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Thread: Need help with bullet quality in a Bottom Pour pot

  1. #21
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    ShooterAZ's Avatar
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    Brass molds are a real heat sink, much more so than aluminum or even iron. Even though you may have pre-heated your mold on a hot plate, the small 22 caliber boolits don't carry much heat with them to the mold as you cast. Think of it as pouring heat into the mold. As you cast, you may be losing a small bit of temperature each time you do a pour. Step up the cadence and pour large sprue even if it overflows is what I would try first. Just have a pan or something underneath to catch it. Increase the alloy temp as necessary to keep the mold hot enough. It's a balance, and you'll eventually find it.

  2. #22
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    Mk42gunner's Avatar
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    [QUOTE=Dimner;5116531]... I'm always continously pouring. No starting and stopping the flow. ...

    QUOTE]
    As I'm sitting here running my casting technique through my head; it seems like I work the lever on each hole, not a continuous stream for the whole mold. I do go back and connect the sprue into one piece after all cavities are filled though.

    This is the way I do everything from two four or six cavity molds.

    Try it, it may help.

    Robert

  3. #23
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    I getting kinda slow. Let's start over.

    Going back to the OP. Same pot same lead same temp can you cast 100 with a ladle and have 10 bad ones and while everything is same temp do 100 with the spout and have 50 bad ones?

  4. #24
    Boolit Grand Master popper's Avatar
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    Good cast depends on getting the air out and the alloy in and remaining liquid for fill out. Pressure/ladel casting just keeps the alloy hot in the hole. Wrinkles are from gas that can't get out. Rounded bands cooling too fast. You have enough tin. Try just one hole vary stuff till it's ok.
    Whatever!

  5. #25
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    I heat my moulds on a hot plate, then put the bottom of one end of the mould in the hot lead for 1 min. at the most. Pull it out and wipe the end off and give it about 15 sec. to even the heat out then pour with the sprue plate about 3/8" under the spout. I use a thermometer to make sure my alloy is around 710-715 degrees.

  6. #26
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    When ladle casting, are you using a lyman or RCBS ladle or a spoon? If a side pour ladle, are you mating the ladle into the sprue hole?

    When bottom pouring, is it free flow or have you adjusted the flow to reduce the force of filling the mold?

  7. #27
    Boolit Grand Master popper's Avatar
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    Thee is no 'pressure' casting - don't know who thought up that term. Only pressure added is weight of the ladle against the plate - not on the alloy. It does add HEAT to the plate and alloy doesn't cool in the 1-1/2" drop. IMHO your sprue plate is cold and with the small hole you can't get hot alloy into the cavity fast enough.
    Whatever!

  8. #28
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    I do not know what else to call it if not "pressure casting". I place the hot nozzle against the sprue plate cavity (some heat from the nozzle transfers to the plate), open the valve to allow the weight of the melted alloy flow into the mold cavity and while that alloy is still fluid, remove the mold from the bottom of the nozzle and let it form a sprue puddle while the valve is still open to allow the alloy to flow.

    I guess I would compare the principal as if using a volumetric powder measure and finding that the full column of powder in the plastic tube drops a heavier charge than the same measurement setting and a nearly empty plastic tube.

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by popper View Post
    Thee is no 'pressure' casting - don't know who thought up that term. Only pressure added is weight of the ladle against the plate - not on the alloy. It does add HEAT to the plate and alloy doesn't cool in the 1-1/2" drop. IMHO your sprue plate is cold and with the small hole you can't get hot alloy into the cavity fast enough.
    Believe I got into a discussion about "pressure casting" on some forum or another once. I didn't convince whoever nor did they change my opinion about the term either. Think you're of my school on this one!
    Mike

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  10. #30
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    It's called head pressure. Think a 55 gallon drum full of water trying to run your sink. Would you want it on the ground or on your roof?

    A full pot will add more pressure than a half full pot.

  11. #31
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    Look at the 2 streams the one from the ladle and then the bottom pour. the ladle is larger and fills the cavity quicker will its all still molten the smaller stream may be starting to solidify before its full.

  12. #32
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    I never could get the quality of boolits I wanted with a bottom pour pot ... I tried for years , I could cast a lot of half-fast boolits but I want perfect boolits .
    I gave the bottom feeder away to a fellow member , retired my cast iron pot and old (1967) Lyman dipper for a Lee Magnum Melter , 20 lbs. capacity, and a new long handled Lyman dipper .
    Pressure Casting perfect boolits beats half-fast bottom pour casting Seven Ways to Sunday .
    Gary
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    " Let's Go Brandon !"

  13. #33
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    I'm not reading through all the answers here & I'm sure they are all good suggestions. I'm just going to add my experiences with small caliber gang moulds. I have been cast quite a long time and I know I hate Brass moulds. I do not have the patience for all of their idiosyncrasies
    Life it too short and I think other mould materials cast as good. That said:
    My buddy bought a NOE 5 cavity .25 caliber 63 gain mould and asked me to cast bullets for him.....Man I felt like an amateur again. I could not get that mould work to save my life. I even wrote Al from NOE a few times Thinking the mould was bad even though I checked it out under high magnification and it looked perfect! Finally Al said to run the mold "hot and fast" With a higher alloy temp.
    Now The highest I run my melt is 725 deg......That was the problem I boosted the temp to 760-770 deg Poured as fast as I can and cut the sprews as so as i say the alloy harden! Way different than I normally cast BANG! perfect bullets!
    So on that mould I marked a note with all the particulars on how that one had to be run.
    The moral here is "sometimes you need to break the rules to cast stubborn bullets"
    FWIW
    " Associate with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation: for it is better to be alone than in bad company. " George Washington

  14. #34
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    If you are getting good boolits from a ladle, the most likely variable to change is the flow rate. Run it as fast as you can keep up with it. You can pressure pour from a bottom pour pot, but shouldn’t necessarily have to to get good boolits.

  15. #35
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    I will always pressure pour from a bottom pour pot if I can and the limiting factor is whether the mold can handle it. Some of the cheaper molds don't fit real well and i will wind up with fins when I do it. Pressure pouring is complicated because there are a lot of factors involved. If your pot is full all the way to the top you will have a hard time keeping the mold and pot connection from squirting out around the sprue plate but it will give the most likely chance of a perfect bullet except for one problem which you don't get with a ladle. When pouring with a ladle, the channel that comes out for the pour won't get crud in it because the ladle is constantly whacked around to keep it clean. When the pour constantly goes through the bottom pour spout crud builds up ,which is why they drip, and some of it will come loose occasionally and into the mold and cause a bad bullet with out you knowing it except sometimes it will be right in the base where you can see it. When people are using a conventional system where they just pour into the mold, while they are pouring, the dirt will go up into the sprue and keep this from happening very often. Consequently it is necessary to keep your level rather low at around two inches. This makes the lead go in slower whereas the dirt can make it in the sprue also but causes problems like spout freeze. Next is temperature like has been mentioned several times and the smaller the bullet the harder it is to keep up the speed but if you made it with a ladle the bottom pour will too if you get everything right. Another problem is that when your lead level is only 2 inches deep, it is harder to add lead without putting it in liquid because you will constantly have to wait for it to liquefy and mess up your cadence, Making the lead hotter can help and the only problem with lead too hot is having to wait too long to open up the mold and taking a long time. I have a second 20 pound pot next to my bottom pour and add with a dipper to keep things going smoothly. Each mold I do this with makes me do different things regarding timing and temperature and you will have to take time getting this to work smoothly. Way more of a pain to bottom pour but the bullet perfection is worth it depending what you are going to shoot with the bullets and if you want the best accuracy or are just blasting.

  16. #36
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    I have never cast with a brass mold but the transition to a smaller bullet was a new learning. I mainly cast big .45 bullets and it is easy as can be.

    When I started casting for .30 cal it was a new learning experience. I had to run the melt up to 750 and cast a bit faster and get the mold rocket hot. I also
    adjusted the flow of the bottom pour.

  17. #37
    Boolit Mold
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    Could it be your lead alloy? I was using an alloy of unknown composition that would not fill out unless the pot temp was 825 degrees, and even then it wasn't great. I added some "super hard" 30/70 lead antimony to it (to make it harder) and it actually started bottom pouring much, much better to the point where I was able to lower the temp down to 725 and it still filled out molds nicely.

  18. #38
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    I like slightly frosted boolits. I pour a lot of 37gr 22 cal boolits and run at about 825 degrees. I haven't used brass molds, just aluminum and iron. I have a few molds that don't fill well but if I hold the mold against the bottom pour spout they fill so well they fin. If I get as much as 10% rejects I turn the heat up and/or pressure pour. I have never been able to ladle pour with any real success.

  19. #39
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    You are a ladle caster. Accecpt it. I am a bottom pour caster. I have NEVER cast a shootable boolit with a ladle. Be happy with your ladle poured boolits and forget bottom pour.

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