boolit culling am I being to picky?

[smlekid]

was lubing some NOE454230's today and found a couple of boolits that I culled out what would you do use these or remelt? there was more than this this is just a couple I grabbed I would use the one on the left what about the others?

[williamwaco]

was lubing some NOE454230's today and found a couple of boolits that I culled out what would you do use these or remelt? there was more than this this is just a couple I grabbed I would use the one on the right what about the others?

I agree, those are all culls.

An other interesting thing is that no matter how carefully you inspect them after casting, you will always find more culls when sizing and lubing.

[94Doug]

so true.........

Doug

[BossHoss]

Yup, I keep a "MELT CUP" right by the sizer But, having said that, I have a friend who would shoot those culls in the pic. Not wanting to waste the energy to re-cast them..lol.

Sometimes I wont catch a cull until i have thrown it nose first into the die, and see it has a not fully filled out base...rounded off or so....I catch it on the way out and it goes into the "Flux Cup"...boolits with lube for fluxing the pot.

[williamwaco]

Yup, I keep a "MELT CUP" right by the sizer But, having said that, I have a friend who would shoot those culls in the pic. Not wanting to waste the energy to re-cast them..lol.

Sometimes I wont catch a cull until i have thrown it nose first into the die, and see it has a not fully filled out base...rounded off or so....I catch it on the way out and it goes into the "Flux Cup"...boolits with lube for fluxing the pot.


Good idea. I save the lubed bullets for fluxing but I never thought of lubing culls for fluxing. Lubed bullets do make great flux.




.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

If a bullet looks wrong then it probably is going to shoot wrong. When a defect appears on on side of a bullet then it more than likely is going to have a bad effect on the weight balance and as soon as the bullet leaves the barrel it is going to wobble and yaw and not go true. Put them back into the pot and redo them. How picky you are or how much you want to be will determine the finality of what you want to do with your bullets. For general practice, plinking, popping beverage cans at short yardages; that doesn't require a whole lot of fussiness. But if you are target shooting and/or are in competition then the name of the game is consistency. Its your call all the way as to what you want to do with your bullets, what your goals and expectancies are and how much time/effort you are willing to put into the prep. Casting defects are considered an enemy of good accuracy so if you can see them then you should not try to make them work. More than likely they won't. LLS

[GP100man]

They look like cold mold boolits ??

Remelts, & I clean the smelting pot ,then resmelt em . Boolit loobe takes to long to burn off in the pot !!!

[MtGun44]

Definite culls.

Bill

[koehn,jim]

I may be way to picky than. I do a visual and than weigh them before lubing, any more than 2 tenths difference back in the pot, unless load work up than no variance allowed. I just believe the finished product should be the best I can make.

[Cadillo]

If my boolits and loaded rounds don't look better than those store bought cast boolits, I don't want them to be seen by my fellow shooters. Kind of like not taking an ugly woman to a dance.

And yes, people do come up to me and ask to see my ammo as there are very very few casters here, and they hear that I do and are curious about what can be achieved at home.

[Bullwolf]

Sometimes being picky is a good thing.

I have a somewhat stubborn friend who would cast with a cold mold, and warm it up with use, rather than put a corner of it into the melt, or use a hotplate as a mold warmer. He had even been known to cast with a well oiled mold, until he managed to cook off the oil, (something I have never managed to accomplish, or had the patience to try) rather than simply cleaning the mold off with solvent, or a good de-greaser. He would invariably cast a lot of wrinkled boolits, the variance in weight and size must have been huge. It was a good thing he also used a lubrisizer.

You all probably know the type. The kind of person who uses a hammer, and not the handle part, as a sprue cutter and boolit unsticker.

While painful to watch, to each his own I guess. Some people just don't want to be helped.

What would bother me the most, is that he would save, and load every boolit he cast, no matter how malformed or wrinkled it might be. "It's not pretty, but it will shoot just fine." This was his mantra. He would say it to me while I would twitch, and suggest maybe throwing a few of the more obviously defective boolits back into the pot to be cast again. Sure, maybe I'm a bit of a perfectionist, but it's so easy to fix boolit mistakes, why not just do it in the first place?

He finally changed his ways, after a few of his boolits broke in half. In most cases right on the wrinkle lines, while lube/sizing, loading, and chambering them. He showed me one of his unintentional auto pistol full wad cutters where the front of the bullet had broken clean off after it had come into contact with the pistols feed ramp. (Where did the tip go?) He then told me, that maybe he should have recast some of the more wrinkled boolits after all. I guess the safety factor of the whole thing finally managed to dawn on him.

He has since learned his lesson, even if it was at the school of hard knocks. Luckily he wasn't hurt. Now he is a tad more picky about what he keeps, and what he throws back in the pot now.

I can understand just shooting up well formed but imperfect boolits just for plinking, if accuracy is not all that important to you. However, there is nothing wrong with culling a boolit that has an obvious defect.

When I cast boolits I do it for fun - not for speed. I find it enjoyable and relaxing, maybe even a little zen-like. I don't mind if it takes me a little longer during my casting session to get a nicer pile of bullets. I get a pleasant feeling of satisfaction when I am done, and I have a pile of nice shiny boolits on the table. The casting pot erases a lot of mistakes. I just melt them again, and cast em over. If only I could fix all the other mistakes in my life, in such a simple way.



- Bullwolf

[Lloyd Smale]

Id cull them but my buddy who knows has forgot more about casting and shooting then me would about want to kick me in the @@@ for doing it. Hes proven to me many times that for most pistol shooting it takes a pretty ugly bullet with at least some base damage to open a group up at 25 yards.

[rbertalotto]

It all depends on what the boolit is going to be used for.

I shoot Cowboy Action and this sport uses lots of boolits for practice and meets.

I load some pretty nasty looking boolits for practice. Targets are only a few feet away in the handgun stages and accuracy isn't as important as speed/time.

I also shoot the "Side Events"......Buffalo Shoots. This is an accuracy game and bullets are weighed, sorted, prayed over and blessed! If I take my time and the stars and moon align, there are few culls. I inspect them as I drop them and they go immediately back into the pot if not perfect.

[marvelshooter]

Unless they are really bad they go in a box to loaded into plinking rounds. I always keep some ammo loaded up to use when I bring someone to the range who either has never shot or rarely shoots. They are usually happy to be hitting the paper and there is no need to bring the good loads for that.

[Mavrick]

If I found them as I was casting, and still had the pot hot, I'd toss 'em, but if I were lube/sizing, prolly not. I do as much Action-shooting, and Steel Challenge as I can, and both call for a lot of ammo, but not so much accuracy, especially at my level, so I try to produce as much good boolits as I can.
If they're found early...back in the pot. If found before lubing...prolly not, especially if only base non-fillout. After lubing...small wrinkles on the nose and sides(?)... practise box. I try to use good boolits in competition.
At 12-15yds with 20 rounds from a .45, there's just not a lot of call for extreme accuracy.
Have fun,
Gene

[Casting Timmy]

I would have kept them since they are for pistol shooting. Next time keep 5-10 of those boolits and load them up seperately and see how it affects your pistol shooting. Load up two magazines one with good boolits and one with bad boolits and then unknowning load one magazine into the guy and shoot it. Then load the other magazine into teh gun and shoot those boolits.

Unfortunately I have found that I'm the biggest source of error when it comes to my pistol shooting.

[canyon-ghost]

And yes, people do come up to me and ask to see my ammo as there are very very few casters here, and they hear that I do and are curious about what can be achieved at home.


I've found myself to be one of the accidently elite too. When even the Highpowered Rifle guys want to know about casting, we're doing something right!

[canyon-ghost]

As for the culls, yes, if you weigh them on the scale, they'll have an erratic weight. They're usually way too light to match your powder charge!

[Shiloh]

I'm pickier with rifle boolits.

Those are culls as the base isn't complete.

Shiloh

[ku4hx]

And yes, people do come up to me and ask to see my ammo as there are very very few casters here, and they hear that I do and are curious about what can be achieved at home.

Been there; done that. I've been told on more than one occasion I should sell them my boolits so they can load them. My response is twofold: I can't sell them and if I could they couldn't afford them. Some want to buy loaded ammo from me. When I explain all my stuff is custom made and requires development for a specific gun they begin to get the idea that ain't cheap either.

Non casters seem to think the only expense is the alloy. Start adding in my time, fluxing material, electricity, propane, equipment and etc. and the price gets way above what the average plinker thinks is the "right" price. Labors of love are seldom cheap; ask an avid golfer..

Suggest they start casting their own and some seem to think only crazy people cast. I been crazy for over four decades and I love being in that can of specialty nuts.

[Grandpas50AE]

Same here ku4hx, glad to be in this can of nuts! Though many I meet at the range like the looks of CB's but won't attempt the effort, there have been a few that I have know that became good casters, and it is always rewarding to see those sharing the pleasure of making one's own.

To the OP, when I see visibly noticable wrinkles like those, they go back into the melting pot, at least for me anyway. Like several others here, I put them back into the melting pot if I catch them before lubing/sizing. If I catch them after the lubing, I have an old coffe can they go into for use as fluxing boolits on the next casting session.

[RayinNH]

Most here have covered it pretty well but I'll throw in my two cents. It all depends on the level of shooting and distance. For match shooting those are culls, for plinking those are keepers, not to say that all bad boolits are keepers though. If you're shooting beyond about twenty five yards pick good boolits to load.

If you're shooting tin cans or plates at less that twenty five yards it probably wouldn't faze you that the group was 1/4" larger on a ten inch plate.

Mike Venturino did an article a while back about this very subject of wrinkled boolits. He said for informal plinking at usual handgun ranges 25 yards and under it makes no difference if the boolits has wrinkles as long as the base was filled out properly. A raisin can shoot well with a good base.

I've seen people at the range that couldn't hit paper at 50 feet with a flawless bullet. Another time I met a woman at the range practicing her personal protection skills with a .38 Special. She was shooting a ten inch paper plate at 7 yards an keeping them all on the plate. They were all over the plate but that level of accuracy was all she needed for her intended purpose.

Rifle boolits are another matter...Ray

[mpmarty]

If I catch them before lubing they go to the remelt can. Otherwise they get lubed and shot.

[popper]

Powder and primer are as much$$ as bullets. Re-cast.

[smlekid]

this was the first session with this mould yes they probably came from a slightly colod mould once it was up to temp it cast really nice had about 550 keepers

[WILCO]

Those are culls as the base isn't complete.

Yep. I agree. The base of those boolits were bad. Wrinkles I can live with for plinking.

[bpratl]

If in dought, I recast.

[1Shirt]

I inspect twice! The first time when I pull them out of the water and seperate them (I usually cast two molds at a time), and the obvious quick and dirty rejects get tossed back in the remelt can. The second time is when I size and lube (and or check). This is a more critical review and rejects go in to the remelt can. AND---if they are rifle blts, and I am going for nats A$$ potential accuracy, they are weighed. Those on the extreme ends of the bell curve of weights go back in the remelt can. Those in the picture would have fallen back into the remelt can on the first review. Mold was probably not hot enough!
1Shirt!:coffee:

[rintinglen]

In my view, there is no such thing as too picky!! Good boolits take no more time to cast than bad, and even "free lead" (Nothing I have ever seen) costs time and gas. If it ain't right, toss it back in the pot for another go round.
It is cheaper in the long run and you won't have the boolit to blame for a bad shot.

[fredj338]

Depends on what you are using them for, but a wrinkled bullet is still likely to shoot well under 30ft. I cull by bases. If the base looks bad as it's going inot my Star, it gets tossed back in the pot.

[dale2242]

If they were mine I would recast them.
I inspect all my boolits under a large lighted magnifying glass mounted to my bench.
I want all my boolits to be visually perfect.
I do not weigh my hand gun boolits. My rifle boolits get weighed to a reasonable tolerance.
Large boolits are culled if they vary +/- .5 gr. Smaller are held to closer tolerances....dale

[cbrick]

My first bullet inspection is while casting. When I open the sprue plate I leave the blocks closed until I look at the bases. With the blocks closed there is no better time to see a rounded base, it shows up like a neon sign. It doesn't matter what the bullet is for, if there is any rounding on the base it goes into the sprue pile.

The bullets in the photo look to have poor bases, I would give them another chance to be a worthwhile bullet.

Rick

[ku4hx]

Having read all the posts, the thought comes to me that ours is one of the few passions where pretty much all mistakes are “do-overs”. I realize once the shot is made, getting that particular boolit back is not so easy a “do-over” but it can be done. That being said, why accept questionable boolits?

I’ve certainly cast my share of wrinkled boolits. But once the melt and the mold are up to proper casting temperature, my reject percentage drops to dang near zero. And getting to proper temp with an Aluminum mold is a matter of maybe ten minutes or less. And when my sessions typically last 2-2 ½ hours, ten minutes is nothing.

The whole idea to me is to create as accurate a boolit as I possible can and at least attempt constant improvement. To accept boolits that are “just good enough” for a given activity is sort of pointless to me and contrary to my status as a craftsman. My mom was a wonderful teacher. When I once told her my “C” in Biology was passing and I saw no reason to try harder I got the lecture of my life. How many of you accept grades from your kids that are “just good enough”?

We’ll all have a learning curve of one shape or another, but to teach someone just starting out that flaws are acceptable is repugnant to me. Teach them that flaws are things to learn from, flaws will happen, you have the opportunity to remake that boolit, no boolit is perfect and endless improvement is both a goal and a journey. If the new caster comes to think wrinkled boolits are acceptable, how strong is the impetus for improvement?

Certainly accurate boolits don’t have to “look good”, but when was the last time you heard anybody brag about their dented fender, rusty gun, cracked windshield or etc.? Not very often I’d guess. I’m proud of my craft and enjoy showing off both looks and performance. I’ve had people even question my honesty when I tell them my ammunition is hand loaded. Some are impressed; some still don’t believe. But I can promise you, if my loaded ammunition had badly tarnished cases and wrinkled and otherwise deformed boolits they believe in a heartbeat they were “homemade”.

[Centaur 1]

The more casting I do, the better I get at it. The better I get at casting, the higher my standards get when culling boolits. With my rifle boolits I try to be as perfect as I can. On the other hand, boolits for practicing with my Ruger LCP can look pretty bad and still work fine at ten feet. Assuming those are pistol boolits that will be shot at 7 yards or less, (with the exception of the one on the right) they'd all probably work fine. I draw the line with the base, if the defect touches the base or if the bottom edge isn't filled out properly, they go back in the pot.

[prs]

I am really farsighted, but even I would catch those as they dropped onto my terry towel from the mould. I try to cull-out any that are not perfect in my imperfect eyes. They go right back into the pot from which I am not using at the time to melt and be ready for when I switch pots. No need to waste time, powder, or lube on blems.

prs

[41mag]

Well, I have only been at this for a short time, but I am with most here and they would go back to the pot.

I got into casting to make hunting boolits for my revolvers. Coming from a long time handloading for accuracy background, I might be a tad hard headed about what I use as well. A lot of folks are happy with a 2" at 15yd group, but I like mine at that or smaller MUCH further out. You only get tight groups from tight procedures.

When I first started, I was simply trying to cast nice looking boolits to shoot hogs or deer with. Now after several months of really getting serious about it, I have began to weigh some of them and sort accordingly. Setting up the pot with a thermometer, and one for the mold as well, I have started to keep records of what temps produce the better results when doing a run. This makes it MUCH easier to reproduce the previous boolits from my molds and alloy. In doing this I have found that I not only get great boolits right from the get go, but also my weight variances have gone from around an 8 to 10 grain difference down to around 2-3grs, which is plenty acceptable for me.

To be honest, I HAVE shot some pretty nasty looking boolits simply to check the differences, and not found much difference out to 50yds. This said when they are going in the ammo box, they all are as close to the same as possible. For one who is simply looking to go out and blast away at a piece of paper, there are plenty of little imperfections which may never be noticed, but for my uses I don't want to have those thoughts in the back of my mind when looking down the sights at a long range shot, or one up through very tight cover. I have enough issues with holding the darned thing still in the first place.

[prs]

When I first started casting, I shot some pretty lousy look'n boolits, but I was learing on my own; no buddies who cast, no internet, and only Turner Kirkland's Dixie Gunworks cartalog for a text book. But now, it is a joy to have someone look at my product and for them to be impressed at how uniform and near perfect they look to their untrained eye at least.

prs

[mroliver77]

It is rare for me to produce boolits that bad! Boy that sounds snooty! Really though, I preheat my cleaned mould. I have clean well fluxed alloy. I am not afraid to use tin in my alloy! I use a mould guide/holder that insures the same distance from the spout. When set up well it is much easier to cast good boolits for longer periods. With a hotplate to preheat and maintain heat during breaks I can pick up after a break and cast perfedt boolits from the first pour. I do plan to set up a pid and hotplat thermometer to dial in more precisely.

I do live in the real world though and sometimes mess up on fully cycling the pour lever. Sometimes I shake and get a bad pour. Sometimes I just panic and screw up! ;) Usually I can tell if I am in casting form right away and just quit if it doesn't feel right.

Sometimes I find a "fish eye" or a slight wave on the ogive of an otherwise perfect boolit. I cull these for plinking or warm up rounds. I have compared blems against unweighed visually perfect boolits and as long as the base and driving bands are fine there is little difference @ 100 yards.

.22 boolits must be perfect to be worth shooting! beagle has some good writing on castpics on .22 cast!

[MikeS]

When I first started casting those would have been acceptable boolits. Now, those would go right back in the pot, if caught right away, or if caught later on, they melt all the same. Looking at those boolits also reminded me that I needed to cast some more of those (I have the same mould). I warm up the mould on a hot plate, and wait till the pot is up to temp (I use a PID, so it's easy to maintain proper temp), and start casting. I cast a total of 300 of them tonight, and only had one that had to go back in the pot, and that was only because it had a bit of crud on the ogive. After throwing it back in, I took out my spoon that I use for cleaning the pot, and scraped the bottom & sides really good to try and get out as much of the crud as possible before I went back to casting. I really enjoy casting with that mould, the boolits just jump right out of the cavities!