Forester
12-16-2006, 09:51 AM
I had a little bit of time (read no one was home) one afternon a couple days ago to try some of the suggestions I got here to fix poor bullet fill out and Had a very successfull afternoon. I cast I think about 2000 from a Lee 90310 and best of all once I got the thing good and hot it dropped perfect bullets all afternoon.
I cleaned the heck out of the mould with acetone and smoked it with a butane lighter to begin with. I ran the melt between 850-900 and casted as fast as I could work, adding the sprue back to the pot to keep the temp from getting too high. They are all frosted over but that didnt seem to make any difference to my first attempts which shot great on the range. My first imperfect bullets shot a 1.75" group at 15 yards so im expectiong these boolits(Im proud of them now) to do even better.
What a blast, I can't help but think about the fact that my reloads just went up in accuracy and the price dropped from $7.25/100 to about $2.80/100! My entire outlay for equipment will pay for itself in about 7-8 thousand bullets or about 6 months shooting for me.
One more question, do most of you clean and re-smoke a mould before the next casting session? Or can I use it as long as it stays away from oils and other contaminants and just re-smoke it now and then? Should I be doing anything in particular to an aluminum mould between uses to protect it? Not like its going to rust...
I cleaned the heck out of the mould with acetone and smoked it with a butane lighter to begin with. I ran the melt between 850-900 and casted as fast as I could work, adding the sprue back to the pot to keep the temp from getting too high. They are all frosted over but that didnt seem to make any difference to my first attempts which shot great on the range. My first imperfect bullets shot a 1.75" group at 15 yards so im expectiong these boolits(Im proud of them now) to do even better.
What a blast, I can't help but think about the fact that my reloads just went up in accuracy and the price dropped from $7.25/100 to about $2.80/100! My entire outlay for equipment will pay for itself in about 7-8 thousand bullets or about 6 months shooting for me.
One more question, do most of you clean and re-smoke a mould before the next casting session? Or can I use it as long as it stays away from oils and other contaminants and just re-smoke it now and then? Should I be doing anything in particular to an aluminum mould between uses to protect it? Not like its going to rust...