Rookie Getting started casting

[frkelly74]

Well it looks like almost everything you asked about is covered here. I would reiterate that you need to size your castings. There will be one or more in a batch of seemingly correct boolits that are inexplicably too big and If you just load them up those few will hang up when feeding and you will have a jammed gun, Speaking of the 45 here. I had trouble especially with the tC style bullet. I have just gotten a 38 Charter arms and have found that .358 boolits will push through the cylinder with a little friction. My 9mm carbine likes .357 sized boolits. I have 4 Lee 38/9mm sizers of which one sizes the actual size that is stamped on the outside of it. They are all within a few thousandths but the micrometer is my friend so I can know for sure what diameter I am loading.I got most of them used and know that they have been "adjusted", which is easily done as long as you want to go bigger. Tumble lubing is good lubing for velocities attainable for handguns as long as the boolit is big enough to seal the bore, that is the key. Powder coat is interesting because it is clean to shoot. It is however messy to do and you need a dedicated oven. I was able to pick one up from a junk pile a while back so it was cost free and when I am done with it, it will go back to a junk pile.. You will still need to size after powder coating by the way. I routinely use range scrap or any scrap I can get my hands on. If it makes a ringing sound when dropped on concrete I know it is harder than pure and use it. I might mix in pure or some lead that does not ring when dropped but do not get carried away with testing alloy. I view casting as more art than science and just have fun with the process.

Oh yes, I almost forgot , I use Ove Gloves to handle my molds with. I do not like to pound on the sprue plates and find that I can open the sprue and dump the cut off into my gloved hand to return to the pot immediately and dump out the boolits and even use my thumb to ease a stubborn boolit out of its cavity If necessary without getting burnt.

The comment about heating up a 6 banger above and gradually getting up to production temperature by successively filling one or two cavities at a time is spot on. If you do this you will probably not break the handle off the sprue cutter , they are a little fragile and do not tolerate being forced .You will also want to have a pile of ingots ready to feed the pot as the level goes down so you can keep on casting and not let the mold cool off. Once you are going, and getting good boolits, you will not want to stop if you are at all like me.

I am using an old corn bread mold for an ingot mold, made of cast iron. they slip right into the pot and disappear when I am in production. I have an extra one what is your address. You can PM me.

[erief0g]

I would reiterate that you need to size your castings. Confirmed. NOE sizer and a selection of sizes is in my near future

Speaking of the 45 here. I had trouble especially with the tC style bullet. I have just gotten a 38 Charter arms and have found that .358 boolits will push through the cylinder with a little friction. My 9mm carbine likes .357 sized boolits. I have 4 Lee 38/9mm sizers of which one sizes the actual size that is stamped on the outside of it. They are all within a few thousandths but the micrometer is my friend so I can know for sure what diameter I am loading.Micrometer ordered and on way. never had to worry about that third decimal to much, now it's time.

Oh yes, I almost forgot , I use Ove Gloves to handle my molds with. I do not like to pound on the sprue plates and find that I can open the sprue and dump the cut off into my gloved hand to return to the pot immediately and dump out the boolits and even use my thumb to ease a stubborn boolit out of its cavity If necessary without getting burnt. This is some good infomation as well. My lincoln welding gloves for my egg charcoal grill are about beat so I'll get some of those to try out. need something for the grill anyway if it doesn't work out.

The comment about heating up a 6 banger above and gradually getting up to production temperature by successively filling one or two cavities at a time is spot on. If you do this you will probably not break the handle off the sprue cutter , they are a little fragile and do not tolerate being forced.n_{that's going in my notes, not something I've come across yet in my reading.}You will also want to have a pile of ingots ready to feed the pot as the level goes down so you can keep on casting and not let the mold cool off. Once you are going, and getting good boolits, you will not want to stop if you are at all like me.

I am using an old corn bread mold for an ingot mold, made of cast iron. they slip right into the pot and disappear when I am in production. I have an extra one what is your address. You can PM me. VERY generous. PM sent

Thanks again for all the input and insight. Looking forward to the casting handbook reading which hopefully will generate some more knowledgeable questions. I won't be setup next weekend as even if most of my equipment arrives that weekend is booked otherwise.

[Wayne Smith]

You are in Charlotte, NC. Doug Guy is in Wake Forest - you might want to look him up.

[Mk42gunner]

Looks like you have gotten some good advice, I will reiterate use your PPE. At the very least eye protection.

One thing I missed answering was about the hardness tester. I had a Saeco hardness tester for a short while. I didn't like using it, so I passed it on to another member here. I do have one of the Lee units, it works, but is a bit of a pain to hold the magnifier steady enough to read.

Honestly, it has sat on the shelf for several years without being touched. If you have known hardness alloy it really isn't needed. Certainly not necessary for someone just starting out.

A hardness tester isn't quite as useless as a powder trickler, but its not far off.

Robert

[phantom22]

I used a muffin pan once. It was a cheap dollar store one which was likely part of the problem. It wouldn't release very nicely although I have now read some tips on how to help that, but I found that I bent them up pretty easily, again dollar store quality likely influenced that.

In the end I got my muffin ingots and bought and ingot mold. They are not that expensive and I figure it will be less of a headache in the long run.

[erief0g]

been reading and reading. Bought a considerable amount of stuff for my endeavor. Always known to be a jump in with both feet kind of guy.
Protection equipment.. Used to race ATV's/ used to run sport bikes/ used to run modded cruisers/ wrenched on all sorts of machines.. one thing I believe in is safety gear. You will laugh, and you should, but my first endeavore is going to be slap full of some protection. I've got tig gloves, leather apron, eye protection, face shield, and all cotton clothing. Fans for ventilation. nary a drop of water in the area. will be just at the threshold of the garage when smelting the bigger pot for ingots and in the garage at the bench with the lee bottom pour pot.

Times are tough for getting all the things I want but time is on my side. I'll get there and once up and running I look forward to being that much more self sufficient. Won't be long before that 32K of primers is getting used up!

[lightman]

Welcome to the hobby! It sounds like you are off to a good start and have received some great advice. I'll add my 2 cents to everyone elses.

Hot Plate------I cast for a long time without one. It speeds up getting your mold up to temp thus you get good bullets faster. I didn't see it mentioned but a steel plate over the coils to set the mold on helps a lot. Lots of guys use an old circular saw blade.

Thermometer--------Another thing that I didn't acquire for a long time. You can do without one but it helps.

Hardness tester------Yet another tool that I did without for a long time. I use clip-on wheelweights for 99% of my casting. They worked great for years without me knowing how hard they were. But its a nice tool if you get lots of misc scrap. The hardness does not tell you the alloy but it and the melting temp will help you guess what you have more accurately.

Smelting/melting scrap-------If you melt small amounts at a time you can get by with one ingot mold. But if you do a few hundred pounds at a setting having several molds will keep you from waiting on one to cool down. Those that Lakehouse sells are nice.

I may have missed a few points but you are off to a good start.

[Jniedbalski]

The lead ingots you said you got from your dad from the early 70’s is most probably wheel weights. It was almost always free at the time. I Remember in the late 80’s going to tire shops and them about begging me to haul of there buckets of scrap. It was almost worthless then the price was very low for scrap and nobody wanted to mess with hauling it off. They got tired of tripping over them. The white label lube 45/45/10 which is a tumble lube alox works very good and is cheep and easy to use. You could even use 1/2 pure or soft with 1/2 of your dads ingots and still make good bullets. If your ingots won’t scratch with a fingernail most-probably wheel weights. If you take a flat blade screw driver to a lead wheel weight and scratch it see hot hard it is do do that. Then try the ingots. It should’ve about the same.

[erief0g]

Well. Thanks to Y'all along with some good ole fashioned "want to" I melted lead for the first time today. Melted down 20 lbs of the old dirty oxided lead from dad and cleaned it up and put into ingots.

I then proceeded to melt down a 20 pound pot of the 12 bhn lead alloy I have and cast my first boolits. 45acp 230gr TC. Avg weight put them at 238 grain but no worries there. I cast about 300 for my first attempt. Let me rephrase.. I kept 300. brand new 6 cavity lee mold and I think there is a learning curve along with a break in all things considered. After casting 150 boolits I took a break, cooled the mold and lubed it, and worked on some other things. Upon returning for another session I got considerably better results and look forward to the process getting smoother.

Thanks for all the help. Tomorrow may be my first endeavor into the world of hitek coatings as well. We'll see how the day goes.