what temperature is best for bullet casting?

[mozeppa]

i have several lee 6 bangers

9mm up to 45 colt

i get sharpei bullets (wrinkly looking abominations)
until my molds get up to temperature...then they seem to cast moderately okay.

i use a "PID" on my pot set at 715 degrees f.
and i have a needle thermometer on my hot plate....and it read 390 degrees f.
and this temp. pair-up seems to work well for 45acp 228 gn. round nose and 45 colt 255 gn RFN.

BUT THAT DOESN'T WORK SO WELL WITH 9MM or 38 special.
right now i'm using wheel weights.

whats the sweet spot.. temperature wise ?

also , i have to use a wooden dowel rod to poke at the bullet bases to get them to release.

any suggestions on a releasing agent?

[montana_charlie]

BUT THAT DOESN'T WORK SO WELL WITH 9MM or 38 special.

also , i have to use a wooden dowel rod to poke at the bullet bases to get them to release.

any suggestions on a releasing agent?
How long does it take for the sprue to solidify on the last bullet you pour in that six cavity mould?

CM

[runfiverun]

tooth paste.

and 430-f

[adanymous]

tooth paste.

and 430-f

???????

[sdcitizen]

Careful use of a razor knife to remove the burr around the edge of the cavities is the best release agent i have found for sticky lee molds.

[Handloader109]

My pid is set at about 710 to start.. Smaller 95gr gets turned up a bit. Mold has to be hot

[Larry Gibson]

The "sweet spot" with WWs is to add 2% tin so it flows and fills out the mould better.

Apparently you are casting to slow to keep the mould up to temp. If you cast at an appropriate tempo the hot plate isn't needed.

A "release agent" should not be needed nor used.

Your casting seems to work well with the larger 45 caliber bullets because there is less metal in the mould and you are adding more heat to the mould with the larger amount of alloy in each cavity. You are either not casting fast enough with the 38/9mm moulds or your alloy is not really 715*.

Also are you using a bottom pour or a dipper?

Larry Gibson

[454PB]

I get good results casting with WW alloy at any temperature above 650 degrees, IF the mould is hot enough.

It's all about mould temperature, either preheat, cast very quickly, or both.

[runfiverun]

toothpaste to polish the mold and 430-f mold temp.

[RED333]

Temp, well what ever works for you and your mold.
I try to keep a up a good pace, I pour, count to 3, cut the spure, count to 3.
Open the mold, drop and start over.

[Pb2au]

Proper mold prep. Clean, de-burred, and lubed.
Get your lead to temp.
Keep a steady even pace while casting. No lolly gagging around or gawking.
With this, you will have joy.

[mdi]

Wow, I don't have any of them electronic deevices and I kin get good boolits. IMO, each mold pretty much has it's own "personality". Most of my good bullets come from a melt (alloy) just a bit over liquification and a mold just warm enough for good fill-out. I keep an eye on each bullet that drops from my molds and can either slow down my casting or cool the mold (with a spray of water), or warm the mold a bit more to get what I want...

[prs]

runfiverun suggested the temp I use and I cast fast and prefer a lightly frosted bullet. WW alloy or other, I do the same; pure lead muzzle loaders a bit hotter yet. Why so hot? Because even if you screw-up a little and pour/spill a little alloy into the next cavity and then over fill that second or two later, the result is still a perfect boolit without the sharpie effect (I call it scarab bettle or worm wood effect or snail tracks). The down side is a little more tin oxide to reduce or re-flux or whatever the castboolit-correct term is. The upside are beautiful boolits with hardly any to cull. And I certainly agree with Larry G, modern WW metal is tin poor.

prs

[mozeppa]

i kinda thought that my mold temp was too low .

and yeah i might be too slow....actually i thought i might be too fast.

but based on ...pour , 1 2 3 , cut & dump ....pour , 123 , cut & dump......etc.
i may have been too slow.

i was like pour , watch the sprue frost over , marvel at my handy work ...sing a little with whatever is on the radio.
cut, try to dump ...take a wood dowel rod and poke at the boolit bases to get them to lego my mold!
close inspect and pour....begin new song............ya da ya da ya da

need to bump up the hot plate some in temp.

was thinking on it as i was returning home from work today,

if my pour temperature was 715 /720 ...and my pid keeps it pretty close to that.
my probe is 1/2" from the inside bottom of my lee bottom pour pot ...very near the spout, maybe to one side about 3/4"

and my hot plate is a brand new Oester co. hot plate with a lead pot thermometer mounted on a piece of steel via a hole drilled thru the steel
so that the end of the thermometer touches the plate....and it reads a constant 390 degrees.

my thoughts were as i was driving....hmmm ....715 degree lead is poured into the 390 degree mold.

thats quite a temperature jump from 715 to 390 in a fraction of a second!....325 degree jump!

that leaves no extra time to fill out a mold properly ...so i need to get the mold up some in temp.
look for burrs...de-burr them and use plate lube.

what is plate lube?....what do you use?

[RED333]

what is plate lube?....what do you use?

2 cycle motor oil

[williamwaco]

I get good results casting with WW alloy at any temperature above 650 degrees, IF the mould is hot enough.

It's all about mould temperature, either preheat, cast very quickly, or both.


DITTO.


Adjust your cadence so that it takes the sprue puddle 3 to 4 seconds to solidify.
In my case, this is three to four fillings per minute with a Lee 6 banger.

Alloy temperature is not critical. Mold temperature is.

[RED333]

723.343 degrees is the absolute optimum good sweet spot!
You are SO wrong, it is 384.079 celsius is the best. LOL

[ericc]

You sure its not 1183.013 rankine?

[RED333]

You sure its not 1183.013 rankine?
Nope, that is the wrong scale, you have to use what we all use. [smilie=w:

[Tar Heel]

Nope, that is the wrong scale, you have to use what we all use. [smilie=w:

Yup. The 'Merican scale. Fair-en-hot.

[Tar Heel]

We are going to get yelled at for sure by the Mod.

[RED333]

We are going to get yelled at for sure by the Mod.

Part of life, lets ya know you are alive.

[mozeppa]

nope...its my thread!
and i find ALL info useful!.....i learned something here, there's other temperature scales!
now...

who do i need to ask about getting my PID to register in "RANKINE" , as i find it to be more exact.:razz:

[Tar Heel]

Run a custom Google search on the entire site using "Rankine" as a search word. Here is the custom search location:

https://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=001951264366462437169:ggn3vg-bjum

[Tar Heel]

I just did that and saw only 3 returns. Good luck with that one. Of course you can always convert F or C or Ab to Rankine.

[youngmman]

I keep the pot at 750 and cut the Sprue as soon as it frosts over. If the bullets appear frosted then it's too hot. Trouble is that setting the pot for 750 means it goes to that temp then backs off 10-15 degrees then starts up again and goes slightly over the 750 before backing off again. It seems to be the normal cycle. I'm using a Magma Master pot.

[runfiverun]

it's about the molds temp, 10-15-f is nothing in pot temp fluxuation.
15-f in mold temp is in and out of the zone, or a 7-f swing to either side and perfect.
keeping that 700-725-f alloy in there is what makes that happen.

[mozeppa]

yeah... i noticed that too...

the pid swings the temp from 10 degrees cool to 10 degrees hot .

like my wife!

[Bullshop]

About 65 *F is comfortable as you should be wearing a long sleeve shirt. Much over that and you get too sweaty.

[44man]

Yep, guys pinned it! Pot temp not as important as your cadence. I run 750 because I am slower. Pure needs 800.

[Char-Gar]

I guess I am hopeless! I have been casting for over 50 years and have never measured the temp of the melt or of a hot plate. I just keep turning up the dial on the Lyman pot until the alloy flows like water from the dipper and then I have at it. If it is to cold I crank the pot up a notch, if to hot I crank it down a notch. I started casting before there were thermometers for such things and just never felt the need to change what I was doing as it worked. Saved some money also.

I have been using NEI mold prep for many year. It is just graphite in some kind of carrier that evaporates off. It works as good or better than smoking a mold and is not needed once the mold is broken in. Bullplate spru lube is also a gift from heaven.

Lee molds are not made from high end aluminum and so burrs and machine hickies are common. We used to polish the molds with a bullet cast in the cavity coated with a little Bon-Ami sink cleaner. We would drill pilot hole in the bullet still in the mold using the sprue hole as a guide. Open the spru and turn a self threading sheet metal screw into the bullet. Coat the bullet with a little Bon-Ami and replace in the cavity. Use the screw head as a place to grip and rotate the bullet in the cavity. This will take out any burrs and high places and bullets will drop out easy. You will of course have to clean the Bon-Ami out before casting.

Aluminum molds made by NEI, Accurate, NOE and others use much higher grade aluminum and don't often have these problem. This is why these molds cost more than a Lee.

Most often bullets that don't come out easy are the fault of the mold and not the alloy.

[detox]

Different molds require different pot temps. Depending on mold manufacturer some smaller bullets will require hotter pot temps and larger bullets can sometimes over heat a mould. So pot temp can vary from 650 to 800 degrees from my experiance.

I have one of the NOE plug in mold thermometers and mold temp had to be 430 degrees to get well filled out bullets. Pot temp had to be turned up to 800 degrees to match my casting pace...this was using linotype! Mold is a new NOE 30 caliber 165 grain design.


Here is the thermometer:
http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=31&osCsid=201ce93uor5tu2lds819d8oia4

Here are the bullets casted

http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee395/aviserated1/DSCF8088_zps65e878a0.jpg (http://s1225.photobucket.com/user/aviserated1/media/DSCF8088_zps65e878a0.jpg.html)

[Larry Gibson]

There is no "best" temperature per se. Each alloy, amount of alloy in the pot, make of pot, heat source, mould block material, number of cavities, size of cavities, bottom pour or ladle pour, make of furnace, ambient temperature cast at and the casting tempo will determine the "best" temperature. Probably a few variables I didn't mention also. That's why I don't use a PID or a specific setting on an electric pot. I instead use the mould and quality of the cast bullets to tell me when the temperature is "right". I then use a thermometer to maintain that temp. I adjust not only the temp dial as I use, empty or fill the pot to maintain the temperature but also adjust the flow of alloy out of the bottom pour spout as the pot empties to maintain an even fill pressure of the cavities.

Larry Gibson

[DeanWinchester]

Its a pretty easy thing to maintain pot temp. I thought about a PID but its so easy to do why bother. If you keep the dial up just a hair over what you need, you can add cut sprues back to the pot to pull that temp back down.

It is as Larry says though, every mold is different and only experience will teach you. Get in there and cast a monster pile. It'll make sense the more you do.

[44man]

I NEED a PID for an old Lyman pot, thermostat failed twice, now runs wide open. But the PID I made burned up. To fix it would cost more then a new Lee pot. I can't afford to buy one and need plans to make a cheap one that will work.