Survey: What Lead Temperature do you Cast?

[HDS]

700-710 PID controlled.

Ditto for me.

[josper]

No clue. If they are wrinkly - hotter. If too frosty - cooler.

Numbers mean little, it is performance.

Bill

I'm with you on this one Bill. I am using a maverick digital BBQ thermometer and I can control the mold temp easily . With an accurate brass mold 45-270 The best combo was 725 with the pot and 350 with the mold. With that I got good fill out and the bullet roundness was good.My alloy for this is 1# lino -4# range lead which tested about 10 with the lee lead hardness tester. These are for my 45 colt rds.

[Baja_Traveler]

Since pure lead melts at 621* I sure wonder how the 11 guys that responded are pouring at or under that temp - must be a ton of tin in their alloy...

[Chuck_ls]

I usually start about 675 with a mold I am not familiar with, and adjust up or down from there, depending on what I am seeing in the bullets. That temp. is usually in the ball park, and I rarely go over 700.
Chuck

[Petrol & Powder]

No clue. If they are wrinkly - hotter. If too frosty - cooler.

Numbers mean little, it is performance.

Bill

I purchased a thermometer because I thought I was supposed to? I used it a little and found that I went right back to the wrinkly/frosty scale.
Some folks are multi-meter people and some folks are test light people. I'm a test light kinda guy

[Hardcast416taylor]

That's a loaded question. The answer is determined by the # of cavities, alloy, weight/cal of boolit, and mold type. Even the ambient temp changes it.

BINGO!!!!!Robert

[GOPHER SLAYER]

To the max, peddle to the metal!

[geargnasher]

Since pure lead melts at 621* I sure wonder how the 11 guys that responded are pouring at or under that temp - must be a ton of tin in their alloy...

Not really. WW typically has between 1/2 and two percent tin and is fully liquid between 570 and 590F. Look at the ternary alloy phase diagram shown in Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, 3rd Ed. and you can clearly see exactly what does what at what percentages and temperatures. Many books on nonferrous metallurgy and casting have similar phase diagrams regarding lead/tin/antimony alloy.

Gear

[Atticus Flinch]

Having only a Lyman Mini-Mag pot with no adjustability, I have just used it as-is for a couple years.

It took a LONG time to get the moulds up to a comfortable casting temp, so I got a hotplate for that purpose. That has helped a lot. Recently, I picked up a thermometer from Roto-metals and found that the Lyman pot holds the alloy at about 640 degrees.

Santa's #1 elf is getting me one of the Waage pots for Christmas, so I can see how I like other temps. That being said, I've become pretty comfortable with the 640 degree alloy and my 50/50 WW/range scrap alloy as long as it's used with a preheated mould.

[cbrick]

Having only a Lyman Mini-Mag pot with no adjustability, I have just used it as-is for a couple years.

It took a LONG time to get the moulds up to a comfortable casting temp, so I got a hotplate for that purpose. That has helped a lot. Recently, I picked up a thermometer from Roto-metals and found that the Lyman pot holds the alloy at about 640 degrees.

Santa's #1 elf is getting me one of the Waage pots for Christmas, so I can see how I like other temps. That being said, I've become pretty comfortable with the 640 degree alloy and my 50/50 WW/range scrap alloy as long as it's used with a preheated mould.

Welcome to CastBoolits Atticus Flinch,

Very wise, you are absolutely correct. It's mold temp that's important, higher pot temps do little more than hide the fact that you didn't get the mold to proper casting temp first.

A new Waage, lucky dog.

Rick

['74 sharps]

#4 on my Lee 20#

[Kraschenbirn]

Depends upon alloy and mould design. For example: I've got a couple of NEI moulds that need to be run 'hot' (700 F.) to get good boolits with the 50/50 + a bit of SN that I shoot in my .38-55 and .45-70 but I get good .45 ACPs from my RCBS 45-200-SWC at 625-650 using the same alloy. Same thing is true with the 'enriched' Lyman #2 I use for my CF rifle moulds. My Lee moulds (aluminum) seem to like a bit lower temps than my Lyman and Ideal (iron) moulds.

Bill

[dragon813gt]

So far this week it was two different 45cal MP molds and three different temps. Both molds were preheated on a hot plate. First one was a solid and it ran perfectly at 700 from first pour to last. I probably could have taken it lower but it was working perfectly. Second one was a hollowpoint and I had to ramp the temp up to 740 to get it working properly. Then I backed it off to 725 to get the sprue to solidify in short order. Every mold is different.

[geargnasher]

I still get a kick out of these posts. Mould temperature is the most important thing to focus on and I'll bet most of you have no idea what your mould temperatures and sprue plate temperatures really are when casting. What ever works for you, though.

Gear

[warf73]

I still get a kick out of these posts. Mould temperature is the most important thing to focus on and I'll bet most of you have no idea what your mould temperatures and sprue plate temperatures really are when casting. What ever works for you, though.

Gear

I'll bet your right, that 95% of ALL casters have no idea what there mold or spur temp is. But I can tell you when everything is right and boolits are fall like rain from the sky out of the mold. I pour between 700~725 according to thermo in the pot, I can't pour any cooler because the spout freezes up(summer/winter don't matter). Hard to pour boolits when you get no lead out of the pot, been like this since I bought the pot new.
Some molds RD 100gr 380 comes to mind, doesn't matter how much you preheat the mold. Run the pot at 750 and pour as fast I can and never over heat the mold and get GREAT boolits from the first pour till I'm done. There is just to much mass and not enough heat hitting the mold to keep it hot enough without going to 750 on the alloy. I lower the heat to 725ish and start to get bad fill out so I increase the heat back to 750 and about 4 or 5 pours later the fillout is good again. I must be doing something right as you can grab a boolit poured in Sept or Dec and they will be within 1gr of each other. And the best part is the boolits kill the pooo out of them paper targets which makes the wife happy.

[cali4088]

I voted 650-675 becasue thats where most of my pouring is done.
I did run some type lead mystery metal the other day though & I
had to go to 800+ to get rid of the oatmeal and stop the "sheeting".
It was weird- never played with anything but WW & pure before.

Sounds like you had zinc in your pot. That or you had a whole bunch of antimony that needed to be fluxed back in. Im siding with zinc. oatmeal for zinc, and lead being oxidized at 800 degrees

[cali4088]

I'll bet your right, that 95% of ALL casters have no idea what there mold or spur temp is. But I can tell you when everything is right and boolits are fall like rain from the sky out of the mold. I pour between 700~725 according to thermo in the pot, I can't pour any cooler because the spout freezes up(summer/winter don't matter). Hard to pour boolits when you get no lead out of the pot, been like this since I bought the pot new.
Some molds RD 100gr 380 comes to mind, doesn't matter how much you preheat the mold. Run the pot at 750 and pour as fast I can and never over heat the mold and get GREAT boolits from the first pour till I'm done. There is just to much mass and not enough heat hitting the mold to keep it hot enough without going to 750 on the alloy. I lower the heat to 725ish and start to get bad fill out so I increase the heat back to 750 and about 4 or 5 pours later the fillout is good again. I must be doing something right as you can grab a boolit poured in Sept or Dec and they will be within 1gr of each other. And the best part is the boolits kill the pooo out of them paper targets which makes the wife happy.

Sounds like you're pouring pure lead. Get the stringy lead coming out of the bottom pourer? It happens

[geargnasher]

I'll bet your right, that 95% of ALL casters have no idea what there mold or spur temp is. But I can tell you when everything is right and boolits are fall like rain from the sky out of the mold. I pour between 700~725 according to thermo in the pot, I can't pour any cooler because the spout freezes up(summer/winter don't matter). Hard to pour boolits when you get no lead out of the pot, been like this since I bought the pot new.
Some molds RD 100gr 380 comes to mind, doesn't matter how much you preheat the mold. Run the pot at 750 and pour as fast I can and never over heat the mold and get GREAT boolits from the first pour till I'm done. There is just to much mass and not enough heat hitting the mold to keep it hot enough without going to 750 on the alloy. I lower the heat to 725ish and start to get bad fill out so I increase the heat back to 750 and about 4 or 5 pours later the fillout is good again. I must be doing something right as you can grab a boolit poured in Sept or Dec and they will be within 1gr of each other. And the best part is the boolits kill the pooo out of them paper targets which makes the wife happy.

Like I said, whatever makes you happy. If your alloy is lean on tin and antimony, the advisable 100 or so degrees above full liquidus point might be approaching 750. If it's linotype, a good pot temp for casting is around 575F. I can say one thing, though, two tenths of a grain over or under the median at 200 grains is enough for a cull if I want the best accuracy possible. Even the slightest variation in mould block or sprue plate temperature during a session can have a lot more effect than most realize, but it isn't realized by most because they just don't need that kind of precision accuracy. For a 25-yard revolver boolit that will be sent after cans, steel, or paper, I don't even bother to weigh and don't sort too carefully for visual defects, either.

Gear

[warf73]

If your alloy is lean on tin and antimony, the advisable 100 or so degrees above full liquidus point might be approaching 750

The alloy is pure WW, pre zinc erra. I didn't add tin or antimony to my big melt in 1999 3/4 ton of WW's. I've added tin directly to my pot now and then.

As for the 100* I pour boolits as cold of alloy as my pot will allow, unless its tinny boolits then I turn up the pot.

[lka]

I stopped watching temps close, if casting HG or rifle I put the lee to around 6, 4ish for pure with slugs and buck. May sound weird but I can see and feel if something needs to cool I get purdy bullets even with the hp moulds. I do test the hardness and water cool, although I can't get a difference in hardness when cooling. One thing that did make a huge difference in hardness, before cutting my finger off in July I casted a bunch of .224s, they sat in a bin for 6 months in the open air,, I retested this month and they were way harder. so I guess I'm one of these crazies that does not constantly watch the temperature