New NOE mould problems

[chevyiron420]

I got a NOE mould for Christmas and it is a beautiful piece of work. It is a .363, 150 gr. for my 38S&W's. Most of my moulds are two cavity except for one four hole Lyman, and I make out good with them. Here is the crazy part, I cant make good boolits with it! I am fighting wrinkles on one side of the nose, an odd look on the other side of the nose, kinda silvery look, pin holes in the grease groove, burn out on the driving band, heavily frosted base and band. Sometimes all on the same boolit. I have played with alloy temp from 650 to 725ish, and have been working with mould temp as well. To help with the wrinkles I have to pour real fast. So fast as to make it hard to control the sprew from shooting all over. The alloy is COWW. I have a hotplate with a saw blade and metal coffie can top for pre heating the mould and the pot is a lee 10 lb. bottom pour. I thing the alloy is fine because I switched off to a lee mould mid stream and went to making good boolits within three pours. Also the amount of cool down between pours seems way to long. I am so confused I dont know what questions to ask. Help

[cold1]

I had something similar when I switched to an NOE mold. I emailed Swede and the first thing he told me was to get the mold hot, about 400F I think.

Email Swede,he will be glad to help you out.

Sometimes, my COWW like to be 775ishF before they make great boolits.

[runfiverun]

aluminum molds do like to be run a tick over 400-f.
but did you follow the break in AL recommends?
the mold needs to be thoroughly cleaned and heat cycled 4-5 times before it will cast well.
the first one I got needed to be cleaned twice and it made okay but odd boolits for the first couple of runs.
as soon as it got those heat cycles through it it suddenly become a different mold and it's hard to make bad boolits with it now.

[noisewaterphd]

Make certain the mold is clean.

If the mold is clean, and you have given it a few "heat cycles" if it still won't cast a clean bullet I would try pressure casting with a medium stream.

Also, how long are casting for? My NOE molds take quite a few bad casts to warm up. Once the mold is good and hot they make excellent bullets.

[Czech_too]

I had similar problems with this last NOE mould, a 315-103-SWC, and I have several of his moulds. Once their properly broken in and you find the right rhythm/timing/temp, then they work great.
In this case I had to turn the hot plate on high, from medium high and let it warm up longer. This was probably due to there being smaller cavities in the same size block as say the 195's. Just more mass to heat and bring up to temp.
Each mould might have it's own idiosyncrasies, just gotta learn what they might be.

[reddog81]

What do you mean when you say the cool down between pours is long? Like others have said the NOE mold blocks are quite a bit larger than Lee's and take a little bit more to warm up.

Even after sitting on a hot plate I do 5 pours as quickly as possible to get the mold up to temperature. I don't even look at the bullets I just dump them and re-fill.

[Handloader109]

You are not hot enough - mold that is. A lot of aluminum to get hot.... Try a 37gr :O I have to keep it really for to cast well, but once there, works well with

[Bigslug]

All of the above, but also check your sprue plate tension. If it won't swing under its own weight, it's probably too tight to let air out reliably. That can be a cause of wrinkles, as can oil and sprue plate lube in the cavities.

I also think you're running a little cold on your pot. I personally have never had much (perhaps any) luck operating in the 700F range, finding 775 to 825 to give much better results with pretty much all of the brass and aluminum 4 and 5 cavity molds I run. From what I read here, I spend a little longer waiting for my sprues to freeze, but my metal stays liquid long enough to get the air out of the cavities. On a 2-cavity aluminum mold with relatively small bullets like yours, the challenge is going to be getting and keeping enough heat in the mold to get it to behave.

[Cherokee]

HEAT...did I mention you need lots of heat in the mold.

[41 mag fan]

Never had a mold that needed to heat up to 775 and above. Of all the molds I have from noe and accurate they'll run in the 675 to 710 temp. Anything above they go frosted. Lee's for me 715 on two.
I've got a .476 NOE mold that had the same problems. I was using it with a bottom pour..I tried slowing my stream..and I left about a 2" gap from spout to sprue...problem solved. .also I started a swirl on my stream which was even better

[chevyiron420]

Ok guy's I have been reading everything you wrote and thinking about it. I went to the shop tonight and tried something. I ran the pot temp up. My thermometer only goes to 750, but I ran it up to a stable 750 and then turned up the knob just a hair more. It was #8 on the lee knob. I decided not to preheat the mould with the new to me hotplate. I just dipped the corner of the mould for a 30 count and went to casting. The thought was to start cold and cast quickly and try to find a sweet spot as the mould heated up. It's a 5 cavity mould and I was surprised that the third throw was good, then I had to slow down. Pour five, cut sprue quickly and dump boolits. Then hold mould open wile I inspect boolits, organize sprues, twist the dripping thing, clean off drips on the furnace, then pour again. If I go any faster I start burning out the driving bands with heavy frost. The higher temp alloy cured the nose wrinkles on one side and I dont have to pour so fast. This is better and I have less rejects, but the long cool down time makes it slow to me. I think the problem with the preheat on the hotplate is I dont have a good way to read the temp of the mould. What are you guy's using?

[Tailhunter]

Al can drill the mold for a temp probe and also sells the complete set up. Buy one and run the mold at round 430 degrees while casting. Bullets will drop like rain and look perfect.

[reddog81]

I've never heard of such a cool down between every pour. I would run a second mold if it takes that long. I was casting a 135 grain 9mm NOE over the weekend and could cast 4 bullets every 20 seconds or so. I would wait for the sprue to cool otherwise the mold was either dropping bullets or being filled. Of course it was 40 degrees outside so the mold probably doesn't heat up as easily.

[rbuck351]

When things get hot enough to cause a slow down I use a small fan (about 4" dia) and hold the mold in front of it while opening the sprue plate and dropping the boolits and closing the mold. Some times an extra couple of seconds in front of the fan before closing is needed. All my NOE molds have worked better after a 2 or 3 casting cessions. I leave my Lee dripper set on about 8 which is around 775 to 800 degrees.

[jimofaz]

+1 on the pre-casting mould prep. Especially the cleaning part. Cavity contamination from WSO machining coolant that cannot be seen with the naked eye will drive you crazy until it is gone!

[clintsfolly]

I found the fast track to getting my new NOE molds to cast great the first casting run. Set the new mold in a Old pot cover with water add 1 drop of dawn dish soap. The water should be 1-2" over the top of the mold. Heat till boiling then reduce heat till simmer for 5 min. Remove pot from stove to sink run hot tap water in till the water runs over the top of the pot. Let run for a minute or two. This removes the soap and scum. Remove the mold and place in oven heat to 375. When oven is at temp shut off. When cool repeat heating 3-4 time. Goes fast as you can be doing other things. The first casting come out great but had one that mold that took 2boilings as there have more cutting oil.

[chevyiron420]

I had a pretty good session the other day with it but didnt want to say much until I was able to repeat. It was a lot colder today than before. I was able to cast a gob of nice boolits in short order. I was causing a lot of the problem by pouring so fast trying to overcome the wrinkles on one side of the nose. Once I started running the pot up around 775 deg. and figured out I could slow the pour down, things got better. What looked like driving band burnout was me overcoming the venting causing poor fill out and the air in there made it look frosted. I still have to pause some between pours to cool, and if I get to impatient ill have to touch the mould to a wet sponge. Anyway im claiming victory.