What did you cast today?

[NuJudge]

We had a warm spell in SE Michigan yesterday, and I cast about 1500 .40 Lee tumble lube bullets. It'll probably be another 2 months before I have warm enough weather again.

[zardoz]

Everything was clicking just right today. Beautiful weather outside, and did some chrono work on 357 Magnum snub nose, and also GP-100 with 6" barrel. Finally got my gamma chrony printer up and running, and figured that out after sitting a bit with the instructions.

Anyway, back on topic. Cast 196 beautiful 358-158 grain Lee RF boolits today. Water quenched them, and for some reason, it was all clicking just right. Had a few ingots of some excellent clean WW I smelted a while back. Added a bit of 60/40 solder. Pot temperature just right. Rhythm on the perfect.

First time I've used bullplate on the sprues and locators, and that stuff is just great. Boolits were just falling out the mould, right into the bucket. Just cut the sprue with gloved hand, and tilt the mould open over the bucket, and they fell smoothly out.

Took a look later at my castings, and all were right at the point between shiny and light frosting, and all were sharp edges and excellent fill.

This is the best I've ever done to tell you the truth. Stars were in alignment.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

[curiousgeorge]

Saturday was a beautiful day here in central Kentucky. Temperature in the upper 60's.

I cast 358156, 358477, 429421, and 452454, all Lyman 2 or 4 cavity moulds. My lead ingots are old, old wheel weights with just enough 50-50 solder mixed to approximate the Lyman #2 alloy. My 358156 weighed 158, the 358477 weighed 155, the 429421 weighed 248 and the 452454 weighed 255. At the very end of the runs I broke in a new Lee 2 cavity .45-70 405 grain mould and cast about 50 of these. They weighed 408 grains. Of course, all the bullets did not weigh the same, but these were the averages.

I was running 2 pots - an old Saeco 20 lb and a Lee 10 lb, both bottom pourers. To the left side of the 2 pots is a large wooden box that the sprues and rejects go in. To the right side is another larger wooden box with old towels in the bottom for padding that I drop all of the good boolits in. I start with the big pot and 2 heated molds. The Lee has 2 molds sitting on top also heating with the lead ready to pour. About half way through the Saeco I start casting with all 4 moulds. When the Saeco is almost empty I put the sprues and reject back in it and finish filling with ingots. Then start with the Lee pot and all 4 molds which are used in a rotation. When the Lee is almost empty, sprues and ingots go back in and the Saeco is ready to start pouring again. Back and forth, back and forth until I have cast all I want. None of the 4 moulds ever get either too hot or too cold. After 6 pots of lead ( 3 each ), I have a box of boolits that I can barely pack. It almost filled 4 large plastic peanut butter jars, plus the .45-70 boolits.

Steve

[Blackhawk45hunter]

A little over 300, C309-170-RF for my 30-06 and 100 452-200-RF for my blackhawk

[Silent]

Casted a couple hundred .358-125-RF 50/50 to test out "as dropped" in the .357. The last batch was all sized and those worked awesome in the 9mm but leaded pretty bad in the .357.

[HammerMTB]

Just ran a small batch of .432-300GC Lees. They cast up real purty, and I'll heat treat them tomorrow.
It was all going so well it was tempting to grab another mold and make some more, but it's a spring day and there's a lot of chores to do...

[BarryinIN]

Not today, but yesterday and the day before I did some casting for the first time in months. I have back trouble, and it got worse for a while. I had another surgery, and I am just now getting back to mediocre again. Hurting pretty good today, though.

Here's what I cast the last two days:

Lyman
356472, a couple hundred
358480, maybe a hundred
358156, 100-125
358429, maybe 30
429105, 100 or so
429421, 100

RCBS
410-210-SWC, around 70. First time using this mould.

Saeco
388, about 120
383, about 150
115, around 300-325

Lee
429-113-WC about 60. First time using this one.
429-208 WC, about 75
432-265 RF Ranch Dog, about 50

H&G
275, about 110

Rapine
408190, about 75. First time using this one too.

[Jech]

Fired up the pot last night to break in my new 3xGC/3xnon-GC Ranch Dog TLC311-165-RF. Cranked out a good 300 boolits total with very few culls, gonna get 'em lubed and sized tonight!

[truckboss]

Yesterday,Pulled out my 6 cavity H/G #68.Cast about 1500 boolits,the mold was firing on all 6 cylinders.I had to stop only because my back was hurting a little.I can't believe this is the mold i wanted to sellanyways will some one please kick me in the a-- for even having that thought.

[b2riesel]

Today:

All cast with Lee 6-Cavity 401-175-TC

From range scrap:

400 air cooled for use as jacketed hollow point cores for 45 ACP
670 water quenched, sized and tumble lubed 45/45/10

From four lead hammers:

270 quenched, sized and tumble lubed 45/45/10

Not a bad rainy day afternoon worths.

[*Paladin*]

Made my first .357's (actually, .358's) tonight. I got a Lee 6-cav 358-158RF mold. Until now, my only experience was casting .45's, so tonight was interesting. Crazy how many boolits I can cast with a pot as opposed to big fat 230gr .45's! I weighed a random sample of 10 boolits and all were between 159.4gr to exactly 160 gr (alloy is straight WW w/ some pewter added to help fill out). I was really happy how consistent they were.

This mold is going to require a good bit more heat to cast well compared to the .45 mold I have. It seemed like it took forever to get up to a good temp, and I even pre-heated the mold on a hot-plate. I bet I cast 100 before I started dropping boolits without wrinkles. The good boolits were beautiful tho. I got them lubed with LLA and sized to .358. Tomorrow night I'll load up some .357's and hopefully this weekend I can get out and put some thru my GP100.

[LAH]

I did 38 pounds of these Tuesday.

[Jal5]

No casting but I loaded up about 200 rounds combined 357 or 38spl for my revolver and lubed another 200 for the 38 spl while I was home sick today. I just finished some of those 358429s from LAH! That is one of my favorites in 357 mag.

Joe

[Silent]

No casting but I loaded up about 200 rounds combined 357 or 38spl for my revolver and lubed another 200 for the 38 spl while I was home sick today. I just finished some of those 358429s from LAH! That is one of my favorites in 357 mag.

Joe

Sounds a lot like my day. Casted about 500 more .358-125-RF and loaded 100 rounds of .38 Special, and 100 rounds of .357 Magnum

[Tazman1602]

.............a new Mihec brass mold, and some time on your hands.....it was a good day!

[Jal5]

Loaded another box of 357 mag using the Lee 358158RF.
Cast my 358429 from a SC mold I bought here a while ago. With the Harbor Freight hotplate to heat up the mold, it makes it very nice to cast. Hardly a bad one in the lot of 124 that I just finished.

[LAH]

No casting but I loaded up about 200 rounds combined 357 or 38spl for my revolver and lubed another 200 for the 38 spl while I was home sick today. I just finished some of those 358429s from LAH! That is one of my favorites in 357 mag.

Joe

Joe I love that bullet.

[Jal5]

I will be interested to see how mine compares to yours at the range! LOL
Yours has the deeper lube groove plus the base band and driving band look to be the same size, where mine has the shallower lube groove, the old Lyman version of the Keith boolit.
Joe

[NHlever]

Yesterday, about 350 Lee C309-150-F The day before about the same of the Lee C-309-170-F, 100, or so Lee 429-200-RF, and about 200 Lyman 429415. It was slower going yesterday with my single cavity molds.