Production Effiency

[Leadmelter]

Group
I spent about 3 hrs casting 45 cal 200 gr boolits. Using a RCBS furnace with say a 20 lbs capacity, I ended up with about 28 lbs of boolits with I post fill. I was using a Lyman 4 gand mold and a RCBS 2 gang mold.
I guess my question is: Am I pouring a too generous sprue or is this about average?
I have tried doing 3 molds but it did not work for me.
Anybody going deer hunting, Good Luck!

Gerry

[Ron B.]

Hello Leadmelter!
I'd say 28 pounds of bullets, all in 3 hours is very good. I generally run 3 moulds, depending on cavity capacity. An example, earlier this week, using an H&G 6 cavity, along with 2 RCBS 2 cavities I ended up with about 140 lbs of 230gn 45 acp cast bullets. It took me two days, about 12 hours total. Ironically, I just finished sizing/lubing yesterday. Did I mention sizing/lubing is "my least favorite" part of casting my own?

Hang that mould in there!
Ron

[Doc Highwall]

Leadmelter, the question is not the size of the sprue, but how well the bullets came out with that size. Too small of a sprue and you can get voids in the base of the bullets and it is not like the sprue's cannot be remelted. Remember quality first, quantity will come all by itself in no-time.

[mpmarty]

+1 on quality first. its like shooting IPSC, get accurate and the speed will come on its own.

[chris in va]

Let me think here...

I cast my 230gr 45acp's for 1.5 hours and netted about 250 with a two hole Lee mold.

So 57,500gr = 8.2lb of boolits. Double that with a 4 hole, 16lb in 1.5hr, or 32lb in three hours.

Sounds about right, maybe a bit slow.

[Shiloh]

Strive for good boolits. Your production sounds about right.

Shiloh

[BruceB]

Go to the "Classics and Stickies" forum on the list of the various forums (fora?)

Toward the bottom of Page 1 is "BruceB's Speedcasting Method".

It's no great trick to get over 400 bullets per hour from a 2-cavity mould, once you get accustomed to the routine.

[prs]

I cast a batch of my PRS-454-250-RF today. I use two 20# Lee bottom pour pots and two 6 cavity molds. I run the pots hot and quick cycle the molds until they are hot before I keep any boolits. I went through just under 70# of berm scrap alloy in an hour and 15 minutes. I do not hurry, I just keep a steady comfortable rate and try to keep it going. The pace today was a little slower than usual because I found the berm scrap more difficult to cast than the WW metal I am accustomed to. This technique if very efficient because when one pot is depleted, you can use the other while new ingots melt and come up to temp in the first. The only hold-up is pausing on occasion to lube the pins. I've tried three molds in this routine, but the spru gets too hard for the Lee splru plate to slice easily in the length of time it take to fill and dump the other mold. Actually, getting the gear out, pots up to temp, and cleaning up took as much time as casting.

prs

[MakeMineA10mm]

I cast yesterday and made about 400 keepers in two hours with four moulds. Ran three at a time when I had a hodge-podge of small-cavity-count moulds, and then ran a 6-hole all by itself. It made as many boolits in 40 minutes as the other three did in twice that long...

Anyway, I cast a very large sprue with all my moulds, until I get them up to temp, then a "normal" sprue, which is still a big chunk atop each hole plus a stream from hole to hole to hold them all together. I start making them smaller when the boolits get frosty. If they're still frosty, I slow down the pace a little.

When I'm starting to cast, I usually keep the thermostat around 725 and cast big sprues (as big as the sprue plate will hold - often with lead running off the sides) as quick as I can go. Once the mould's up to temp, I turn down to 700 or a little less and cast the "normal" sprue at a regular pace.

A buddy who watched me cast last week thought my sprues were huge, but he also conceded that I had very few rejects once the mould was up to temp.

I have a 90-lb Magma pot, so I don't worry about returning sprues or having enough lead to make lots of bullets without messing with the sprues. After two hours yesterday and 15+ lbs of boolits, I still had a little over half a pot, so I'd bet 40-45 lbs were still in it. That probably meant I made about 12 lbs of sprues and reject boolits (from the beginning while waiting for the moulds to get up to temp).

[GaryS]

It's no great trick to get over 400 bullets per hour from a 2-cavity mould, once you get accustomed to the routine.[/QUOTE]

I will be tickled to death when I get up to 100 an hour, good ones. Just getting started.

[Bullshop]

Singles and douples work best for me when cycled 4 times per minute.
With a double that would be what like 480 boolits per hour.