First casts

[Giggidy]

I finally got a chance to cast my first boolits today. It was a bit chilly out so I didn't do a lot...just wanted to get my feet wet. I was casting some 95 grain .365 from a Lee mold for my CZ82. Scrubbed the mold with alcohol and lubed the pins/sprue bolt. Boolits dropped with no problem without smoking and measure .366. Had a lot of wrinkly rejects, but I'm happy to have 20 or so suitable boolits to test out. Next on the to do list is making some lube and testing these bad boys out.

[on1wheel01]

Congrats man, I am also a new caster it is such a great feeling to cast them and even better once shot. Just practice and fill the mold quickly as thats likely why they wrinkled(from what I read). I have made around 2,000 and have about a 7-10% reject rate which is not terrible imo.

[DrCaveman]

Nice job. You should post pics if you can. I don't cast that boolit nor shoot that caliber but there are surely many people on here who do.

What's your setup? Hotplate and ladle pour? Furnace with bottom pour? Problems or questions about anything can be answered here. I have found that responses are very quickly generated by asking a solid question.

I am about to hit my 1 year anniversary of starting casting. I think I have poured about 7000 keeper boolits. Prob later remelted about 500 for various reasons, with maybe 1500 waiting to be loaded and/or shot. It's been dang fun.

Welcome

[runfiverun]

wrinkles are due to the mold being cold.
if you look [don't even have to look closley] the wrinkley ones are bright and shiney.
if you weigh them you can see a progression from shiney to grey colored filled out ones too.

[DrCaveman]

Yeah listen to pretty much everything runfiverun says. Many good good answers and has not led me wrong yet.

I asked about the setup because when I began, I used a hot plate and it simply NEVER got hot enough to frost the boolits (make them a dull, yet sparkly grey). Sure, after a bunch of pours my mould FINALLY got warm enough to cast some non-wrinkled boolits, and for sure I shot em, but I still think my mould was never quite hot 'enough'.

I am with run, in any case, in that your mould was not up to temp for the wrinkly boolits. Also worth mentioning that anytime I lube a mould (sprue hinge/plate and alignment pins), I get a few wrinkles on my first few drops, burning out the excess oil. It is getting better as I get my technique down, but still happens a bit. Bet it doesn't happen much to the veteran casters, maybe I'm wrong.

[Giggidy]

I was using a Lee Production IV pot. Problem was my impatience...not waiting for the mold to heat up enough (I've been waiting a couple of months to get everything I need to start casting and finally had a chance to get started so I wanted to really get started). The longer I casted the better fill out I got. I realized also that I got better casts if I held the mold closer to the spout (not touching it, but pretty close). I guess holding the mold farther away like I was gave the lead a chance to cool off in the cold air just enough to contribute.

I've got a 9mm mold also to break in, but I'm going to wait until I get my mak rounds loaded and tested. I like shooting the CZ82 more than my current 9mm but mak ammo around here hasn't always been readily available and was silly-expensive even before the panic rush set in (one local shop was charging $20 for Brown Bear...yikes).

Only thing that was annoying was my pot was a spout leaker from the beginning. The rate of dripping varied and I've seen some posts about the drip-o-matic. I need to do some searching and reading to find ways to correct or minimize the dripping.

[runfiverun]

you'll find some threads dealing with lapping the stem to the spout.
unless it's a 10 lber then you just gotta wiggle the stem around and live with it.

i keep my molds about 3/4" away from the spout.
i built a little box i set my molds on so i have a consistent height each time.
the flow is adjustable on the 20 lb lee too.
i run mine a little on the slow side, it keeps the flow consistent though.

notice i use the word consistent a lot...

[Cherokee]

Congaratulations on the first go. Practice will improve the results.

[docone31]

A trick that works for me,
Before you cut the sprue off, open the mold, then close it again. This just loosens them a little. A tap on the mold with my push stick and they drop out.

[mirage2521]

Edited......