Water dropping set up.

[Catshooter]

I had never done it before just lately. Doing it for the 9mm. Here's mine:



You can't see it, but there is a steel bar (about quarter inch) running across the middle/top of the bucket that the cotton (T-shirt) is clipped to.



Here's some of the result:



Interesting process. It actually speeds up my casting as there is no messing about with the boolit after it leaves the mould, it falls and you refill it.


Cat

[williamwaco]

Neat!

[reloader28]

Looks like it works great.

I like the Piggyback press. Mine looks just like it.

[Wayne Smith]

I don't mess with the boolit in either condition, water dropped or air dropped. It's to darn hot! I let them cool and then sort.

Open mold, drop boolit, close mold, refill mold. The only fooling I do when I air drop is to periodically pick up the end of the towel I'm dropping them on so I don't drop soft boolits on a pile of harder ones.

[Taz700]

Nice set up, what hardness are you after for those? I've thought about casting 9mm as well.

[Shiloh]

Very nice. Mine is a towel with a slit in it over the bucket.
You made your bench. Is it pretty stout?? Mine has reached the limits of its area and structural capacity.

Shiloh

[Catshooter]

The water dropping has made me realize I was spending way to much time doing other things than pouring, emptying and repeating. Doing it this way makes me much more productive and is easier on my back & such.

The hardness I was looking for was enough to stop the leading I was getting in 9mm. Both the Glock barrel and the Lone Wolfe barrel were doing an excellent job of it with air cooled wheel weights.

Although I'm a bit suspisious of the accuracy of my LBT tester it says that the BNH has gone from 9-10 to 16-18. More importantly the leading has vanished.

The bench is stout enough. I put a Ammomaster handle on my Rockchucker for the added leverage. It's about six inches longer. And bench does flex a bit in use. But it's nothing that affects the work. I'll see about posting up some pics of my shop in the Loading Bench Pics thread in the next few days.


Cat

[lead4me]

Wow that bench is way to organized, how do you get anything done???

[Aunegl]

Fancy...

[mitchrm]

I too have a LBT tester and wondered the same thing. To compare mine to yours I just casted some Wheel weight bullets and they were 11-12 hardness air cooled and 19-20 water quenched. I tested this the same day they were cast.

[Smitty's Retired]

mitchrm.......... let them set for a week or so and go back and check them again. Air drop boolits, the Hardness will increase somewhat with age depending on type of alloy. Some of my water dropped have lost some hardness after three weeks.

[Pat I.]

I too have a LBT tester and wondered the same thing. To compare mine to yours I just casted some Wheel weight bullets and they were 11-12 hardness air cooled and 19-20 water quenched. I tested this the same day they were cast.

I get the exact same numbers as you testing around 12 hours later or the next day. I have both an LBT and a Saeco hardness tester and the results coincide with each other so either they're both right or they're both wrong. I have to believe they're right.

[hickfu]

Thats a nice setup! I just put a old shirt over my bucket and cut a slit in it with a big rubber band around it to hold the shirt. I like your idea better since I have to keep bending down to drop the boolits in.

Doc

[Catshooter]

Yah, I'm not real fond of bending over, especially a lot of it.

Seems to work ok, but it what I'd call fancy!


Cat

[reloader28]

You boys are checking your boolits to soon.
Like Smitty said, they need to set at least a week to get a hardness reading. Even the next day mine read pretty soft compared to 1 1/2 to 2 weeks. After that my air cooled WW will measure 13.5-14 according to my Lee tester (if its right) and 21-22 for water dropped. This is my results anyway.

I have heard there is different hardnesses of WW alloy too. That could be part of it.

[blueeyephil]

I have a media sifter that sits on a 5 gal bucket. I put a towel in that and fill the bucket up until there is 4 inches of water in the sifter. That way I don't have a splash problem. When I get a bunch of bullets, I can use the towel to fish them out or drop them in the bottom of the bucket. I don't have a hardness tester.

[brysongw]

Well aint that fancy!

[groovy mike]

I wouldn't recommend doing any casting indoors no matter what air flow system you have set up.

[runfiverun]

all my casting is done indoors.
the only air flow set-up I have is people opening/closing the door.

[Catshooter]

groovy mike,

Your concern for others' health is admirable, but when you learn more about lead, how it gets into the body and just how much it takes to really affect the body you might change your mind.

Certainly not all, but many, many health/hazard concerns are very overblown by the cowardly trend of our society these days.

Sad, really.


Cat