Wrinkly bullets in my Lee 6 cav.

[21Glock]

Just got my new 6 gang Lee .45ACP 230 gr. roundnose tumble lube mold in from Midway.
I used mineral spirits to clean it out a few days ago and Kano Oil to treat the cavities at time of casting.
I used previously cast and lubed Trucated cone bullets(I have been using these slugs and have had some jams in my Glock 21 with a Lone Wolf aftermarket barrel) as my casting alloy and that may have been the problem.
I got wrinkly cast slugs that are barely usable. I probably shouldn't have used previously cast and lubed slugs and should have just used new wheel weights as my casting alloy. WWs is what I have been using with all these slugs as my casting alloy.
I'll try using a match to smoke the cavities next time, like the instructions says.

Anything else that I may have missed that may have contributed to the wrinkly bullets in my first cast with this new mold?

Thanks!

[swamp]

Reclean it with hot water and dishsoap. It will take a little time to get up to temp. Preheating will help.

swamp

[JSnover]

Unless you dug them out of the berm, previously cast boolits are some of the cleanest lead you will find, assuming the previous caster knew what he was doing. The process of going from [scrap/WW/roof lead/range gold/etc] to ingots and then into boolits removes impurities at each step. Dropping them into the pot with loob in the grooves is just a handy way of fluxing. If the only defect is wrinkles, you probably have temperature issues.

[MT Gianni]

How hot was the hot plate that you preheated on?

[Ilwil]

There are wrinkles, and there are wrinkles. It the base has filled out sharply, and the grooves are intact, I have learned to not worry too much about cosmetic wrinkles on the nose. (Mind you, I use this standard on pistol bullets) The wrinkles do go away about 75-100 bullets in the session. I have found Lee moulds do well at about 750 degrees; it's interesting that NOE recommends a maximum temperature of 600 fo it's moulds.

[rmcc]

I have a couple of Lee 6 cavity molds, they have to be HOT. Otherwise you get wrinkles until it heats up.

Rich

[JSnover]

21Glock, don't fret over the smoke thing. That's all about getting the mold to release but it's really not necessary and it won't cure wrinkles. Mold and pot temperature are the first two things you want to look at and the easiest to fix

[21Glock]

Thanks for the input. It was probably just the new mold needing breaking in and needing to be hotter to fill out the cavities better.
The lube grooves are not as defined as I would like on most of the slugs, but I'll load them and shoot them soon and see how they do. I'm using Lee Liquid Alox as my bullet lube as well.

[462]

1. Use a hot plate to pre-heat the mould.
2. Generally, Lee moulds require two or three casting sessions before all the machining fluids are burned off.
3. There is no need to smoke a mould.
4. Read the Leementing stickies and ignore Lee's instructions.

[Huck Berry]

I have had good luck with the 6cav Lee molds by first washing all chemicals off with hot water and dish washing soap. then dry, I do lightly smoke them by using my butane torch to start a clean paint stirring stick on fire, then hold it under the two halfs of the mold to smoke em. As said get your lead up to 750 and I put the corner of the mold into the lead to heat it up. Cast five molds of bullets dumping them back into the pot and this will evenly heat the mould good so from then on you should be getting perfect shaped bullets.

[badbob454]

i pour and drop the first 3 molds full just as soon as the sprue hardens , then dump it to re melt the 4th i will water drop or towel drop by then the mold will be hot enough / turn up the heat until the wrinkles go away then slowly turn it down to maintain a nice casting temp ., i like to cast 2 different molds at the same time so the molds dont get too hot ,, happy casting ...bob

[1Shirt]

For what ever it is worth: I have never cleaned a new lee mold! I have just dipped it in the melt for about half a min and started casting. In my experiance, if the mold is hot enough, it will cast a near perfact bullet from the get go. If it wrinkles, it is not hot enough. I have ove 20 lee molds, bought over a period of probably 15 years, and since this works for me, do not intend to fix the process.
1Shirt!:coffee:

[sqlbullet]

Heat. Those 6 cavity molds are hard to get up to temp, and hard to keep at temp if you don't move. There is not time for inspecting bullets with one unless you want them all to be rejects.

[Huck Berry]

My friend Dick is the designer and seller of the Lee mold called the Big Lube bullet mold that is designed to hold lotsa SPG lube to be shot using Black Powder. They are Lee made alloy molds basicly like any Lee mold. Dick recomends to wash and dry a new mold and smoke it. I have to many Lee molds to list here but I always have had great bullets cast this way. I do spry WD40 on the sprue plate and wipe the excess off when storing so it wont rust. I also touch a candle to the sprue plate bolt/hinge while casting to give it some lube while casting.
One Lee mold I am still looking for is a 32cal wad cutter called TL 314-85-wc it has been out of production.

[leadman]

Clean your mold again. Do not put any type of oil in the cavities. Dip the mold in the molten alloy until you start to see it smoke, then remove it from the alloy and let it cool a bit then fill the cavities with alloy. When the sprue alloy changes color cut it. Proceed to casting.

If you have trouble cutting the sprues insert the flat tip screwdriver in the area of the cam as shown in the instructions.

[Sonnypie]

+1 with 1shirt.
(Except I only have 3 Lee molds :oops: )
But hey, They are all I need. And a Lyman for 170g rifle boolits... :wink:

[Springfield]

Sometimes I clean the new moulds, sometimes I don't. Doesn't seem to make much differnce, just get it up to temp and all the oils will burn off. Why smoke a mould, let the oils do it for you. And Huck, all of DD's moulds have aluminum sprue plates, so you can forget about them rusting. Bullshop Sprue lube makes a better rust preventative anyway, and you don't have to clean it off next time you cast. Pot temp does have some variables depending on which pot you have. The smaller and less amps it has it will need the hotter temps if you are adding lead to it as you cast. With my LEE and RCBS 20lb'ers I needed to run 700, but with the larger and more amped Magma I can get by just fine with 625-650. It's mould temp you need to worry about, not lead temp.

[21Glock]

Clean your mold again. Do not put any type of oil in the cavities. Dip the mold in the molten alloy until you start to see it smoke, then remove it from the alloy and let it cool a bit then fill the cavities with alloy. When the sprue alloy changes color cut it. Proceed to casting.

If you have trouble cutting the sprues insert the flat tip screwdriver in the area of the cam as shown in the instructions.


Should I just use hot water and dish washing liquid this time or should I go back to the mineral spirits routine again.

THANKS! Leadman

You guys are a big help! I know I'm not the only one here that enjoys a good casting session almost as good as a good shooting session!

[NoZombies]

Hot water and dish soap have worked well for me. But the key thing is PRE HEAT that mold! I use a hot plate with 2 burners. The second burner is handy for getting multiple molds to temp for a long casting session.

Dipping in the lead works, and it's the way the old timers did it, but I tend to multi-task. I turn the pot on, turn the hot-plate on, and go do something else for 15-20 minutes. when I come back, both the lead and the mold are ready to go.

The hot plate I have has open coils, so I use a copper plate on top of the burners to help transfer heat more evenly. Some guys have made neat pre-heating "ovens" which are essentially a metal box that you set on the burner to help make the whole mold uniform in heat. it's been on my to-do list, but I just haven't gotten to it, since the copper plates work fine for me.

[Huck Berry]

Huck, all of DD's moulds have aluminum sprue plates, so you can forget about them rusting.

This is true but most single and double cavity Lee molds are steel sprue plates.
Tho I havn't had any trouble with rust on my steel molds anyways as I do as many do and keep them in tupperware type plastic bins and a moisture packet.
YMMV

[jtaylor1960]

I was casting just yesterday with a Ranch Dog 6 cavity and even with some preheating I was getting wrinkled bullets for quite a while.I turned up the heat and kept pouring and then all of the sudden I was getting perfect bullets.In my experience more heat almost always fixes problems with wrinkles and fillout.Also as stated be in some of the previous posts it does take longer to get a larger mold up to temperature.

[Bret4207]

Just got my new 6 gang Lee .45ACP 230 gr. roundnose tumble lube mold in from Midway.
I used mineral spirits to clean it out a few days ago and Kano Oil to treat the cavities at time of casting.

I'll try using a match to smoke the cavities next time, like the instructions says.

Anything else that I may have missed that may have contributed to the wrinkly bullets in my first cast with this new mold?

Thanks!

So you cleaned the mould of oils so it wouldn't give you wrinkled boolits and then put more oil in it and are surprised you got wrinkles? Do yourself a favor- get the mould really clean and don't put anything else in there- no oil, no smoke, no "snake oil" or sweat from a vigins brow. Get the mould clean and HOT. It may take 2-4 heating cooling cycles to get the mould casting right. It'll come. Cast as fast as you can till the boolits start frosting then slow down. Don't sit there looking at the boolits you just dropped, the mould is cooling off while you do that.

Do some reading here, this has all been covered a zillion times.