Troubleshooting poor cast roundball

[piwo]

Greetings again.
I didn't see a "troubleshooting" forum, so I thought this would be a good spot for this post.

I was negatively impressed with my casting this week (about 20 months since my last session), and was looking for some feedback. Now, I only cast roundball for my flintlock and a double barrel percussion shotgun, so my questions refer to casting roundball.

My first few sessions casting (2005) were marred by very poor results: swirls and “smileys” on the finished roundball. I realized I missed a step by not “pre heating” the mold, and when I did this the next session, I got quite excellent results.. So, after cleaning out the Lee electric melting pot this week ( my, “I goofed” thread), I cast about 110 roundball. I only kept about 30 of these, and even some of those were not to my standard as well. Just too many smiley’, or swirls, and on a few, little pit marks. I’m only following the instructions that came with the mold, and it seems I’m following them, but something is amiss. Could the lead be too hot, too cool, should I let the lead set up for more then just a few seconds in the mold? When I see the lead “change” from liquid to solid, I get it out of the mold.

Anyway, if you front stuffers who cast roundball have come across these flaws in your casting, please let me know what I’m doing wrong. I appreciate all your help, comments, (and even a few shots for rookie mistakes ).

Thanks!

[Maven]

When I get "smilies" and swirls, it's usually a result of oil in the mold and/or too low a casting temp. If the mold has been degreased and "smoked" with a wooden match or butane lighter, turn up the temp. to ~800deg. F. Once you get perfect RB's, you can reduce the temp. a bit. Hope this helps!

[mooman76]

I concer. Turn up the heat. The swirls although not desireable should have little to no affect on shooting. Shoot them up and keep trying. If you are too hot the bullets will have a frosted appearance. They will shoot fine also. Don't get discouraged. This is an art and with time and practice you will get better! I usually crank up the heat until I get signs that it's too hot then lower it down a bit!

[44man]

I don't think there is any way to get a frosted ball or boolit with pure lead. More heat and a clean mold is what is needed. Hotter just means slower as the sprue hardens. Pure lead needs more heat then a hard alloy.

[piwo]

Thanks fella’s.

From the responses, I’m going with “more heat”… the mold worked well the last time I used it, and though I wiped it off when I was done last year, I didn’t oil it or anything. I’ll “smoke it” as recommended, and turn the juice up on this pot. Do the “numbers” on the Lee pot correspond to degrees (I got it at an estate sale, no manual)? If so, the highest setting I had it on was like 7. Otherwise, where does one get a thermometer to measure several hundred degrees?

I’m certainly outside my element with this metallurgy, but when it’s right, the result are amazing. I cast about 120 out of 180 last year that were within a grain or two of each other. That’s amazing quality control when you consider if you weighed a box of premium hunting bullets from Sierra, Hornady or Federal, you’d find those same disparities (and sometimes greater) in bullets weighing 100 grains less! Less then 1 percent variance is amazing quality. It’s why I’m so drawn to it: the quality control and of course the savings, and of course, from a guy who builds his own 18th century rifles and tipi’s, casting one’s own roundball is just the natural progression of things……..

Thanks for the help guys. I’m on it now………

[versifier]

If your Lee pot's temp range is like mine, there is little or no correlation between the numbers on the dial and the actual temperature. I run mine on "7" for alloys, but turn it up all the way for pure lead until the balls or Maxis come out right, then I reduce it to between "8" and "9". I just got a second Lee pot, this one used, but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet. I have no idea if the same temp dial settings produce the same actual temperatures in two different Lee pots. I have always assumed that since the scale is arbitrary, they probably would not, but I guess I'll find out the truth of it this weekend when I fire them up. Anyhow, crank it all the way up and you should see much better results. Don't smoke the mould with a candle, if you do, you will get a petroleum residue inside and have to thoroughly clean it.

[piwo]

If your Lee pot's temp range is like mine, there is little or no correlation between the numbers on the dial and the actual temperature. I run mine on "7" for alloys, but turn it up all the way for pure lead until the balls or Maxis come out right, then I reduce it to between "8" and "9". I just got a second Lee pot, this one used, but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet. I have no idea if the same temp dial settings produce the same actual temperatures in two different Lee pots. I have always assumed that since the scale is arbitrary, they probably would not, but I guess I'll find out the truth of it this weekend when I fire them up. Anyhow, crank it all the way up and you should see much better results. Don't smoke the mould with a candle, if you do, you will get a petroleum residue inside and have to thoroughly clean it.

Thanks for the tip. I just might have grabbed one, though I thought we had some stick matches in the drawer. As providence would have it, they are closing our work due to the ice adventure we're having here, and the anticipated plastering of snow. Sooooo, I may be putting these into practice this afternoon!!!!!

I'm using wheel weights (30%) and the remaining is pure soft lead. Should I still crank this up all the way?? It's the first time I've tried mixing the wheel weights in.

[R.M.]

Not so sure about your WW mix, but don't sell yourself short on those balls. You'd be surprised just how good they will fly, even with some wrinkles.

[versifier]

Use the candles for fluxing when you smelt, they work great. I prefer beeswax to flux pure lead, it seems to work better for me. Waksupi knows more about harder round ball alloys as he has done the most experimenting with them. He's the one to ask about it. I use pure for MaxiBalls and the .45HP's I load into sabots for my .54. I haven't used rb's in a while, though I do cast them for friends, out of pure also. I suspect you could probably cast the alloy at a lower temp, but you have to get the mould hot enough and dropping good boolits before you turn down the heat.

[Bent Ramrod]

piwo,

The mold should be plenty hot, as the other posters have said, and clean. Smoking sometimes helps, sometimes does not.

After a lot of wrinkly rejects in the .44 and .32 sizes, I noticed that if I ignored the usual casting technique, i.e., turn mold 90 degrees, hold dipper to sprue plate, turn assembly vertical, etc., and instead cast by holding the mold vertical, bringing up the dipper at an angle, and pouring the lead in from the side, letting it fall through the air 1/4" or so and swirl down the sprue hole to fill the mold, I got far fewer rejects. This seems especially effective with Lee RB molds, and especially with the .32 calibers. The mold has to be hot, so speed is important, but it works for me.

I realize that this is a recipe for disastrous results when casting conventional bullet designs, but for round balls, it seems to work for some reason. Worth a try, anyway.

[floodgate]

piwo:

As others have said, a FEW wrinkles are normal when casting from "pure" lead. If these are to be patched balls in a rifle or single-shot pistol, a percent or so tin may help fill-out without affecting seating due to excess hardness; you can even use a tiny "skosh" of tin in C & B revolavers, so long as the balls are not so hard as to bend the loading lever or break the lever link pins (been there, done that, with both Colt and Remington originals - fortunately back when Bannerman's had plenty of spare parts).

floodgate