Noob here, first try casting

[c1skout]

Santa brought me a Lee production pot and 3 lee molds. I made my head spin reading about everything here then decided yesterday to just have a go at it. I had some kind of lead scrap that may have been flashing here, about 1 foot of 1/4" thick solder, a handfull of wheelweights, and about 400 357 cast bullets that I had bought at a gunshow that were so poorly cast I wouldn't load them. That all went into the pot and I fluxed with some tongue depressors to stir.

http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/ae207/c1skout/100_2176.jpg

http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/ae207/c1skout/100_2178.jpg

http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/ae207/c1skout/100_2179.jpg

Those are some of the nicer ones. I did have some trouble getting the driving band on the 125gn boolet to fill completely, and had some nose wrinkling on all of them.
I cast slightly over 400 pcs total and had 48 rejects that I put back in the melt pile. Mostly from the 125 mold. I did not leement. I smoked the molds and lubed with 2-stroke oil that I had in the shed. I tried to keep the pot around 700deg. but it would range from 650-750ish by itself. I had no trouble dropping bullets but sometimes had to tap the sprueplate to get the sprue to fall off on the 158 mold. All in all I'm happy! I'm gonna go load some up now.

[plainsman456]

They almost look to pretty to shoot don't they?
Sometimes molds take a casting session or two to get putting out good boolits.Keep it up.

[runfiverun]

a little more cleaning will usually cure the wrinkles from oil.
look for a little burr on the sprueplate.
those lee pots do cycle and the temp will change a bit i don't worry about it.
i watch the boolits as they come out, and try to keep a consistent galvanized grey satin look to them, meaning i have the mold in a consistant temp zone.
but for an initial effort those look really good.

[462]

Don't ever hit the sprue cutter! Instead, hit the handle hinge.

A well prepared/Leemented mould will not require smoking.

[c1skout]

Thanks for the "don't hit the sprueplate" admonition. I hadn't thought of how easily I could mess it up! I got to shoot a few of these off today in my GP100. 50 rounds downrange (25 each of the 125 and 158 grainers, the 125's at 38spl loading)and no leading to speak of. I'm gonna be good at casting before I'm a good long-range pistol shot, I'm afraid.

[462]

" I'm gonna be good at casting before I'm a good long-range pistol shot, I'm afraid."

I'll admit that the former is vastly easier than the later.