Its been a long time since I have been on hear.

But I have been away. Bought my equipment back in 2012 and have done anything but scrounge up lead from scrap, WW and came (wife was into stained glass) and made ingots. Now I am finally breaking in my Gould mold and got my cadence and technique down enuff to produce a few hundred.They weigh 338-342 grs and when casting, it seems that I have zink contamination but not enuff to make or break the throws and I just skim that **** off at 650-700 as fast as possible but I fear that some of the lead alloyed. My Lee pro 4-20 seems to run hot. on the lowest setting, the temp will climb to 800. but that's when my casting starts to "click' along and I get the best noses.

Q1. Do you guys spend the time to weigh them before loading? Or just a visual.
Q2 If a mold is rated for 330, let's say and you are getting 340, is that a good indicator of lead content?

Sorry if these are newbie questions. I want them soft, I plan to hut with this round and I am going to powder coat them. They are throwing .458.5 ish and that great for my 1895 CB because of the Marlin barrel slugs at .458. Its been a long time since I have been on hear

Welcome back lokepup


Q1 1% deviation in weight is acceptable by many, If these are for hunting, I would get them as close to the same weight as possible, the rest can be used for plinking or remelted.

It sounds like you need a PID to control the temperature of your pot or replace the thermostat by contacting Lee (mail the bad one to them and they will send you a new one for free)(you can get on from them online for free but you will have to pay shipping

Q2 the softer the lead/alloy the heavier the boolit. You goto soft and you'll get leading

What are you shooting these in and how fast are you planning to push them?

A little Crud on top of a bottom pour pot won't affect anything until you get to the bottom

It sounds like you need more tin in your alloy so you don't have to get so hot to get good nose fill out

this may help
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...Various-Alloys

Also be sure to flux your mix well. Antimony can separate and look like sludge on top. Once it is fluxed well, it will mix back in

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grmps

Welcome back lokepup


Q1 1% deviation in weight is acceptable by many, If these are for hunting, I would get them as close to the same weight as possible, the rest can be used for plinking or remelted.

It sounds like you need a PID to control the temperature of your pot or replace the thermostat by contacting Lee (mail the bad one to them and they will send you a new one for free)(you can get on from them online for free but you will have to pay shipping

Q2 the softer the lead/alloy the heavier the boolit. You goto soft and you'll get leading

What are you shooting these in and how fast are you planning to push them?

A little Crud on top of a bottom pour pot won't affect anything until you get to the bottom

It sounds like you need more tin in your alloy so you don't have to get so hot to get good nose fill out

this may help
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...Various-Alloys

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Now that is good info! i do flux with saw dust. And a softer boolit is not an issue, as i plan to powdercoat and and shoot at reasonable verbosity.

Another thing is bullet alloy may affect the actual size of the bullet. Lyman moulds are supposedly cut for size and weight with lyman #2 mix. Flux well and run at a good cadence casting and not trying to sort or admire those shiny new bullets, save that for later. After they have cooled and be handled is good.

If the zinc alloyed, your boolits will be really, really hard. If they are normally soft, then don't worry about it.

Heavy boolits are one indicator of alloy content, but you'd have to compare to some known alloys to make sure it's not just your mold was cut a little deeper than the rest.

lokepup, those boolits look great! I strive to make my boolits look shiny like that. What thermometer are you using? Are you using a single cavity mould? At 800 degrees those boolits should be frosted. As a side note powder coating will help you in that microgroove barrel to add .001 or .002 to your diameter. What makes you think you have zinc contamination?

Welcome back... i tend to notice it appears mold need a break in or season. Mold temp can also make those wrinkly noses. Pre warm with a hot plate set to high. Molds are up to temp after the first pour. Save them wrinkly bullets for plinkers or remelt as you cull on the go. Super soft bullets will limit your pressure and velocity threshold and not nessacarily be the best. Some hardness wont hurt to help with penetration and give you a larger pressure/velocity threshold.

That bucket of shinny boolits looks good. I don't weight bullets and cant say what the variance could or should be. I can tell you i cant tell on target if it creates a problem. I can confidently say i can easily and humanly harvest a deer out to 200 yards with it. What ever the mold is rated for you gonna have a plus or minus of that depending on the alloy used. Most molds are designed with a particular alloy to be used and will drop bullets close to it. Your bullets will be a bit off by weight if a different alloy is used.

My alloy i have to keep around 850 to 900 degrees to make good bullets with good fill out and perfect bases. That high of temp forces my to use two molds to allow ample time to cool. At 650 degrees my allow is barely molten and tends to not want to pour right from the bottom spout (freezes up). It also creates bad bullets bases and increases my cull rate. Once you establish a consistent rhythm your bullets will be more consistent. The more consistency in the casting and reloading the more inherently accurate the ammo will be.

"My alloy i have to keep around 850 to 900 degrees to make good bullets with good fill out and perfect bases. That high of temp forces my to use two molds to allow ample time to cool. At 650 degrees my allow is barely molten and tends to not want to pour right from the bottom spout (freezes up). It also creates bad bullets bases and increases my cull rate. Once you establish a consistent rhythm your bullets will be more consistent. The more consistency in the casting and reloading the more inherently accurate the ammo will be.[/QUOTE]"

That is exactly what I found last night. I am currently churning out about 3-4 drops/min running one mold. The Lyman thermometer show almost 800 and I found if I go fast and sloppy on the pour, I get that perfect depression on the sprue plate hole that looks like a depression on an army map. Basically copying the picture on my Lyman cast manual. I am now getting almost perfect results but I occasionally miss my cadence and get a rounded base. most are 340 Grns now and I can tell I am getting better in cadence.

the rifle I will be using this in is a Marlin CB 1895 with Ballard rifling and it slugs .458. my Boolits are around .4585 and after I powder coat should be on the money for range work.

The dross in the pic comes up around 700 and when hot its frothy and full of bubbles. looks like bright chrome and splats like snot when scraped off. Not terribly worried at this point because my boolits are now sexier than ever!

But looking forward, I can see the mistake of using an unknown alloy and possibly finding the perfect MOA load at the range, without a way to reproduce it. When reloading, its a simple matter of keeping records. So if they estimate 330 with #2 alloy, I must be close to the straight lead. I looking for accuracy, not speed so that's not terrible. and the powder coat should help with the leading.

Welcome back and that is a good looking bullet.

What alloy are using? I normal save my dross for the next smelting operation. I dont know what will cause that. I have heard and read that heavily allowed alloys will separate. Your alloy has me curious. Zinc has a supper high melt point so doubt its zinc.

I use an unknown alloys. I use my BHN tester and mix and match hardness. Majority of the lead I use is rang scraps. Pure lead for muzzle loaders, rang scraps for pistols, and 50/50 wheel weight to range scraps. Range scraps are free and cuts costs.

Sent from my SM-G925T using Tapatalk

I like to reduce variations in my lead by smelting a large batch two or three times.

I form my lead into ingots and then resmelt them and clean upon each melt. As I work through my pile of ingots I melt a cross section so as to eliminate great variances in my boolit alloy.

When I am melting alloy to begin casting I then add tin if appropriate. The tin produces better fill out.

I refrain from adding sprues while I am pouring boolits because the tiniest bit of dross can be carried down towards the spout on a bottom pour furnace.

Three44s

I realize that this string of posts may not belong here but i and doing this with the idea of deer hunting with them.

Well, I was checking my work and sorting by weight and one boolit felt sharp! weights were all over the place (338-342GR) but this one showed me what was supposed to happen. It had a sharp perfect base and weighed 143gr! My cadence was too fast! All the symptoms of one who is educated but inexperienced. So a total re-melt of 200 Boolits happened. now, working at 900 F and flooding the mold with 2 drops min is what the doc ordered. No wrinkles and sharp bases. excitement builds when weighing them and they are all coming in at 142.5 +- .5 GR!

Cannot beleve how addicting this is.