Mold quality and casting ease/performance questions.

[Chuck26287]

I'm a new caster. I am starting to shoot Bullseye competition outside my club's fun league. Started getting a high percentage of rejects in my orders of 200 gr H&G 68 for .45 ACP. So, my father and I (we shoot together) took the plunge on casting equipment and we're getting ourselves educated. We've only spent a few nights actually casting, and we're using LEE aluminum 6-cav molds. I was originally expecting to buy Ballisti-Cast 4 or 6 cav molds, but he ordered the LEE's before we talked about it, so we're getting started on them.

I am wondering if the Ballisti-Cast molds are better. I don't like the LEE molds. They seem to require the lead to be around 950 F to cast sharp edges. The lead is right at the edge of frosting. I have tried cleaning, smoking and pre-heating the molds, as well as simply casting for awhile with the lead from 720-760 F, and I cannot get bullets worth keeping. I am using wheel weights with tin added to both 2% and 4%.

I am casting to make outstanding competition bullets. Practice bullets I can live with a little wider acceptance tollerances, but the whole purpose of spending the time to do this myself is to achieve near perfection for hand-made match ammo. Being somewhat of a perfectionist, I have always believed you generally get what you pay for, and that usually eliminates LEE from my consideration in most (but not all) equipment choices. I would like to hear from casters who have cast from both manufacturer's molds, what the differences are, and whether you think it would be money well spent ordering a Ballisti-Cast mold when I already have a LEE, as well as why.

Thanks for the help.

[MtGun44]

Ballisticast molds are Mercedes. Lee are Ford Pinto. Money well spent and
you will get a REAL H&G 68 design from Balisticast. They bought the rights
when H&G closed down. H&G 68 is a wonderful design. IME, the Lyman
452460 is slightly more accurate for bullseye work. YMMV. H&G 68 is
the gold standard of feeding in a 1911, very close or equal in accy to 452460,
Mr. Target will tell you the right answer. 460 is a bit more fussy and may
not feed 100% in some guns. Load a REAL H&G 68 to 1.250-1.260 LOA and
over 3.5 or so of BE or TG and you will be there.

I use and like Lee molds, but they are right at the rock bottom of what will
work properly, and a bit fussy. However - THEY WILL PRODUCE FINE BOOLITS
if you do it right.

If you are at 950 (and I doubt it) you need to clean the mold (scrub cavities with comet
and hot water and toothbrush) to clean and lightly deburr, and you have already
added a touch of tin. Get rid of the smoking, scrub out with comet. A clean
naked mold cavity is what you want. Get some Bullplate lube for the sprue plate
bottom and alignment features. VERY, VERY sparing use. Look for The Bullshop
at the bottom of the page.

Cast as fast as you can to get the mold up to temp. It may take 25 or more casts before
it is hot enough, do NOT inspect or admire. Pour, cut, dump, pour, cut, dump. Speed
puts heat into the mold. Mold temp is what you want to control, and not by running
the metal that hot. If you actually did manage to get that hot, you will rapidly oxidize
the tin. Are you fluxing? Flux with sawdust, but OUTDOORS! lots of smoke. Sprinkle
on and mix it in. It will clean and reverse some of the oxidation.

Once the mold is casting well, slow down to hold the temp. Maybe touch the bottom
of mold to wet sponge for a second to cool if it is getting too hot.

Bill

[DLCTEX]

Preheat the mould on a hotplate. I have no problem getting good fillout with straight WW. Using the hotplate I can get keeper boolits from the start and have no problem cutting sprues. I also like Bullplate lube.

[bobthenailer]

If you cast with Ballistic- Cast moulds one time, you would not have to ask the question

[runfiverun]

yep, just buy the mold.
i would recommend the lyman 460 also [it's what i use]
buuuut they seem to only be specced for some unobtanium alloy nowdays.

[Larry Gibson]

They seem to require the lead to be around 950 F to cast sharp edges. The lead is right at the edge of frosting. I have tried cleaning, smoking and pre-heating the molds, as well as simply casting for awhile with the lead from 720-760 F, and I cannot get bullets worth keeping. I am using wheel weights with tin added to both 2% and 4%.

Sounds to me like you have zinc contamination in that alloy. COWWs + 2% tin should cast very good bullets in your Lee moulds at 725 degrees. This is assuming you are doing everything else correctly in casting. Casting is not rocket science as some would have us believe. There are different techniques that all work well and give fine cast bullets (different ways to skin the cat). However, the basics still must be adhered to. All in all from your description it sounds more like contaminated alloy to me. Suggest a fresh batch of COWWs making sure none are zinc and add 2% tin.

Larry Gibson

[Chuck26287]

Thanks everyone. Just to note... I'm pretty certain the alloy temp really was around 950 F, or at least within a small amount of error. I checked my dial thermometer in the alloy with another high-temp digital device rated to 1000 F. When in the metal together, they both read 665 F. So, I pretty much verified my thermometer, which I would have sworn was way "out of whack" (like I said... I'm pretty technical, so I like to throw around those technical terms).

I'm also fairly certain this batch of COWWs was only lead, as I sorted them and culled out any zinc and steel. It was a batch that yielded 45 1 lb ingots. On this subject, are there COWWs made out of aluminum? I saw some marked AL (not a lot), but thought they were painted lead due to their softness when checking with side-cutters. Using aliminum for weight didn't make much sense to me, and I had never seen a reference to aliminum like I have about zinc and steel, but I'm a noob. Perhaps I contaminated with aluminum? Also... is there any visual indication that zinc has contaminated your alloy? I read somewhere it turned your molten lead to an oatmeal consistancy. True?

I did flux almost every time I added bad cast bullets and sprues back to the pot. I also noted pretty good oxidation on the surface (another hint it was really around 950 F).

I pre-heated the mold on an electric griddle that can be set for up to 400 F. Is this enough, or for pre-heating, does it need to be hotter? If you're casting lead at 750 F, about what temp should the mold run at when throwing good casts? (I'm talking generalities here, as I know each situation will be unique. 100 F below pot temp, 50 F below?)

I'm going to VERY carefully melt some new weights for a completely fresh batch of alloy to eliminate contamination posibilities as suggested and add tin for about 2%. Also going to clean the mold to as fresh and clean as possible (Comet and the toothbrush), then give it a fresh lube. Going to pre-heat the mold on the 400 F griddle, then concentrate on FAST casting until they start to look good, using 750 F alloy. Then I'll see what I have, and be back to report (and ask more questions, I'm sure).

[runfiverun]

the al marked ww's are painted to keep the lead and the aluminum rims from having an electraulisys reaction between them.
aluminum mold... 400 is good enough to start with, you might want a bit hotter.

[Chuck26287]

the al marked ww's are painted to keep the lead and the aluminum rims from having an electraulisys reaction between them.
aluminum mold... 400 is good enough to start with, you might want a bit hotter.

Aahhh... that makes sense. I wasn't even thinking about the contact of different metals in the WW application. I'm been reading a little on different metals contacting where it's aluminum and steel in the bullet mold application, but I didn't give it a thought when it comes to the WWs. Thanks. Makes me feel better that I hadn't unknowingly melted aluminum into my allow.

I'll see if I can find a hotter hot-plate to pre-heat with. I appreciate the help!

[geargnasher]

You DID melt aluminum into your alloy, but it isn't the primary cause of your issues. The aluminum paint on many coated WW dissolves into the melt. If you use copious amounts of sawdust for flux instead of wax or oil like everyone else will tell you to do when making your ingots, it will absorb the aluminum and calcium from the alloy and isolate it within the ash so it can be removed when you skim the ash.

The main problem you have is the same one everyone else has when they're brand new to casting and start with a six-cavity aluminum mould. I don't care how hot you THINK you got the mould when preheating it, if the block temperature isn't at least 350F to start out you're going to experience a lot of frustration with fillout and rounded edges.

WW alloy should NEVER need to be over 750F to cast good boolits, in fact 675-725 is a good range. There are good and specific reasons for staying under 750F, beyond the scope of this post.

What makes good boolits is MOULD temperature, and it needs to be HOT. What keeps the mould hot is the hot metal going in there over and over at the right speed. Cast at a TIMED four complete pouring cycles a minute, one every fifteen seconds, after you do a preheat on the mould (upside down on a hotplate works, or better yet build a mould oven out of a steel electrical box or coffee can and skilsaw blade) and then go at it like that for five minutes straight. You should start to see the boolits looking satiny and if you get the mould TOO hot, they will look like you bead blasted them. If the mould overheats and the sprue takes too long to cut without smearing in order to get the four-a-minute rate, just slow down to three a minute. Sprue freeze should take place within five seconds of the last cavity poured, probably more like 3-4.

Grease or smoke from oil burning off (think mould lube getting hot) will cause poor fillout in the cavities, so they need to be super-clean, mainly just degreased. Brake parts cleaner and Q-tip is perfect for cleaning the cavities, but don't spray brake cleaner on a HOT mould.

Ditto what was said about Bullplate. Member Randyrat sells a similar product called Zip Lube. Instructions on using either can be found in a "sticky" thread in this section of the forum.

Look at the boolits after doing the run I suggested above, don't stop and play with them and study them while you're in the middle of casting. Have someone else look at them as the hit the towel and give you feed back on degree of shine/frost, fillout, how sharp the bases are, obvious voids, etc., and YOU focus on doing the casting until you get the hang of what sequence and timing works. If you fool with the boolits after each cast, your mould is sitting there getting cold while you pause, and the next pour won't fill any better than the last one did.

Gear

[JWFilips]

Gear,
When heating an aluminum 6 cavity mould up on a hot plate where does the the heat setting need to be? This may sound crazy question but if the hot plate gets too hot or the mould sets on it too long, could it damage the mould?

[Cane_man]

stick your thermometer between the mold halves and see what setting gives what temp... when my hotplate is on medium it will heat my 2 cavity Al mold to 400 deg in about 5 minutes...