22 cal bullets sticking

[Brittany]

I have a lyman mould 22 cal target GC 55 grain, rifle DC mould. I am new to casting rifle boolets, but have cast muzzle loader and pistol boolets for some time.
I decided to start target shooting with my 223. and my son got me a mould, top punch and sizer for fathers day.

Here is my problem, the boolets donot drop out, so i did the smoke with candle trick, this didn`t seem to help much. I than order some Frankford boolet release.

This seem to help some, usually the front one will drop out, some times both will drop out, some times both will not drop out. what am I doing wrong or is this just the nature of this small bullet. Don`t seem to have this problem with my 357 or 44 mag boolets.

Thanks Charlie

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Just a point of information to consider. If you smoke your mold do not use a candle. The smoke from the wax contains hydrocarbon type residue which is considered "oily" and thought to cause wrinkled casts and fillout problems. Probably better to use wooden box matches or a wooden splint lit by an ordinary match.. Another thing to consider is that 22 cal molds can be somewhat of a nuisance to work with due to their small size as the cavities when filled don't put much heat into the blocks ( which if of regular size will shed heat faster than what is being put in). It is thought therefore that running the alloy/melt at higher temp will help to produce better castings. If frosting occurs it is not detrimental to accuracy. Some folks do not like the look of frosty bullets, but the frost can be easily rubbed away with #0000 steel wool. A good mold when properly broken in and running right should not need a mold release agent in order to drop good bullets. Just a tap on the handle hinge should make the bullets drop out. LLS

[shotman]

clean the mold with carb or brake cleaner .{ use an old paint brush} heat mold and use Kroil and let it air dry as mold is hot . No sticky boolits

[wallenba]

The issue might be more complicated. If the mold halves are just a tiny bit off center with a boolit that small, it might be 'captured' in the cavity. That's an extreme situation. More likely the edges of the cavities have a little burring from manufacture. Cast a couple with some small hex nuts in place of the sprue plates. Then release them and use them with a little toothpaste or fine abrasive like 600 grit clover. Turn them inside the mold a few times with the mold closed. This should help.

[JIMinPHX]

The issue might be more complicated. If the mold halves are just a tiny bit off center with a boolit that small, it might be 'captured' in the cavity.

That was my first thought too. I've been hearing rumors about Lyman quality control going down hill for a couple of years now. I haven't gotten a bad mold from them yet, but some people say that they have.

Do the boolits always hang up on the same side?

[Brittany]

Yes, they seem to hang up on the left side 95% of the time.

To further Wallenba`s I was looking in a old cast boolet book I have and they suggested drilling a hole in the base end of the bullet and inserting a tap to hold it for lapping the mold.

Charlie

[canyon-ghost]

Cleaning it with a pencil eraser does the job a little easier. I don't really lap any of my molds but, use a pencil eraser to remove rust.

I'm one of those hinge bangers on the iron molds, myself.

[telebasher]

FWIW, my routine is to pour, cut the sprue, hit the hinge then open. Works for me but smaller mould sizes do need to be run hotter especially when pouring up hollowpoints.

[leadman]

A popsicle stick run around the inside edges of the mold will help you feel if there are any burrs. If you find one very carefully cut it away with a pocket knife.
If you have a caliper you can measure each half of the mold and see if it is cut off-center. Use a stiff feeler gauge or similar object across the mold edge and measure with the caliper from the far edge of the cavity to the feeler gauge. Each side should be the same.

I have had to drill a hole in the base of the boolit and insert a drywall screw to turn the boolit with a paste made from kitchen cleanser and water. Should not take much.

[Bret4207]

First- READ THE STICKIES ON "LEEMENTING"!!!! The same process works on any mould of any material. Could be a tiny burr or 2 causing this. 2nd- don't bother using mould release. There is no magic snake oil that will fix a mechanical issue. Plus, mould release insulates the mould from needed heat and can produce undersized boolits.

The answer lays in looking the bugger over with a glass and fixing the issue, ie- Leementing it!

[Rockydog]

I have a Lyman 55gr .225 mold. I preheat it on a hot plate and once I get it up to temp I cast very fast with it to keep the heat up. I add a bit of tin to my WW to encourage fill out as it will cast rounded corners otherwise. But the rounded bases and grooves are mostly from being too cool. Heat it up and cast like a madman and you should be OK. RD

[Moonie]

Also keep in mind, it isn't nearly as easy to cast those small boolits as it is the large, the added weight of the larger boolits help get them out of the cavities.

[JIMinPHX]

Yes, they seem to hang up on the left side 95% of the time.

To further Wallenba`s I was looking in a old cast boolet book I have and they suggested drilling a hole in the base end of the bullet and inserting a tap to hold it for lapping the mold.

Charlie

If they go the other way, even 5% of the time, then the cavity is probably not real far off center. It might be off a little, but if it was off by much, the boolits would want to hang on the same side just about every time & the few times that they did hang on the other side, the mold blocks would likely be very hard to open.

[BCall]

Just by guessing, I would agree with Jim and say that they are not much off center. IMO, you probably have some very small burrs that are not allowing the boolits to release.

If it was mine, I would try to polish the cavities with a very mild abrasive first. A paste of Comet and water on a boolit and rotated in the mold, or something I have used in the past- JB bore compound. Just to polish the cavities. If it doesn't help, you can always got to a more agressive lapping compund, but you can't go back if you start with the agressive stuff first.

I started casting with small boolits, and I don't find them any harder than larger ones, even HP's, when you get the mold preheated. If they are sticking though, even the tiniest burr can keep them from releasing. Thay same tiny burr might not keep a larger boolit from releasing as the boolits own weight can help pull it free, weight a 22 doesn't have.

Drilling a hole in the base of a 22 boolit is not easy either. I would suggest casting through a nut. I have done this a number of times and find it easier than drilling holes in boolits. What I do is first get the mold hot and cast a few boolits. Then I use a rubber band around the handles to hold the mold closed. Then leave the sprue plate open and set the mold on a flat surface, I hold the nut tight to the top of the cavity with a pair of pliers and ladle pour through the nut until it is to the top of the nut. If you don't hold it down, the lead can float it off of the block and make it unusable. I have a couple of nuts handy and cast at least 3 boolits for each cavity through a nut. Then coat them and use a nut driver to turn them in the cavity after the mold has cooled. I have polised cavities a numer of different ways, but this works best for me when doing small 6mm or 22's.

[MtGun44]

+1 on reading Leementing sticky. Smoking and other mold cavity stuff are
not needed. Clean, unburred, centered and smooth cavities need nothing on them.

Bill