Boolit Success!!

[tinhorn97062]

Right from the gate, I'd like to thank all of the fine folks here who so generously share their tips/tricks/advice/other information. Long before I melted my first bit of lead, I spent roughly a month cruising around on this site studying all I could about the world of cast lead. I avoided a lot of pit falls by investing that time in studying, and I really appreciate everybody's help along the way. With that said:

I finally made good boolits! The back story is that I bought a 1000w single burner from Walmart to melt lead with. Using a small stainless steel saucepan and a cast iron ladle, I was able to melt lead enough to pour into a mold. The issue that I kept running into was wrinkled boolits. For the life of me, I could not seem to get to this "frosty boolit" stage that I read some much about. So, back to CastBoolits and the wonderful search function. What I found is that shiny and wrinkled boolits seems to be a product of lead and mold temperature not being hot enough. So, I had a light bulb moment. My single burner would only get things so hot, so I moved my operation into the kitchen and fired up the kitchen stove. Much to my satisfaction, the second pour (after heating my mold up and whatnot) yielded great looking (to me), well filled, frosty boolits. I was using a Lee 457-340 mold, beagled a bit to drop large enough for my needs. They weigh in at 350gr (ww/pure lead mix) and drop at about .462-.463. Can't wait to shoot these guys...

[s mac]

Good job, it will get easier as you go along. Now, to shoot them.

[kungfustyle]

make sure to slug your barrel and find out what to size them at. Get some chore boy to make cleanup life easier when you overlooked something. Great job, by the way. It's surprising how fast you can get rid of 20 lbs of lead shooting 300 to 400g boolits.

[tinhorn97062]

make sure to slug your barrel and find out what to size them at. Get some chore boy to make cleanup life easier when you overlooked something. Great job, by the way. It's surprising how fast you can get rid of 20 lbs of lead shooting 300 to 400g boolits.

My bore slugs at .458 with nice deep grooves in the slug. The mold initially was dropping at .457-.458, so I beagled it to get them to drop a little larger.

[brstevns]

Please let us know how they work for you.

[tinhorn97062]

Please let us know how they work for you.

Will do, sir! I sized them last night to .460 and lubed them up with my home brewed stuff. If somebody wants the recipe, I'll post it. I tested the lube a week ago and it performed well with some 420gr boolits at about 1400fps.

These Lee 457-340's I made up are going to be loaded over H4198. I'll run 'em up until I see leading or the accuracy falls off. I'd really like to be able to get to 1600fps with this boolit and lube....we'll see how close I get.

[mdi]

OH NO!, you mentioned casting on the kitchen stove. Now yer gonna get all the safety experts telling you how bad that is for the entire family (a slow and lingering death awaits all of you ). JK! I started casting sinkers on Ma's stove when I was 16 or 17 and al long as I cleaned up in time for Ma to start supper, I was OK.

It took me a while to adjust my temps. to get bullets at just a few degrees below "frosty" and that was about 1/2 ton of lead ago. Grease 'em up, shoot 'em and let us know how they work...

[tinhorn97062]

OH NO!, you mentioned casting on the kitchen stove. Now yer gonna get all the safety experts telling you how bad that is for the entire family (a slow and lingering death awaits all of you ). JK! I started casting sinkers on Ma's stove when I was 16 or 17 and al long as I cleaned up in time for Ma to start supper, I was OK.

It took me a while to adjust my temps. to get bullets at just a few degrees below "frosty" and that was about 1/2 ton of lead ago. Grease 'em up, shoot 'em and let us know how they work...

Yeah, I noticed several small wars have been fought over the notion of casting boolits in the kitchen. Over the years, I've crimped thousands of lead sinkers onto my fishing line with my teeth. Back in those days, I even smoked cigarettes and ate beef jerky while doing it. Seems like that gave me more exposure to lead than dipping a cast iron ladle into a hot pot, and pouring those contents into a hot mold. I seem to still be alive, and good boolits are dropping from my mold..so I figure I'll just keep doing what is working well.

[Bzcraig]

Yup, once you finally get a few good ones, you're on your way to consistency. Keep at it brother!