Contamanation?

[GARCIA]

Need some help on what is going on with my melt.

Casting with two differant molds but getting what appears to be like pitting on the boolits when dropped from the mold. You can see it in the attached photo.

My mold too hot/cold, Pb not hot enough/too hot, moon not in alignment or what?

Maybe I am expecting too much. The molds have been cleaned with Dawn and before casting they were warmed up and sprayed with brake cleaner to remove the last of the conaminants.

Any advice?

Tom

[BulletFactory]

I'm having similar issues.

[Doc Highwall]

Try cleaning them some more. The mould might have a small amount of porosity and take several cleanings to get it clean. The heat of the alloy being poured into the mould being higher then the boiling point of the oil that was on the mould causes it to leach out. There is no such thing as a mould being too clean. You will not be the first one who has had to clean the mould several times to get it to work right.

[BulletFactory]

This happened to me even with brand new molds cleaned with laquer thinner, then rubbing alcohol

[white eagle]

looks like they are beginning to frost
may turn down the pot a bit

[mold maker]

That's what I thought also,White Eagle.

[BulletFactory]

Temperature doesn't affect mine, what temp are you running OP?

[stubshaft]

I concur with the frosting theory.

[GARCIA]

Well the consensus seems to be split pretty even on this one.

Going to go both routes. Turn the heat down and clean the ever loving heck out of the molds!!

My thanks to all!!!

Tom

[Bulltipper]

You could run the heat up to around 800 with the HP's, that is where I run my brass molds, then if that works, great. If you still have the issues, turn off the pot and keep casting while keeping an eye on the thermometer. when you get a result you like, note the temp and you will have a ballpark temp to start working with. Some of my molds run beautiful right out of the box, others take some time to "break in" and it seems like they break in quicker at the higher temp.

[lwknight]

You are likely dropping the stream too far and allowing the antimony to oxidize.
Especially if you are running high temperatures.

[runfiverun]

good post bulltipper.

i'll go with the use em a bit to break them in, clean them each time and turn the heat up a bit more.
about 4 more uses/cycles should get you there.
once things go grey you have a constant to work with. a bit more heat will get you there.
looks like you have a small burr on one of your mold cav's at the parting line.

[onondaga]

Stop using brake cleaner, it has petroleum distillates. Just detergent clean is sufficient.

[white eagle]

for cleaning I use rubbing alcohol
dries quick... and clean......well let me tell you

[dragonrider]

As Onandaga said, the brake cleaner is the culprit, clean again with Dawn, warm it up to dry it, get your lead temp up to 750-800 and preheat your mold and try again. Never put anything in your mold cavities, not smoke, not mold release, not kroil, nothing. The only thing a well prepped mold needs in the cavities is lead.

[songdog53]

Me and black spray mold release had bad experince and learned best to have clean dies and pour lead into them. I use dawn to wash oil off dies that have been stored and let them dry good and then preheat while lead getting to right temp and works good.

[MGySgt]

they may not be perfect - but if you are not in business to sell boolits - load them and shoot um.

Keep using the molds and play with your temp a little. If there is oil in there it will come out.

There have been many tests run on 'less than perfect' bullets with no differences in group size.

[seppos]

Are they ment for shooting or eyecandy.. Load them up and punch some paper..;)

S

[GARCIA]

Are they ment for shooting or eyecandy.. Load them up and punch some paper..;)

S


Gotta love that attitude!

Cleaned the mold twice with Dawn and even put in some Purple Power to help it out. Poured boiling water over the molds to see if I could get more oils etc out of the mold and then did a final wipe down/cleaning with lacquer thinner.

Fired up the pot and tried differant heats but still am getting some of the weird pitting or whatever it is. It's occuring with both an MP mold and an Accurate mold.

Well were going to continue to clean the darn things and work on getting it corrected.

Going to load some up and kill paper with them!!!

Tom

[M4bushy]

Gotta love that attitude!

Cleaned the mold twice with Dawn and even put in some Purple Power to help it out. Poured boiling water over the molds to see if I could get more oils etc out of the mold and then did a final wipe down/cleaning with lacquer thinner.

Fired up the pot and tried differant heats but still am getting some of the weird pitting or whatever it is. It's occuring with both an MP mold and an Accurate mold.

Well were going to continue to clean the darn things and work on getting it corrected.

Going to load some up and kill paper with them!!!

Tom

Why would you take a nice clean mold and ad lacquer thinner to it? say no to petroleum distillates.......

[Huntducks]

they may not be perfect - but if you are not in business to sell boolits - load them and shoot um.

Keep using the molds and play with your temp a little. If there is oil in there it will come out.

There have been many tests run on 'less than perfect' bullets with no differences in group size.

I'm with you:drinks: they will look alot worst when they leave the barrel and hit something....

There just home brew lead boolits.

[onondaga]

GARCIA:

The soap gets the metal nice and clean and then you put lacquer thinner into the clean open pores of the metal. I have no constructive criticism. It is about time for you to write something 50 times on the blackboard.

Gary

[MGySgt]

Acetone is what I soak mine in. It will get the oil out of the pours!

[bigjake]

Those boolits look good to me! Like MGy said; "load em and shoot em!!"

[Fishman]

GARCIA:

The soap gets the metal nice and clean and then you put lacquer thinner into the clean open pores of the metal. I have no constructive criticism. It is about time for you to write something 50 times on the blackboard.

Gary

Bwahahaha! Tough love there.

Garcia, I've been there. Listen to these guys they know what they are talking about.

[Doby45]

Does not looked pitted at ALL to me. Looks like the base end is starting to get frosty as was mentioned earlier. Even if that is the case, who cares? As soon as you size those boolits the frosty part will be nice and shiney. :)

[Bob Krack]

In my experience.... I see dirt (carbon or other) from the pot. Usually more common in the bottom pour (drippers which are MY choice of pots). Long pour streams sometimes seem to cause or encourage it also.

Empty and clean your pot thoroughly. Someone here recommended running the pot empty then adding water (I assume distilled might be best) while the pot was still HOT.

Caution is advised, but it DID work for me.

Bob

[Taylor]

The same thing showed up on my 457193's,after I started using break cleaner.

[gray wolf]

I cured this problem, it drove me up a wall.
I had to lower my heat a little, also i had to NOT pour into the center of the sprue hole.
Let the metal swirl into the mold. My problem was not dirt, it was a venting problem.
I could get that same condition any time I had the heat to high and if I tried to go directly into the sprue hole. I had to let it go in from the side to help with the gasses in the mold.
Just clean the mold with boiling water and a little Dawn dish soap, use a tooth brush.
I don't think that is dirt in your melt.

[GARCIA]

Writing on the chock board 50 times? Damn and I thought the nighmares were over!!!!!

Ended up recleaning the heck out of both molds. Tried the pots at differant settings to see what would work best. Fluxed, fluxed and refluxed. Got some dross at high temp (Lee pot with the setting on 8). Looked brown and like dirt too me. Fluxed, fluxed and then fluxed some more. Finally got it to quit. Still not happy with the boolits so I quit for the day.

Started in the morning with a lower temp and the molds heated. Whatever was in the pot that got fluxed out did not rear its ugly head and the boolits looked good.

I am now a happy camper!!!

Tom

[lwknight]

All that fluxing does not affect what pours out the bottom of the pot.
After reading to catch up , I still think the distance from the spout to the mold is probably long.
I try to keep it well under 1/2" max.

If you just can't get your alloy to behave , just start with new alloy.