Do these cast .45's look good to you

[elton01]

Hi all,

New member here. I'm looking for some constructive criticism on my cast boolits.
I just finished the 300th cast .45 for my personal consumption. I've picked what I consider to be the best and worst of my bullets and have shown them for your critiquing. (The ones that I feel are useable, the wrinkled, non filled variety don't make it out of the garage, back into the Lee pot with them.)
I'm using a Lee 2 holer, with a 20lb production pot. I've Lee-mented as per instructions I've seen on CB while lurking. I believe I'm doing OK, and this has been borne out with great shooting sessions using said boolits.
Yesterday, while out at the range, I had a gentleman ask if I made my own bullets. I said I did, and I proceeded to show him the very bullets that I have taken the photo of. He asked how much would I charge for a box of 200. I replied that I haven't really the equipment to pour en masse for someone.
Out of the blue, one of the old timers who was eavesdropping on the conversation came over, looked at the bullets and declared them of "poor quality", and that if the member wanted to buy cast bullets, he would be more than happy to give him a great deal on cast boolits, which he himself pours and sells.
I don't really care about him promoting his bullets, since I don't plan on selling mine anyways, but I was really ticked off about him calling my bullets "poor" quality, and told him to put his money where his mouth was and show me what was wrong with my boolits. He picked out two that were frosty, which I agreed with, and then proceeded to tell me my mold was not set up, and that the line from the mold was very pronounced and would make for poor boolits.
I've looked at them, then looked at his and when I pointed out a line on a few of his boolits, he replied that they weren't even a 10th of what mine was.
I pulled out my powder scale and proceeded to show that my boolits were all within a .5 grain end weight. He wouldn't weigh his, saying that weight wasn't an issue when dealing with 230 grain round nose, and that being off a grain wasn't an issue.
What do you all think?

[blikseme300]

I don't see any "poor quality" boolits. IMHO the other person is full of bovine excrement.


Bliksem
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[725]

Smile and walk away. He's a goof and you'll never have any effect on him. I may be off base. After all, I wasn't there. Dealing with know-it-alls is an Herculean task. Hey- you like your boolits. They work for you. Look OK to me. What do you care about this guy's opinion? Little people like to make themselves look big by making others appear small. If his comments were instructive, even critical, that's much different than your experience. Just outshoot him, smile and walk away.

[R.Ph. 380]

Those are very nice boolits and would provide very nice shooting. How's the hardness?

Bill

[MtGun44]

Look fine, closer pic would help, but no obvious problems. Not a fan of TL, but the casting
quality looks pretty good. Ultimately the base will tell the tale, the rest is much less important.

Bill

[elton01]

Hi all,

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I really do like my boolits.
Nothing better than sending a lead pill down range in a reload knowing that the reload is all mine.
Bill, I don't know what my hardness is, which is not good since I can't be sure that I'm in the proper ball park. But, I'm casting out of straight WW, which should be OK since I'm keeping my velocity to under 800 fps. I'm using 3.4 grains of Clays with 230grain boolit.
At some point in time I'm going to get a hardness tester once I've got some spare cash. That and a progressive press.
Love casting though, nothing better than looking at a hundred or two rounds at the end of a night and knowing you'll burn through them next day.
I'm also going to get a lubrisizer one day as well, since I find tumble lubing easy, but a little bit smokey.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Your bullets look fine to me. There are no visible external defects and if the weights are that close then there are probably no internal voids. They should shoot well. I have been using straight wheelweights for a very long time and for pistol work they do fine. The BHN hardness factor usually runs between 9 and 12. Frosting on bullets means nothing in relation to accuracy and it can be removed easily with a rub or two with some #0000 steel wool. Keep up the good work. LLS

[D Crockett]

from what I see your bullets look just fine. I would however like to see the bottom of some of them. if you use a spew plat lube the bottom where the spew is cut off is nice and flat. if not it will look like it had been torn off kind of rough looking. if you do not have any give me a pm I have some extra . D Crockett

[geargnasher]

A nice, even, satin frost on all your boolits just means there's a little antimony in your lead and that your mould was hot enough for good fillout. It's a fine like mould temperature to maintain shiny boolits and sharp, complete fillout of the bases and edges, I prefer to cast much faster and get the mould nice and hot so the shiny goes away. If the mould is too hot, the boolits will start coming out to small and be rough on the surfaces like they were sandblasted. If this happens let the mould cool down for 30 seconds and start again. Newbies almost NEVER cast fast enough to get the mould up to optimum temperature, too busy looking at each boolit cast! Don't tell me you don't do it!

Back to your boolits, the only thing I see other than a little inconsistency in mould temperature (mostly shiny with a few faint frosty patches) is what looks like some base flashing. Make sure the sprue plate lays FLAT on the top of the blocks, it's common with the Lee two-bangers to get lead smears under the sprue plate or radial galling of aluminum around the sprue plate pivot screw area which will drive the sprue plate up off the blocks a bit and let "flashing" form on the bases. You want a clean base cut, that's key to accuracy. Nose defects and front band defects can be severe and you'll not notice them in most .45 autos at less than 25 yards, but a slight nick in a base can fling one several inches out of the group.

Check the "lube" sub-forum for a sticky thread titled something about mould lube and how to apply it, get yourself some Zip Lube from our member Randyrat and start using it per directions on the mould alignment points and especially under the sprue plate, it will keep the galling from happening and improve boolit base quality. If galling has already occured, take the sprue plate off and wet-sand the sprue plate and top of the blocks with 400-grit Emery paper and an absolutely flat surface, making certain the mould is closed and aligned properly. Use of the Zip lube will keep it cleaner in the future.

One more thing to check about those wide parting lines, measure the boolit diameters just "off" of the parting line, and then again perpendicular to it to see if your boolits are round. If they're within a half-thousanth and consistent, they're fine. But if they're larger perpendicular to the part line, the mould wasn't closing all the way and you have elliptical boolits. Look for lead bits stuck to the mould faces and check the alignment points for burrs to make certain the mould blocks are closing completly. That wide part line is either a product of a gap them the mould is closed, or you rounded the edges of the cavities slightly when Leementing the mould. No big deal, it won't affect the way they shoot as long as the boolits are ROUND.

Here's a pic of what I mean by "light, even, satin frosting":



Gear

[John Boy]

I'm using a Lee 2 holer, with a 20lb production pot. I've Lee-mented as per instructions

Elton, the bullets look very good ... a couple of suggestion to minimize the mold half lines.
* Take the handles and if they wiggle up and down - tighten the handle bolt. This will align the halves when they close
* In a lead padded vice - squeeze the mold halves so the pins are more into alignment - this will allow the halves to close tighter

Then the bullets will be F-I-N-E looking!

[HighHook]

Great looking boolits to me. I Sort the best ones for paper punching and all else for smacking steel.

[MikeS]

Elton: As others here have said, your boolits look fine. The guy at the range was just trying to make his boolits look better by saying that yours were poor. If he wasn't willing to let you weigh some of his, chances are they vary more than yours, and if that was pointed out by weighing them, then how would his boolits look them? Listen to what Gear says, he knows of what he speaks.

You will always find jerks, and the shooting sport is no different. Don't worry about them, just walk away. You're making your boolits for you, not him, so if you're happy with your boolits, and they're doing what you want them to do, that's ALL that matters.

[jlchucker]

The real proof will be in the shooting. If they shoot to your satisfaction, there's nothing wrong with them. And even if they don't shoot perfectly on the first try, how do you know that it's not the particular load you used with those boolits? Or maybe even your marksmanship at the time you did your shooting? We all have bad target days now and then. Solution to both is to try some different loads and shoot some more of your boolits. I agree with everyone who says that the boolits look just fine. Somebody is just trying to pick nits with you. Unless I know them very well, I pay little or no attention to these gun-range "experts".

[cgm]

Your bullets look fine.... In fact, at first I thought you were were trying to show off!

As for your "old timer".... sounds like he is a jerk. God knows there are a lot of them around any gun range. They usually know everything!

[H.Callahan]

As for your "old timer".... sounds like he is a jerk. God knows there are a lot of them around any gun range. They usually know everything!

Remember, there are a LOT of dumb old-farts out there. Take me, for example...

I wouldn't be embarrassed to show any of those.

[Dumpy]

Like everyone said the bullets look good. It's how they shoot that matters. Some people think they look good by making someone else look bad. Sometimes us old timers get Jealous of the younger crowd being better than us. We all go thru it. He should have waited & caught the gentlemen on the side and just informed him that he casts & sells bullets to members . He could have added that he too makes excellent castings & everyone would have been happy. Gear I especially enjoyed your comments. I had trouble with lines and was exactly what you said. there was a thin shaving of lead in between the mold haves causing the problem. I was also using a lee mold. My mold would have to be cooled occasionally because the bullets would frost. I would set it down on a trivet for a couple of minutes and that would take care of it. I usually lube my molds with pure silicone spray through out the casting process and that works out for me.

[mdi]

Those bullets look fine to me. Keeping the mold temp consistant will take a little practice, but those bullets are OK. Mic the bullets and you may be able to "de-Leement" the mold and that'll prolly lessen or eliminate the split lines.

Ya gotta take what a "Range Rat" or "Gun Shop Guru" says with a grain of salt (or .1 gr.). I've heard some really outlandish stuff from those self appointed experts, who will swear that their B.S is gospel! No matter how good yours is, his will always be a bit better. Some need (really have to) be right. Mebbe their wives beat them down every day and they need to feel good about sumpin', so they repeat stuff they've heard as gospel. I just smile, nod my head, and go back to what I was doing.

Keep casting. I heard somewhere "the only way to learn how to cast, is to cast"...

[garym1a2]

If accuracy is good, the gun feeds 100% and barrel is not leaded than u are doing well. It took me a year to get that far.

[paul h]

They look fine to me, but as others have said, how do they shoot? The truth of the quality of a cast bullet is how well it shoots. Nothing beats shooting itty bitty groups to shut up the resident range "experts"

Sadly there is a percentage of people at ranges that are downright rude, ignorant, and who are incapable of safely handling firearms. Just blow off the blow hard.

[EMC45]

You're not shooting at a range in GA are you? Sounds like a couple someones I've encountered. Had one guy blast me on my Mosin (New England Westinghouse Finn rework) that was given to me. Called it every name in the book, boat anchor etc. Said everything I read about Mosin reloading I could flush down the toilet. He saw the target it shot with my handloads and then tried to buy the gun off me. NO JOKE. He actually tried to buy it right their on the spot. I had to really excercise humility and bite my tongue. Your bullets look fine BTW.