Ladle Question

[HeavyMetal]

Recently found an Ohaus 22-050-F mold at a local gun show.

Cleaned up the little single cavity mold, made sure it closed completely ( had to grind the Lyman small handles just a bit on one side so it would close with no light showing through), lubed it with a touch of antisieze and went to casting.

First batch not so good, looked OK until I turned a Magnifiying glass on the finished product and found all suffered from a driving band that was not filled out right.

This would be the base driving band, just above the gas check shank, on the same side of the mold each time.

Knowing that I had cleaned and degreased it properly I cleaned the vent lines after it cooled and made sure the sprue plate was adjusted right.

Next go around I was able to get 55% keepers as long as I kept the mold hot. Not wanting to make a lot of re meltable scrap I figure I should ask a question and or ask for some ideas to cure the issue.

My first thought was I wasn't hot enough but I am running an alloy with a good portion of Foundry type in it so it shouldn't need a ton of heat to flow.

So My next thought is maybe the hole in the ladle and or the sprue plate is to big for this little 22 cal 50 grain boolit?


Sprue plate hole is .124 in diameter, the ladle is outside, and I haven't measured it, but it looks to be about the same diameter.

I'm thinking that this is just allowing to much flow? into the cavity??

I have a Lyman Ladle as a back up, my good ladle is an RCBS, and the handle on it "rotates" when I try to use it. Since I will need to pin this someday I'm thinking I shoud weld it up and cut a smaller hole in it to cut down the velocity of the alloy as it enters the mold.

I have never cast boolits smaller than 30 cal before so I am breaking new ground here and looking for a solution.

[mooman76]

Could try poring a little slower first to see if that helps. Some mould are just plain difficult, I'm sure you know that. You could also try loosening the sprue plat abit, it helps with ventalation. Small caliber moulds can be a little more difficult than others but really it's just finding what they like. The projectile is smaller so there isn't as much hot lead to heat and keep hot the mould. I got a single cavity 7mm mould from somone here. Its a really old ideal and they block is smaller than normal. I had to run my lee pot wide open to keep getting good boolits and it's the only mould I have to do that with. Some of us that been doin boolits a long time are so used to it we sometimes forget some of the cures for difficult moulds.

[trevj]

Do you have a bud with a bottom pour pot you can borrow to try?

I can't think of anything as slow as trying to keep up with a 22 cal mold, with a dipper.

I'll admit to a limited experience, but I have cast a couple thousand 22 cal boolits in single cavity molds (225107, 225415), using a Saeco bottom pour pot. I used a heavy glove on each hand, bumping the lever up to fill the mold as well as leaving a dime sized or so button on top of the sprue plate to keep the mold warm with. I used the gloved right hand to pop the sprue plate and catch the button from it, which was returned directly to the pot. As the sprue button was considerably more material than the boolit itself, this cut way down on the amount of refilling the pot required.

Consider a hot plate or other heat source for the mold, maybe. The cheap trial would be to get the mold good and hot by resting it upon the edge of the pot, or right on the melted lead itself. It'd be a quick way to see if the need was for more heat than you were keeping in the mold .

How fast are you able to pour? I was able, once I got my rhythm, to go between 5 and 6 pours a minute, IIRC. Most of that time seemed to be watching the sprue button cooling, as it seemed that if the button was small enough to cool rapidly, the mold would cool too much and it would take a couple shots to get back up to making good casts again.

I'd suggest heat as the first place to look.

Are you pouring the lead into the mold with your ladle, or are you keeping the mold in contact with it, and tilting the whole assembly (pressure pouring) to fill it?

You can take all my suggestions with a grain of salt anyways, as pretty much all my casting has been with these two small molds and a bottom pour pot. I figure I cast and remelted about 500 pours worth, before I was really happy with what I was making. Even then I found that I had to sort them carefully and cull out a few back into the pot.

Good luck!

Cheers
Trev

[HeavyMetal]

I have varied both pour speed and how full I had the ladle which is how I figured out that I may be trying to force to much into that little cavity.

I have two bottom pours and my dipping pot use the dipping pot for single cavity molds and HP stuff as quality is more important to me than quantity.

Mold is hot enough that the cavity has turned blue as such boolits drop right out with just a touch of my gloved thumb!

I may go to the bottom pour Lyman and set it for a very light stream and see if that works I actually hadn't thought of that and it will duplicate a smaller hole in the ladle.

If that works I will decide if I want to weld or use the Bottom pour in the future.

[montana_charlie]

Since the flaw is always in the same spot, it wouldn't hurt to clean the mould again ... paying particular attention to that spot. A tiny speck of baked on 'crud' can be easily missed with the eye, but cause just the problem you describe.

CM