What's your procedure to get your mold ready to make bullets

[bigcountry]

My bullets are not stunning. Granted I bought most off of ebay used.

Here is what I do. I clean out the mold with 95% alcohol. Smoke with a match or 3 and make about 15-20 bullets to get em hot. Then I see my bullets start filling out "ok". Everytime I take a oily mold and start casting, I get ****.

Should the oil burn out after a while? Or should I use other techniques to clean the mold?

[Sgtonory]

I use break clean because I have a lot of it to clean my molds. If any oil is in the cavity I get wrinkles or pitting.

[Marlin Junky]

My bullets are not stunning. Granted I bought most off of ebay used.

Here is what I do. I clean out the mold with 95% alcohol. Smoke with a match or 3 and make about 15-20 bullets to get em hot. Then I see my bullets start filling out "ok". Everytime I take a oily mold and start casting, I get ****.

Should the oil burn out after a while? Or should I use other techniques to clean the mold?

Denatured alcohol (the 99% stuff from Home Depot, etc.) is a good solvent to remove oil and what I use by soaking a cotton swab and wiping out the mold (aluminum molds don't require oiling, obviously). The mistake you are making is putting stuff back in your cavities. I think Lee recommends adding carbon to the mold cavities so beginners can make usable boolits right from the first few casts... so they don't get discourage... so they purchase more Lee molds. Personally, casting boolits is most gratifying when starting from a 400F (approx.) mold block that starts out squeaky clean... and stays that way. Don't forget to lube your molds, no matter what alloy the are made from.

MJ

P.S. Yes, a can of brake cleaner is handy to have around just in case a trace of mold lubricant migrates into your cavities. Be careful how you point it though... I remember ricocheting it back into my face once.

[willvabch]

Hey, you can hear all kinds of methods. I scrub a new or new to me mold with toothpaste and toothbrush. I rinse and wash with dish soap and toothbrush. I rinse and dry with paper towels. I continue to dry with heat gun. I sand the bottom is the sprue plate with superfine sandpaper. I lube the SP bolt. I lube the pins. I lube the mold top just a little. I smoke my mold with a bic lighter. I preheat the mold on top of my pot. Two or three runs ( very slow) to heat the mold bores. Then I'm up and running. I only have used Lee molds. I will get better molds when I need/afford them.

[ShooterAZ]

If it's a new mold I wash in soap & water with a toothbrush. I then use a q-tip and bullplate lube and touch the pins and very lightly lube the bottom of the sprue plate & hinges. I then preheat the mold on a hotplate, while my pot is getting up to temp. Then I proceed to cast a beautiful pile-o-boolits.

[MT Gianni]

Rust is rare in my climate if left indoors and not put away wet. I put handles on the molds, set two on the hot plate and plug it and the pot in.

[btroj]

New moulds all get Comet and hot water scrubbed on with a toothbrush.

[TXGunNut]

Soap & water, scrubbed with a toothbrush. Rinse & repeat.

[canyon-ghost]

And if the hot water and soap doesn't seem enough, pour alcohol over it and wave the open mold dry. Two minutes and you're casting.

Oil doesn't burn out easily, parafin or wax from fluxing will but, slowly too.

[gunoil]

scrub w/soap & water, warm on plate from walmart, spray with hi-tek mold lube. Thats it. I use RCBS pro-melt. Blows others out to space.

[yondering]

My bullets are not stunning. Granted I bought most off of ebay used.

Here is what I do. I clean out the mold with 95% alcohol. Smoke with a match or 3 and make about 15-20 bullets to get em hot. Then I see my bullets start filling out "ok". Everytime I take a oily mold and start casting, I get ****.

Should the oil burn out after a while? Or should I use other techniques to clean the mold?

Stop using matches to smoke your molds. I'm a believer in smoking, but you need to do it with a clean gas flame (bic lighter). Oils from the wood matches can cause casting issues.

Alcohol is sorta OK for cleaning the mold, but isn't that great. Brake clean as already suggested, or laquer thinner, acetone, etc, will strip out the oils better. If you don't want to use a strong solvent, scrub the cavities in hot (as hot as you can stand it) water and liquid dish soap with a toothbrush. That's what I do with any new aluminum molds.

I won't claim my method is best, but it's good enough that I expect near-perfect bullets by the second cast, with every mold I own; here's what I do with any mold I've cast with before:

- Visually inspect the cavities to make sure no debris or oils got in there since last time. The cavities should have some soot from the previous casting session. Oily fingerprints, sprue plate lube, etc, in the cavities, or new molds, get cleaned out as above, and the mold re-smoked once it's warm. (smoking a cold mold produces condensation with a useless layer of soot that does nothing)

- With the pot at 750* (I'm using clip on wheel weights, no extra tin added), dip the front bottom corner of the mold in the pot for 10-20 seconds to pre-heat it.

- Start casting. The first pour might not be perfect, but the second or third should be.

- Once the mold is good and hot (casting frosty bullets) I apply sprue plate lube as appropriate, then dump the bullets and smoke the cavities as necessary. Most of that soot will come out of the cavities within the next couple casts, but the remainder assists with mold fillout through that casting session, and the start of next time.

Any mold that doesn't cast well with my simple process above usually just isn't vented enough. Loosening the sprue plate, beveling the top edges of the blocks, and in extreme cases beagling the mold, generally produces a good casting mold that isn't picky about temperature or fill rate or pour methods.

Hope that helps.

[bangerjim]

Clean the molds using the above methods. I personally never clean them...even new ones....and my boolits drop perfectly.

I smoke using a beeswax (only!) candle. There is something about the way beeswax burns that give a perfect coating. Many use lighters...but NOT matches. Some say to not smoke at all. (Surgeon General warning?!?!?!? :D ) Just depends on who you ask, the phase of the moon, and what day it is.......like most stuff we do on here! One thing we all do not have a shortage of on here, unlike powders and primers, is opinions on how to accomplish the same thing.

But if your molds are of "unknown" usage and origin, you probably had better scrub them out with solvents, cleaners, brushes, etc. Acetone or laq thinner is the perfect solvent. Alcohol will not cut many greases as well. Brake cleaner flies around too much when sprayed!!!!!

Rub-a-dub-dub!

Have fun.

banger

[dragon813gt]

Spray w/ 2+2, heat cycle three times, take apart, lube, reassemble and cast. Water and soap are for cleaning dishes. I don't want either anywhere near a mold. Any remaining oils are easily removed w/ a solvent like 2+2.

[yondering]

Water and soap are for cleaning dishes. I don't want either anywhere near a mold.

Hot water and dish soap works really well for aluminum molds. I don't normally do that for anything made of steel, unless it's getting oiled immediately after. The key with aluminum molds is HOT water though, the heat gets them cleaner than just acetone on a cold mold.

As a side note - hot water and dish soap is a great way to prep steel parts (after normal degreasing) for cold blue. Don't dry the parts after, just shake most of the water off and apply bluing immediately; works really well and gives a deeper color.

[454PB]

I do a thorough cleaning/degreasing with brake cleaner before the first use, then nothing after that......no smoking, no lubing.

I've been doing it that way for the last 30 years for both steel and aluminum moulds. All my Lee moulds work perfectly (some have cast well over 5K boolits) and no rust on my steel moulds.

[.22-10-45]

Since humidity is an issue..and some of my moulds might not be used in quite some time, I preserve them with a very light spray of Mold Saver..an industrial lanolin based mold preservative. I occasionally use brake cleaner..but lately have been using plain hot water and dish detergent..these are iron moulds..so they get a blast of compressed air & go directly onto a hot plate..when moisture is driven off..top, bottom, pins & holes & sprueplate surfaces are coated with NEI mould prep..care taken not to get any into cavities. If any lead sticks while casting..a No. 2 lead pencil rubbed over surface removes & prevents future sticking..the graphite probably helps lube under plate as well. Some moulds do better with a light smoking.sometimes brushing out cavities of a just smoked mould with camels hair brush does the trick...in over 40 years of casting and handloading..I've found there are very few absolute rules...each mould/casting pot..firearm is a law unto itself..just pay attention and adapt as you go.

[pretzelxx]

I used some brake cleaner, but my hands had issues with it. I started using hot dish soap water and scrubbing it, rinse, scrub and rinse good. Then heat cycle it a few times on top of the pot (didn't have a hot plate) and one final scrub. Gotta get all the nasty out.

Before I cast, I get the mould to temp and dab a candle on it at the spru pin and since I have HP pins, on the outside of those so it slides in and out very easily. Other than that nothing in particular.

[bigcountry]

Wow, guys, didn't expect such good advise. I will try some. Many good ideas.

I use denationalized alcohol, but mine is like 10 years old. I think its getting watery.

Some mentioned, to not forget to lube my molds. What is meant by that?

[dragon813gt]

You should lube the sprue plate, pivot pin and shafts on hollow point pins if they have them.

[WRideout]

I finally got out the Lyman 311284 mold my wife gave me for Xmas a few years ago. Boiled in dish soap and water, dried on the hot plate burner, then lubed the sprue plate with synthetic 2-stroke oil. I started casting and had good boolits after the first four or five.

Wayne

[alamogunr]

I scrub mine with Dawn dish detergent and an electric toothbrush. The electric tooth brush is not a must but it cuts down on the manual effort of scrubbing. I rinse the mold with boiling water and set down to dry. It takes a few minutes for it to dry and cool enough to assemble the handles. This is usually enough to get good boolets after it is up to temp on the hot plate.

[enfieldphile]

I spray w/ brake cleaner then let the mold air dry. I smoke the cavities and sprue plate of aluminum molds. A few of my ferous molds perform better when smoked also.

A dab of beezewax on pins, & sprue plate bolt lube things up.

I preheat large molds on top of the pot. Small, single-caviety molds (like Lee) can have the tip of the block put into the melt for 10 seconds.

I get good boolits w/o alot of fuss.