Lee 309-230-5R casting problem.

[Kylongrifle32]

Hello all.
I just received a used Lee mold it's a two cavity 309-230-5R that has been altered. The mold has been bored out converting the boat tail base to a plain base boolit. I'm not sure what the hardness of my lead is I do not have a hardness tester. The lead source I am using comes from automobile battery terminals that have not been finished into complete batteries. Just the terminals only no battery plates. I have been casting pistol boolits for 35 years but just started doing rifles. Also new to me since starting rifle boolits I started water quenching them. Boolits dropped with this alloy into water come out fairly hard. I can not scratch them with the old school thumb nail test.

So I sat down today to try out my new mold. These boolits are going to be run thru a 10.5 inch 300 black out at subsonic speeds. I heated up the mold and began casting using a ladle set up. After a couple pours and bypassing the wrinkly ones they started dropping like crazy and I finished up the pot. I drained off the water and dropped them on a drying towel. I pick up one to take a look at it a was surprised at what I saw. The boolit was curved and looked like a banana. I have never seen anything like this. Upon inspection you could see that the boolit havles had different appearances. One half was nice and shiny and the other half was frosted. The frosted side was convexed and the shiny side was concaved. Out of about 150 boolits 20-25 turned out this way.

I refilled the pot and started over this time dropping the boolits out onto a towel all came out shining like a new Penny and all looking straight.

Anyone ever experience this problem. What could have caused this to happen. Mold running to hot? This long boolit dropped in water cooling to quickly and warping?

Like to hear some imput on this. Thanks Mike

[GregLaROCHE]

I can’t help much. I can just say I have that same mould(unaltered). So far have only used it once for around a hundred boolits. I had the same problem at first with the wrinkles, more than other molds. My alloy (range scrap) got too hot and they started to frost. I let the pot cool down and the rest tuned out fine. I was dropping them into water too.

Did you preheat the mold or leave it on top of the pot and possibly got one side hotter than the other? It will be interesting to hear what others have to say.

I have always wondered why lee made that mold in a boat tail, since most want it for 300 Black Out subsonic. Interesting to know how it shoots for you. How much heavier are the boolits now?

Good luck!

[Joby]

Had that issue happen also. When hot soft bullet released from one mold half it tipped onto other mold half and bent before clearing the mold on its way to water.
Open mold slowly with mold half that bullets like to stay in usually on the bottom, wait a moment then dump onto water or towel.
Should fix your problem.
A lot of bullet and small mold block heats up fast and mold handles don’t open up enough to clear bullets sometimes
Good luck
JS

[roharmon]

The terminals are close to pure lead, which may be causing the bullets to bend while falling into the water, or after hitting the water. I could never get that mold to throw a bullet larger than 308, even after using 50/50 lineotype and COWW. They worked fine out to 50 meters, but sucked at 100 meters.

[gwpercle]

Dropping into water , when one side hits first , can cause the boolit to warp.
Drop a few on a towel and air cool ..... if they remain straight you've found the problem.
Long boolits are more prone to warping than short fat handgun boolits.
Heat treat and quench in a separate step after casting if hardness can't be achieved with alloy.

[3leggedturtle]

Let your mold cool a few seconds longer before cutting off sprue. Todd

[Kylongrifle32]

Thanks everyone.

I also have a factor 309-230-5R mold with this alloy it seems that I am get .309 diameter at 225 grains. The altered mold is dropping boolits at the base to the first lube groove at .311 diameter with a weight of 233 grains. I cast about 150 of these bullets yesterday that I drop onto a towel and air cooled. Lubed them up with 45/45/10 mix and sized them. Will relube and load some up in the next couple of days and hope to shoot some this week.

My testing with the original boolits we're only done at 50 yards with a 16 inch 1/9 twist barrel with a pistol lenght gas tube. Tried 20 they all cycled fine by had bad flyers with key hole hits but I was expecting that to happen. Changed to a 10.5 inch 1/7 twist carbine lenght gas tube shot out to 65 yards. Got 3" groups but failed to cycle action all the way back. Now have a 10.5 1/7 pistol lenght gas tube to try. The joys of test and tuning.