stu925
04-14-2014, 09:31 PM
A few months ago I posted about wanting to get into casting my own boolits. I started out by reading from ingot to target and since then I've gone about acquiring the equipment and just started casting a couple of weeks ago. So I figured now that I've got some boolits under my belt I'd share my experience with you guys since you're the ones that inspired me to actually go forward with the idea. I also figured I'd share what I have learned so far with anyone that might be on the fence about this whole thing.
So my initial plan was to build a smelter using a heating element and an old #10 coffee can, I would then use a stainless steel pot to melt the lead and use a ladle to pour into the mold. I ordered a Lee 2 cavity .452" 255gr RNFP mold and a Lee ladle along with a Lee sizing kit and a stick of Lyman Alox. Fired up my home built smelter and tried the ladle routine but the Lee ladle sucks four pouring into a mold, that straight handle makes it near impossible to keep the lead in the ladle. I also found out that my heating element would get hot enough to melt the lead (barely) but by the time I got the ladle full of lead to the mold it was already starting to solidify. First attempt: Fail!
So I decided to just bite the bullet and go ahead and order the Lee 4 20lb bottom pour pot. When it arrived I could hardly wait to get started so out to the shop I went where I put a big box fan in the window for ventilation and fired up the new pot. While the pot heated up I decided I could use my home built rig for a mold warmer so I put the mold on top of it and brought the mold up to temp. Once the lead and mold reached temp I prepped the mold, I used the Lyman Alox stick to lube the pins, handles and sprue plate screw I then went through about 20 wooden matches smoking the mold (wanted to make sure I got every last millimeter of the cavities). Ok now I was ready to pour, I figured it would be a little while before I had boolits worth keeping and I was right. The first 100 boolits or so kept coming out wrinkled and eventually I figured out that I had gotten a little heavy handed with the Alox and contaminated the mold. So once the mold cooled down I got out the Acetone and a brush and scrubbed the mold down. Once dry and back up to temp I started casting again. The boolits came out great but the first bunch were a little frosty, backed the temp down and I was finally happy with the end result. I found that the boolits were coming out .453" and were averaging 255.8gr so I figured my alloy had to be pretty close to what Lee used when making the Mold.
I tumble lubed the boolits and then ran them through the sizer, then lubed again. I'm very happy so far but as of yet haven't had the chance to shoot any of them, hopefully I'll get the chance to fire off the bunch I loaded today either Thursday or Friday. By the way I hate the tumble lubing bit, it's a mess and I found that after I loaded the bullet in the case I needed to wipe off the excess lube from the ogive of the bullet. Eventually I'll either pan lube or better yet pick up a lubri-sizer. Eventually I'll want to pick up a hardness tester and I should get a casting thermometer which will probably be in the next order I put in.
Here's some pictures:
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc492/stu925/Gun%20Pics/Moldwarmer_zpscecbbd88.jpg (http://s1214.photobucket.com/user/stu925/media/Gun%20Pics/Moldwarmer_zpscecbbd88.jpg.html)
This is the home built rig that I ended up using as a mold warmer. It works great for that purpose but didn't work at all for smelting.
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc492/stu925/Gun%20Pics/castingpot2_zpsa176fe77.jpg (http://s1214.photobucket.com/user/stu925/media/Gun%20Pics/castingpot2_zpsa176fe77.jpg.html)
My new Lee 4-20 casting pot full of lead shot which is what I'm using right now. I know the alloy isn't perfect for casting boolits but I had about 100lbs of it and wanted to do something with it since I have more shotgun shells than I'm ever going to use loaded already.
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc492/stu925/Gun%20Pics/Boolits_zpsf60c69a2.jpg (http://s1214.photobucket.com/user/stu925/media/Gun%20Pics/Boolits_zpsf60c69a2.jpg.html)
The first batch of useable boolits. I'm really happy with the way they turned out.
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc492/stu925/Gun%20Pics/finalproduct_zpsd2123c63.jpg (http://s1214.photobucket.com/user/stu925/media/Gun%20Pics/finalproduct_zpsd2123c63.jpg.html)
This is the Ruger Blackhawk that started this whole thing along with some rounds I loaded up today. Hopefully I'll get to try them out this week.
You guys have been an inspiration to a beginning caster and while I haven't posted much at all I've found a ton of info here in the stickies and various threads. I imagine I'll have plenty of questions as I progress and hope you guys don't mind answering a few. For right now I think the only questions I have is has anyone had any luck loading cast boolits in a Marlin 336 .35 Remington with micro groove rifling? Does anyone have any tips for such a venture?
-Stu
So my initial plan was to build a smelter using a heating element and an old #10 coffee can, I would then use a stainless steel pot to melt the lead and use a ladle to pour into the mold. I ordered a Lee 2 cavity .452" 255gr RNFP mold and a Lee ladle along with a Lee sizing kit and a stick of Lyman Alox. Fired up my home built smelter and tried the ladle routine but the Lee ladle sucks four pouring into a mold, that straight handle makes it near impossible to keep the lead in the ladle. I also found out that my heating element would get hot enough to melt the lead (barely) but by the time I got the ladle full of lead to the mold it was already starting to solidify. First attempt: Fail!
So I decided to just bite the bullet and go ahead and order the Lee 4 20lb bottom pour pot. When it arrived I could hardly wait to get started so out to the shop I went where I put a big box fan in the window for ventilation and fired up the new pot. While the pot heated up I decided I could use my home built rig for a mold warmer so I put the mold on top of it and brought the mold up to temp. Once the lead and mold reached temp I prepped the mold, I used the Lyman Alox stick to lube the pins, handles and sprue plate screw I then went through about 20 wooden matches smoking the mold (wanted to make sure I got every last millimeter of the cavities). Ok now I was ready to pour, I figured it would be a little while before I had boolits worth keeping and I was right. The first 100 boolits or so kept coming out wrinkled and eventually I figured out that I had gotten a little heavy handed with the Alox and contaminated the mold. So once the mold cooled down I got out the Acetone and a brush and scrubbed the mold down. Once dry and back up to temp I started casting again. The boolits came out great but the first bunch were a little frosty, backed the temp down and I was finally happy with the end result. I found that the boolits were coming out .453" and were averaging 255.8gr so I figured my alloy had to be pretty close to what Lee used when making the Mold.
I tumble lubed the boolits and then ran them through the sizer, then lubed again. I'm very happy so far but as of yet haven't had the chance to shoot any of them, hopefully I'll get the chance to fire off the bunch I loaded today either Thursday or Friday. By the way I hate the tumble lubing bit, it's a mess and I found that after I loaded the bullet in the case I needed to wipe off the excess lube from the ogive of the bullet. Eventually I'll either pan lube or better yet pick up a lubri-sizer. Eventually I'll want to pick up a hardness tester and I should get a casting thermometer which will probably be in the next order I put in.
Here's some pictures:
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc492/stu925/Gun%20Pics/Moldwarmer_zpscecbbd88.jpg (http://s1214.photobucket.com/user/stu925/media/Gun%20Pics/Moldwarmer_zpscecbbd88.jpg.html)
This is the home built rig that I ended up using as a mold warmer. It works great for that purpose but didn't work at all for smelting.
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc492/stu925/Gun%20Pics/castingpot2_zpsa176fe77.jpg (http://s1214.photobucket.com/user/stu925/media/Gun%20Pics/castingpot2_zpsa176fe77.jpg.html)
My new Lee 4-20 casting pot full of lead shot which is what I'm using right now. I know the alloy isn't perfect for casting boolits but I had about 100lbs of it and wanted to do something with it since I have more shotgun shells than I'm ever going to use loaded already.
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc492/stu925/Gun%20Pics/Boolits_zpsf60c69a2.jpg (http://s1214.photobucket.com/user/stu925/media/Gun%20Pics/Boolits_zpsf60c69a2.jpg.html)
The first batch of useable boolits. I'm really happy with the way they turned out.
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc492/stu925/Gun%20Pics/finalproduct_zpsd2123c63.jpg (http://s1214.photobucket.com/user/stu925/media/Gun%20Pics/finalproduct_zpsd2123c63.jpg.html)
This is the Ruger Blackhawk that started this whole thing along with some rounds I loaded up today. Hopefully I'll get to try them out this week.
You guys have been an inspiration to a beginning caster and while I haven't posted much at all I've found a ton of info here in the stickies and various threads. I imagine I'll have plenty of questions as I progress and hope you guys don't mind answering a few. For right now I think the only questions I have is has anyone had any luck loading cast boolits in a Marlin 336 .35 Remington with micro groove rifling? Does anyone have any tips for such a venture?
-Stu