new member with a few questions

[whammo7]

howdy! my name is john, and I live in los angeles. ive read tons about castingt in the forum, thanks you guys! i have a ruger sr9c. I was casting .356 round nose with a Lee mold and tumble lubing with alox. Needless to say I got leading and very smoky firing. I slugged the barrrel with #9 lead fishing weights(got the trick here!) and the barrel is .355 I mic'ed the boolits and they were coming out at .360, .358, so theyre pretty large!

now that I have more experience, I ordered a correct tumble lube mould in .356 and only 2 cavities. I also ordered a Lee .356 sizer.

oh im using straight lead that I rightly or wrongly assume is ww and I quench.

so! I have 500 or so boolits that are unsized and have alox on them. can I now size them and pan wax them, or do I need to melt them all down because they were cast a month or so ago and the lead has hardened too much or something? i think I read that somwhere but maybe I was just dreaming.

if my mould fills out ok do I need to add expensive solder to the mix? (95 prcent tin 5% antimony) I get a few wrinkles now and then, the mould doesnt like to release(after smoking), and I get puddling under the sprue plate so the bottoms of the boolits have wings or i dunno what you call it. I pretty well destroyed my 6 cavity die learning how to cast, so i figure it could be caused by breaking off the bolt opposite the pivot that latches the sprue plate down.

anyway I think im headed in the right direction now , am I?

oh and im using a 110 lee 20# pot and I fill it around halfway with molten lead since Im running off a gennie and want to keep the lead hot.

thanks gentlemen!!

John

[rintinglen]

Hiya John, Welcome to the club!
I'd say you are well on the way. There is an excellent sticky floating around here someplace by MtnGun44 on developing a good 9MM Cast load. Read it and you'll save yourself 35 years of experimenting. You will probably get better results with a .357 or .358 boolit than a .356 in the 9MM, at least that is my experience. I think that you might also be better served filling your pot and then making a cover for it. Assuming that you are bottom pouring, I find I get better fillout with a full, or nearly so, pot. I made a lid for mine out of two thick pieces of aluminum siding and some spun fiber insulation from an old stove. Not pretty, but it helps keep the heat in the pot. I also think you'll find that the 2 cavity Lee is more user-friendly than the 6 cavities. Just remember, cast fast--as fast as the sprue will freeze--and don't be afraid to let the boolits get a little (or even a lot) frosty. Aluminum molds seem to run best when run hot and fast. Good thing they are so light.

[littlejack]

Whammo7:
Welcome to the CastBoolits.
I do not cast or shoot for the 9mm, but I think I can answer some of your questions.
Grenerally, if the fit is correct, that is the "boolit to the groove diameter", there should be no
leading. This is including lead boolits up to a certian point in pressure and velocity. After that
higher point in pressur and velocity, you have to have a harder alloy. With a soft alloy or
plain lead, at higher pressures and velocity, you will expierience stripping of the boolit. This will give you leading. Your 9mm is a high pressure round. You need to find out for sure what the alloy is. Pure lead will be too soft.
As for the alox, some folks have good results, some hve not. It may be something else causing your leading. The alox does smoke.
You can size, the boolits are not too hard.
If your fillout is good, you may not have to add anything to your alloy. I cast for years with straight ww's.
The finning on the base of the boolit is from the sprue plate not being down on the top of the mould the way it is supposed to be. Sounds like you figured that one out yourself. Is there any way you can remove and re-drill and tap for a new hold down bolt?
There will probably be some more folks along to give some more suggestions.
Jack

[mroliver77]

John,
Do a search on loading the 9mm as there is a ton of posts lately. A lot of folks find they are swaging the boolit down in the loading process using Lee factory crimp dies or "bulge buster" type dies. Alloy can be an issue. Sometimes too hard causes leading. Some seem to get away using alox but I see many switch and have much better results.
I should be fine resizing your boolits after a month or two.

Do the search. Read all you can on the finicky 9mm. Read the free online book " From ingot to target"
http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm

[303Guy]

Welcome aboard, whammo7. :drinks:

I hope you will enjoy our company. You'll find that the folks here are really knowledgeable and helpful (and full of fun too!):mrgreen: Lots of different opinions based on different experiences, all of which add up to a heap of collective knowledge. Good luck and keep us posted.

[MikeS]

howdy! my name is john, and I live in los angeles. ive read tons about castingt in the forum, thanks you guys! i have a ruger sr9c. I was casting .356 round nose with a Lee mold and tumble lubing with alox. Needless to say I got leading and very smoky firing. I slugged the barrrel with #9 lead fishing weights(got the trick here!) and the barrel is .355 I mic'ed the boolits and they were coming out at .360, .358, so theyre pretty large!

.358 isn't really too big. You didn't mention if your mould has standard lube grooves (if so, probably only one groove maybe two on a 9mm mould), or a tumble lube mould (lots of very small grooves, the mould box will have 'TL' in front of the number).


now that I have more experience, I ordered a correct tumble lube mould in .356 and only 2 cavities. I also ordered a Lee .356 sizer.

oh im using straight lead that I rightly or wrongly assume is ww and I quench.


Where / how did you get your lead? When dealing with a caliber that's more difficult to cast for such as the 9mm it's more important to know what hardness your lead is.


I have 500 or so boolits that are unsized and have alox on them. can I now size them and pan wax them, or do I need to melt them all down because they were cast a month or so ago and the lead has hardened too much or something? i think I read that somwhere but maybe I was just dreaming.

Again the type of mould used comes into play here. If the mould is a TL (tumble lube) mould, you would probably size off the grooves if you tried to size them down to .356 from .360! You might be better off remelting them, and recasting them in your new mould.


if my mould fills out ok do I need to add expensive solder to the mix? (95 prcent tin 5% antimony) I get a few wrinkles now and then, the mould doesnt like to release(after smoking), and I get puddling under the sprue plate so the bottoms of the boolits have wings or i dunno what you call it. I pretty well destroyed my 6 cavity die learning how to cast, so i figure it could be caused by breaking off the bolt opposite the pivot that latches the sprue plate down.

You might want to send your mould to Lee for them to repair, or replace if it's still under warrantee. Lee is pretty good about fixing stuff, even if it's due to your learning mistakes. Another thing, don't follow Lee's instructions. You don't need to smoke the mould cavities, and you shouldn't lube the mould with either bullet lube, or beeswax. Get some BullPlate mould lube, and put a very thin coating of it on the tops of the mould blocks, the bottom of the sprue plate, and the locating pins / grove. While using a 6 cavity mould takes some getting used to, their quality is much higher than Lee's 2 cavity moulds.


anyway I think im headed in the right direction now , am I?

oh and im using a 110 lee 20# pot and I fill it around halfway with molten lead since Im running off a gennie and want to keep the lead hot.

thanks gentlemen!!

John

You might want to fill the pot closer to full, as they seem to work better when fuller. How do you melt your lead before you pour it into your casting pot? If you're using a 2 burner camp stove, you might want to get a piece of metal to put on the other burner (either an old flat skillet, or even an old circular saw blade, or plate of aluminum, etc.) and preheat your mould over that burner. (I'm assuming you want to stay away from using electricity as much as possible?) many people, myself included use a single burner electric hot plate to preheat their moulds, so if you don't mind using electric, you should get one of these, as they're cheap, and work very well for preheating moulds. If you put your mould on the burner (either an electric one, or a coleman camp stove) at the same time you first start melting your lead, when the lead is up to casting temp, the mould will be ready for casting too.

As a final suggestion, if you have a gun in another caliber, perhaps a 38 Special, or 45 (either LC or ACP), or other low pressure caliber, you might want to start your boolit casting with one of them rather than the 9mm as they're easier to cast for. By starting your boolit casting with one of the calibers that's harder to cast for (the 9mm) you're asking for problems, but if you start with a low pressure round, and keep at it til you're good at that caliber, then when you go over to the 9mm if you have problems you'll know that it's not from being a rookie. Just my two cents.

[whammo7]

Thanks gentlemen!

The lid will be the next thing I do. I never would have thought ob that.

Actually Im a hotrodder and all too familiar with removing broken bolts. I'll give it a try to see if I can remove this one and rethrread it or cobble something up. I was tryin to tighten it to get rid of that puddling when I broke the dumb thing. I actually would have figured id have stripped the aluminum instead of breaking the bolt, but there you go.

good idea about .357 or .358 I probably should have bought those sizers while I was ordering but I was trying to be thrifty. sigh.

yeah going straight to the 6 cavity was a mistake. I broke the sprue handle the first five minutes because I let the puddles on top of the sprueplate harden thoroughly before moving! snap!

I think I can salvage it by just using the first 2 cavities.

I weighed my boolits, and they weigh 128 grains in a 120grain mould So is it OK to use the powder load for a 125 grain boolit? I tried it and it seemed ok, but I needed to replace the recoil spring. After 3 k rounds or so it doesnt want to go into battery. I bet 1000 of those were cast, thanks to you!

ive read some great stickies on loading for 9mm. Im keeping up the fight to make it work without leading. I was glad to hear its one of the trickier rounds, so hopefully if I try another caliber it"ll be much easier!

[MikeS]

As I said, there's no reason to 'salvage' it, send it back to Lee, they will fix it up to new! As for a cover, while it's a good idea, here's one I think is better. But I need to backup a bit first. When you flux the lead, what do you use? One of the best fluxes is wood based. You can use sawdust, or pine bedding material for small animals (from the pet shop), or even better yet, member Pat Marlin sells a wood based flux he calls CFF that is a mixture of a few different kinds of wood, and it's in chip like form, similar to the animal bedding. Once your lead is up to temp, put a bit of the wood based flux in the pot, wait a few seconds for any moisture still in the wood to go away, stir the flux thru the mix well, then let it sit on top of the lead. If you do it right you will have a layer of the charred wood flux between 1/4" - 1/2", and along with holding in the heat, it also forms a layer to keep the lead from oxidizing. Just making an aluminum cover won't be air tight, and won't protect the lead from oxidization, but a layer of wood flux will. Wood based fluxes also work much better than using wax based fluxes! Give it a try, you'll be happy you did.

[WHITETAIL]

whammo7, Welcome to the forum!
You will get lots of great advice here.
Ask away!:redneck:

[Bret4207]

Thanks gentlemen!

The lid will be the next thing I do. I never would have thought ob that.

Actually Im a hotrodder and all too familiar with removing broken bolts. I'll give it a try to see if I can remove this one and rethrread it or cobble something up. I was tryin to tighten it to get rid of that puddling when I broke the dumb thing. I actually would have figured id have stripped the aluminum instead of breaking the bolt, but there you go. The "puddling" you describe sounds like you have alloy on the bottom of the sprue plate or stuck to the tops of the blocks. Any foriegn material can lead to galling of the top surface which will lead to what you describe.

good idea about .357 or .358 I probably should have bought those sizers while I was ordering but I was trying to be thrifty. sigh.

yeah going straight to the 6 cavity was a mistake. I broke the sprue handle the first five minutes because I let the puddles on top of the sprueplate harden thoroughly before moving! snap! Good advice for any noob is to start off with a single or 2 cav.

I think I can salvage it by just using the first 2 cavities.

I weighed my boolits, and they weigh 128 grains in a 120grain mould So is it OK to use the powder load for a 125 grain boolit? I tried it and it seemed ok, but I needed to replace the recoil spring. After 3 k rounds or so it doesnt want to go into battery. I bet 1000 of those were cast, thanks to you! You want to start low and slow and work up. THe boolit being a bit heavier than designed says your alloy has more lead than Lee's. Using 120 gr data is okay, just don't start off at the top or even the middle range.

ive read some great stickies on loading for 9mm. Im keeping up the fight to make it work without leading. I was glad to hear its one of the trickier rounds, so hopefully if I try another caliber it"ll be much easier!

Welcome to the club sir. You sound like you are off to no worse a start than a gazillion other guys, darn sure doing better than I did. Keep plugging along and asking questions. Starting with the 9mm will either make you or break you.