W.R.Buchanan
12-24-2011, 08:05 PM
Well today I finally got my new NOE 311299 2 cav to produce the perfect bullets I knew it was capible of with strait wheel weight material.
This mould has given me fits for the last 2 weeks thru the pre breakin heat cycling, and thru 5,,,, yes 5, casting sessions with 95% scrap.
The problem has been wrinkles and poor fill out.
The cure was to run the mould preheat to about 90% of what my Proctor Silex hot plate will do, and run the lead temp to 800 F.
I had moved up in temp in 25* increments to 775F and had a few perfect boolits.
At 800F I get 85-90% perfect boolits. When the mould has just come off the hot plate the boolits drop clean and super shiney and then turn heavily frosted while cooling. After about 5 fills the boolits are not frosting as much, and I am still getting perfect fill out and no minute wrinkles.
These boolits are super soft. But now that I have found the right temp I will start water dropping them tomarrow.
I know a little tin in the mix will help but since I don't have any it is mute.
Now as for measurements. When I was trying to get lower temps to work it was dropping boolits at .2998 on the nose and .311 in the driving bands, however they were not complete drops,,,
Increasing the temp to 800F made them smaller due to mould expansion, and these are coming out mostly .299 on the bore rider section except for one spot just next to the parting line which is .298, and the driving bands are .310/.309 in the same places as the front section. This may be due to the machining process or maybe mould warpage which unfortunately in this case was unaviodable, however both holes produce the same measurements in the same places so I am inclined to rule out warpage.
If this condition persists I will lap the cavities.
I have about 60 good ones right now and will make some with water cooling tomarrow, and then try backing the temps down.
All of this might just be atributable to mould break in too, as I have seen other moulds I own start making really nice boolits after lengthy breakin cycles.
One thing is for sure. This mould is making better quality boolits, that are closer to what I want size wise, than my Lyman 311299 ever did.
Merry Christmas!
Randy
This mould has given me fits for the last 2 weeks thru the pre breakin heat cycling, and thru 5,,,, yes 5, casting sessions with 95% scrap.
The problem has been wrinkles and poor fill out.
The cure was to run the mould preheat to about 90% of what my Proctor Silex hot plate will do, and run the lead temp to 800 F.
I had moved up in temp in 25* increments to 775F and had a few perfect boolits.
At 800F I get 85-90% perfect boolits. When the mould has just come off the hot plate the boolits drop clean and super shiney and then turn heavily frosted while cooling. After about 5 fills the boolits are not frosting as much, and I am still getting perfect fill out and no minute wrinkles.
These boolits are super soft. But now that I have found the right temp I will start water dropping them tomarrow.
I know a little tin in the mix will help but since I don't have any it is mute.
Now as for measurements. When I was trying to get lower temps to work it was dropping boolits at .2998 on the nose and .311 in the driving bands, however they were not complete drops,,,
Increasing the temp to 800F made them smaller due to mould expansion, and these are coming out mostly .299 on the bore rider section except for one spot just next to the parting line which is .298, and the driving bands are .310/.309 in the same places as the front section. This may be due to the machining process or maybe mould warpage which unfortunately in this case was unaviodable, however both holes produce the same measurements in the same places so I am inclined to rule out warpage.
If this condition persists I will lap the cavities.
I have about 60 good ones right now and will make some with water cooling tomarrow, and then try backing the temps down.
All of this might just be atributable to mould break in too, as I have seen other moulds I own start making really nice boolits after lengthy breakin cycles.
One thing is for sure. This mould is making better quality boolits, that are closer to what I want size wise, than my Lyman 311299 ever did.
Merry Christmas!
Randy