was at 3:45, same time mold went on the stove. Mold melted slowly, so it wasn't fully liquid until about 4:15. Once again, need higher pot temp.
Casting took 15 minutes. That was all, until I ran out of lead - that gang mold goes fast when it's running right.
Now I have enough good ones to get ready to load up some testers...and that was when I realized I had exactly 19 primed cases...*groan*...time to break out the lube pad and resizing die...

Thanks to EVERYONE who posted here, you guys helped a lot! Perhaps tomorrow I'll try the higher temps, and get more good ones, but now it's time to barbeque...mmm, barbequed chicken...mmm....

[cbrick]

Mold melted slowly, so it wasn't fully liquid until about 4:15.

Oh . . . I hope not, that's just a bit too much pre-heating. :shock: [smilie=s:

Rick

[armoredman]

Whoops, I meant the lead. :)
I am very much encouraged by this casting session.:D

[462]

Way to go! You must be excited.

[Doby45]

It totally changed my casting when I got my hot plate...

[armoredman]

For you guys, 74 good boolits is a drop in the bucket, no pun intended,but I'm happy. :)


Not enthused about the decapping/resizing session to come...:rolleyes:

[geargnasher]

Try getting the mould hot enough that you have to wait at least 5-10 seconds for the sprue from your first pour to barely cool enough to cut (but is still soft and breaks into several pieces when dropped in your sprue can). I like my gang moulds to be on the "too hot" side for starters and slow down the casting rhythm to let it cool gradually to the right temp, then even out the pace when things get just right. Otherwise, you're working overtime trying to get the mold and sprueplate hot enough to throw keepers. I'd rather let the stove/hotplate do the work than do it with cycling lead. Plus that saves lead in the pot for keepers rather than heat-up culls. Don't be afraid to get that mould really hot, odds are you ain't gonna hurt it, especially if you heat it evenly on a piece of metal.

As for the fins, you might hold the mould up to a bright light with the sprue plate "open" and the blocks closed and check for "daylight" between the mould halves. Sounds like you have a slight alignment issue if you're getting true fins on the noses of your boolits. You can also check the diameter of you boolits (especially the finned ones) in several places to see if they are round or elliptical in cross-section. If the mould isn't closing fully due to a handle or alignment pin issue or trash between the blocks somewhere the boolits will be out-of-round.

Glad you've had enough success to see you're headed in the right direction now, keep up the good work!

Gear

PS I had an interesting casting session tonight, trying to get a "cruise missile" mould to work with just one cavity. Aluminum two-bangers that are extra-deep and only filled in one cavity are a real bear to keep hot. Normally I ladle cast extremely long or super-skinny boolits, but there's no way I can keep pace with this mould. Pressure casting with Lee moulds almost always gives me fins and flashing trapped between the blocks, so that's out, too. I fiddled with pot temp, added a touch more tin, and finally found the sweet spot: Open spout adjuster to wide-open stream, adjust mould prop for a 3/4" drop, drop the heavy lead stream through the center of the hole (nuthin' but net!), and cut the sprue while still molten (that is to say, immediately after withdrawing the mould from under the pot. The boolits were solid the instant the mould was filled, so no smeared bases. I ended up keeping a pace of EIGHT pours a minute to keep the mould just barely hot enough to cast with 680-700 degree alloy. Never have I had to go to such extremes to get a mould to fill out. If it was iron I could ladle cast no problem, but the aluminim loses heat too fast and those long 6.5mm boolit cavities don't vent worth beans.

[Bret4207]

Something I've noticed over the years- some moulds take 3-4 casting sessions before they seem to want to work right. I always put it down to minuscule amounts of oil gassing off or something like that. Lately I've wondered if the surface of the mould doesn't oxidize to an extent. like the Lyman iron moulds "blue" over time. I know that if I lap a mould I sometimes go through the break in process all over again. Anyway, a lot of my moulds seem to need that hot/cold cycle a few times before they really cast right.

Just a thought.

[Calamity Jake]

Yap every new mold I've owned(40+) needed a breakin period of some kind.
Even some of the used that I have aquired, after cleaning needed a little.

[armoredman]

Boolits sized, lubed, and being loaded today, see if I can get to the range tomorrow to try 'em out!

[armoredman]

My son destroyed my good camera, trying to get a decent picture from a camera phone is hard. Here is a quick snap of the 160 next to the 129. Discolorations are from LLA.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b13/armoredman/160grainand129grain7.jpg

What was wild is the point on the 129 grain boolit was sharp enough to prick your finger! After sizing with the push through sizer, it didn't get much duller, which was also a trip.
Wonder if that would penetrate deeper before mushrooming, or just slide all the way through...might be a good varmint boolit.

[KirkD]

I've only started casting a year ago, but to clean them I submerge my moulds in a soup can of gasoline for about 5 minutes, then pull them out, towel them off with some tissue, and then stick the mould in the propane burner to burn off the rest of the gasoline, then use them. This is how I clean them and it seems to work fine, even with spanking new moulds. After the session, I liberally coat the moulds inside and out with 3-in-one oil, which easily comes off in the gasoline next time.

[Dangibson]

I almost misunderstood you! You mean it is more IMPORTANT that the mould be hot than the alloy. You'll never get the mould hotter than the lead. If you did the lead wouldn't solidify.

750 is WAY too hot. It's the MOULD temp that makes boolits fill out, NOT the ALLOY temp.

Gear
RCBS recommends 775 degrees alloy temperature for wheel weight alloy.

[HangFireW8]

RCBS recommends 775 degrees alloy temperature for wheel weight alloy.

1. You're replying conversationally to a 6 year old thread.

2. Sharing favorite temperatures is pointless because of this:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=169543&d=1465014164

[Texantothecore]

Smoke them the first 4 or 5 times you use them. It may be a good way of creating aluminum oxide on the face of the cavity. Other than that I have no idea why it works but it does. After a few sessions you will be able to cast without smoking.

Which is why I suspect it may have something to do with aluminum oxide.