Hey everyone out there
I am new to the art of boolit casting. I went out and bought myself a Lee melting pot and 2 Lee molds - a 9mm 124 round nose mold and a 9mm 124 cone mold
At first it seemed really easy - the heads came out of the mold in the expected shape and I went out to the range to test them. The boolits went though the target sideways. Always enthusiastic, I went back home and did a whole lot of Googling and reading. I figured out that my lead was too soft - it was coming out at 9BHP (using the pencil test). I bought more lead and I ended up with a batch that was around 24BHP. I loaded up 10 of them went to the range, shot them, and none of them keyholed. I had solved the problem!
I went and loaded another 20 heads from the same batch (exact same load, primer and shells). All but 4 keyholed spectacularly. I don't know if it the 10 that shot correctly where a statistical abnormality,but I seem to have a consistent 80% keyholing rate.
So far I have done the following:
- made sure that I heated the mold and the lead so that there are no ripples in the heads, nor are there discolourations from overheating
- resized some of the heads to make sure that there was not an uneven diameter causing issues. From the same batch, 80% of the unresized and resized heads all keyholed.
- powder coated some of the heads which were resized and some of the heads that were not resized. Still have 80% tumbling. Tried a different powder coating with roughly the same result.
- varied the crimp on the bullet.
- bought a 147 9mm mold from a different supplier. Tried all the combinations above with the same results.
- checked the mold to make sure that the two halves are fitting together correctly (no light shows between them when I have a light source behind them). One of the Lee molds did not sit flush so I eliminated it from my reloading. I am now using the 124grain 9mm Lee cone head mold, and a 147grain 9mm locally produced mold.
- I have established that the base of my bullet is flat (although all three molds are slightly smaller right at the base. This is a 'feature' of the mold and not the bullet deforming when it leaves the mold.
Each time I have shot my boolits, I have loaded boolit heads that I have bought with the exact same powder, crimp. primer and case as my own boolits. I have never had a problem with the heads that I have bought.
I am close to the point of giving up on the whole casting thing. Can anyone give me any insight on what I am doing wrong, because no matter what I change, I'm getting around 80% of my boolits that keyhole.
Any advice is much appreciated!!