How consistent are you REALY???

[MBTcustom]

Goodsteel

Consistency can be had with the bottom poor pot just as easily as with a ladle. It's simply a matter of correct set up and correct technique and you've found the correct technique for your bottom pour Lee pot by prepping the spout with a squirt of alloy before filling any mould cavity as I suggested you would. I'd also suggest filling each cavity as a separate step one after the other instead of "sweeping" the alloy across the sprue holes. Give each hole a good sprue before moving to the next hole.

No need to spend money you don't have on equipment when what you have will do the job just fine.

BTW; before the proponents of ladle pouring get a wedgie I've have ladles of various styles including Rowell's and ladle pour for certain bullets also. Both methods work equally well and one is not any better for consistency of the cast bullets you are casting than the other.

Merry Christmas

Larry Gibson

Actually, I tried doing each hole one at a time, and at least with this mold, I was getting variances. I actually did quite a few bell curves before I decided "this is cool, I think I'll take a few pictures and cause some trouble" LOL!
I'll try it again though.

I'll tell you one thing that I have learned from all this is that no matter how vocally people may insist to the contrary, technique matters!
At the end of the day, I realize it doesn't matter if you are weighing your boolits or not, but it does matter that you are casting consistently. I just think that a lot of people have been doing this for so long, they forgot what it's like to learn in the first place. However, a scale and a micrometer are the basic tools of the trade here, and no matter what you are doing, you have to pay attention to the basics.
Just like with shooting, sometimes a bad habit can be learned, at which point it becomes necessary to go back to the basics of form, and unlearn. Usually this only takes a matter of seconds, and doesn't require busting out the training wheels, but if at any point someone is too proud to test themselves against a standard, that person is no longer at the top of their game.

What I have done here has really gotten back to the basics, but I am learning a new form, and its no skin off my back to ride a tricycle for a day or two to make sure I've got my head screwed on straight.
Sometimes, you need to wax a few cars, and paint a few fences before you learn to throw a punch, and I understand that.
And why not? I enjoy every part of this, and I almost enjoy casting more than I enjoy shooting. I'm going to be burning powder and lead anyway, and I'm not trying to keep up with local competitors, so why not?

When I started casting 18 years ago, my dad gave me one hour of instruction and I had to figure the rest out on my own. I've never really gone back to square 1, torn everything down and built it back up systematically, and now is as good a time as any. I'll be better for it when I'm done, and this may not be the last time I do such a thing.
I want to understand, but there are many ways of understanding something.

[dverna]

Once some of the "passion" and cheap shots are sifted out this is a good thread. Of course, some the "passion" and cheap shots are part of the journey - so that is "good" too.

I see both sides of this. Nothing wrong with striving for perfection. Nothing wrong with determining if perfection is of any real consequence for the shooting you intend to do.

Let's face it, for the great unwashed, a variation of 2 grains in pistol bullets is immaterial. They will continue to have fun and get the results they are capable of in spite of either their equipment, ignorance, incompetence, or laziness. Good 'nuff is good enough. Sort out the funky looking ones and get on with life. Like the song says, "Don't worry...be happy".

Rifle shooters have varying degrees of "needs" (wants?). When I get home, I will weigh 100 match .224 and .308 bullets that shoot into 1/2 MOA or less. I will also weigh a few hundred hunting bullets that shoot into 1 MOA. I do not expect my cast bullets to be any better so; in my ignorance, and at my level of incompetence, I will be blissfully content if my cast bullets are as consistent as commercial hunting bullets. For the lever action rifles, my expectations are considerably less so I pray my journey will be less stressful and I will not need to add either a metronome or stop watch to the casting paraphernalia I have accumulated.

I may be off on this, but at least in my limited experience cadence seems to be pretty consistent. About the only time it gets interrupted is for fluxing and adding ingots. Otherwise, the mold sets the pace. Pour...wait for the dullness on the sprue to appear, invert mold and lay sprue plate on damp towel (if added cooling is needed for that mold), cut the sprue, open mold, let bullets fall out, close mold and repeat. I do not admire my work very much while casting. I cast as fast as possible and still be comfortable and not rushed. No TV, radio, pets and no one else around. No smokes, no drinks, no food. What am I missing??

Anyway, Pat got a lot of "piling on" and most undeserved. He basically said "So what???" and that triggered a reaction A valid question. Most of those piling on came from people whose ability and knowledge I greatly respect - so I was a bit disappointed. Maybe Pat has been a problem before, and his question was deemed "inappropriate", but it was NOT irrelevant.

It is the season for peace amongst men. Surely we can agree to disagree, and attempt to learn from each other in a mature, respectful and thoughtful way.

Don Verna

[cbrick]

Seems some still don't get it. Tim's experimentation was for the purpose of educating Tim. He then shared what he had learned. He did it to test and see if he could improve his technique and it seems he was successful cause he learned something. Now in all probability he will shoot those experiments and the education of Tim continues.

How do I know all this? Because I did exactly the same thing 30 years ago and for the same reasons as Tim. I hope he continues to post his experiments, many can learn right along with Tim.

Rick

[popper]

IMHO, my approach to collecting & dumping sprue gives me a time to rest so my casting is more consistent. Even the alum. 4x for 100 pours tires me. While we are speaking consistency, what about voids. Heard about them, never seen one and not real sure how they can happen. Doubt weighing would find one and it it were there, doubt it would make a difference. How big a bubble can you trap in 500-600F lead? Sure, the outside cools before the inside, you can get wrinkles from too cool a mould. Thought & ideas?

[MBTcustom]

Dang, I wish I had saved a few of the ones I got when I first started with this! I had a few boolits that were about a grain lighter than the average, and I could actually see the bubble cresting in the base of the boolit. Every now and then, I run across one that is just really light, and it looks perfect on the outside. Don't quite know how that happens, but there is definitely something missing on the inside of the boolit, because the outside looks and measures perfect.
My theory is that when running a mold too cool, the boolit freezes so fast, that air bubbles can get trapped inside.

[geargnasher]

Yep, I told him on the phone to get #1 & #2 Rowell and why. He said that he had been talking with you on the phone and you had told him the same thing. So what did he do?

Rick

I just mentioned the #2 on the phone, and some tricks to get better results from the bottom-pour. Then I mentioned the #2 again on post #84. The resistance is strong with this one! Heeeheeee!

Kids these days. Buy 'em books, send 'em to school, whaddaya get?

Gear

[geargnasher]

BTW, using a ladle isn't just pure magic. There's technique to it, too, and a whole new skill set is needed to work out the details of getting consistent boolits.

I tore down my casting techniques and started over when I decided to start "getting more" from my rifles. One of the principle reasons for the re-evaluation was my apparent "need" to start water-quenching rifle boolits. You can weight sort, even size-sort, but are you going to HARDNESS sort? I'm not, though I might test a few random samples. If you want to find out how consistent you are in EVERYTHING, start water-dropping. That will teach you right quick to cull three or four pours at least any time ANY little tiny break the action occurs, even five seconds can make a huge difference in BHN. If a boolit doesn't shuck into the bucket with the others, knock it out over the cull pile. NOTHING goes in the bucket except good pours, all at exactly the same timing. Like a jet airliner, only keep the boolits cast at cruising altitude. Takeoff, climbing, circling a holding pattern before landing, etc. are times to drop boolits over the cull bucket.

Do this with your air-quenched boolits too, and you'll see a great improvement in consistency. Just because they "look good" means squat.

Gear

[Pat I.]

To get a bigger bang for your buck take the money you were going to spend on ladles and put it towards some decent windflags

[MBTcustom]

To get a bigger bang for your buck take the money you were going to spend on ladles and put it towards some decent windflags

It's not necessary.
We don't have as much wind down here as you do up there.

[Pat I.]

Believe me a 5 mph switchy wind will make a lot more difference than a few of tenths of a grain.

[MBTcustom]

Do I mount it on the pot, or on the ladle?

[TheCelt]

Merry Christmas to all, thanks for the info Goodsteel!

[Pat I.]

I think in this case on top of your keyboard would be best.

[MBTcustom]

LOL! Just kidding Pat.
Seriously though, we'll talk wind flags and trigger control in a month or two when I'm actually shooting these. Right now, I'm just focused on casting technique.

[cbrick]

Christmas Eve, geez where did the year go? I'm almost ready for Labor Day.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Rick

[MBTcustom]

I decided to give it another go tonight and see if I can glean any more info. I fired up the pot and intentionally did things different than I did the other day.
I ran it at 650F
I experimented with the direction of the stream as it goes into the mold.
I spiked the mold cavities with sprue plate lube (totally intentional I assure you! LOL!)
and I let the mold run cooler sometimes and hotter other times.
Here is the curve I got:
Attachment 91537
Interesting results. It seems that it's much more likely that the boolits will go light than heavy if there is a problem, but there was no discernible difference between the wrinkly ones and the good ones. They were evenly distributed amongst the long string, and the sub par strings. This seems to give credence to the comments made that visually sorting is a more accurate test than sorting by weight.........except theres this one boolit that is way out of the curve:
Attachment 91538
It seemed to be well filled out, and looked fairly good from the outside. Certainly as good or better than many that were in the longest string down the middle.
I decided to investigate, so I looked it over carefully and found the spot on the outside that looked jankiest, and filed away some material. This is what I found just under the surface:
Attachment 91539
Attachment 91540
A hidden pocket.
Turns out there were several like this inside this boolit. In fact, I filed away a few tiny pinholes when I was exposing this little void.
I wonder how it would have shot? If the voids were consistent and equally dispersed through the boolit, I could see it shooting in a similar way I suppose, but then again, with all this weirdness just below the surface, I wonder if it would be able to obturate the bore as effectively as one that wasn't a lead sponge. I suspect not.

[btroj]

Ok Tim let me ask you this.

Have you tried sorting the "good" ones visually and then weighing them to see how "accurate" that method is?

I have never weight sorted bullets but I do give them a good look over. When I want top accuracy I get pretty picky about flaws. I just wonder how valid that method is.

[cbrick]

And I'm curious about the alloy and 650 degrees. What is the alloy?

Rick

[MBTcustom]

The alloy is 50/50 COWW and pure.
My experiance has been that visual inspection culls some, and weight culls some. If the left one don't getcha then the right one will.

[btroj]

Vision sure is faster......