Blackwater
09-27-2005, 11:26 PM
Last night I had a curious thing happen. A buddy had problems with his Lyman 457125 mould. It's new. He said he couldn't get a good bullet from it, and sent it to me asking me to give it a go and see if I could make it work any better. I cast a little over 150 bullets, using 30% WW's with pure lead and @ 2% tin added, and two temps with 20:1 lead/tin. All bullets with the partial WW metal had finning on the nose. Most of those with the 20:1 had finning. Before casting, I noted I could see light at the nose end of the mould when I had it "closed."
Not really knowing why, I whimsically decided to try the mould, after it had cooled enough to handle it, on an old set of Lyman 1-cav mould handles - it's a 1 cav. mould, and I guess I just wondered what would happen.
Surprise! The mould shows no light now when closed!
The handles I'd used for casting were a newish set (@ 3-4 yr. old) for 2 or 4 cav. moulds. I'd been told, and probably read too, that these could be used for SC moulds. But then .... there's my results.
Question: Have any of you had this happen, and if so, how do you explain it? Is there some difference that escapes me (not to hard to do) that I haven't noticed? Whahhoppened???? I'm stumped.
Haven't had time to measure anything yet, but with all the experience around here, I thought this was the place to ask. Somebody may be able to save me time and confusion .... hopefully.
Not really knowing why, I whimsically decided to try the mould, after it had cooled enough to handle it, on an old set of Lyman 1-cav mould handles - it's a 1 cav. mould, and I guess I just wondered what would happen.
Surprise! The mould shows no light now when closed!
The handles I'd used for casting were a newish set (@ 3-4 yr. old) for 2 or 4 cav. moulds. I'd been told, and probably read too, that these could be used for SC moulds. But then .... there's my results.
Question: Have any of you had this happen, and if so, how do you explain it? Is there some difference that escapes me (not to hard to do) that I haven't noticed? Whahhoppened???? I'm stumped.
Haven't had time to measure anything yet, but with all the experience around here, I thought this was the place to ask. Somebody may be able to save me time and confusion .... hopefully.