Coke Bottle Shape

[WineMan]

My friend with a 30-30 asked me to cast some boolits for him. We got a Lee 309-170F single cavity from Lee's overstock page. Boiled in dish soap and disc brake cleaner scrubbed and then Bullplate treated at the start of casting.

The melt was ACWW with 1% tin added and I was running 750-780 F on a Coleman stove and using a RCBS pot and the little Lee dipper. Flux was Digger Pine sap. There did seem to be more floating light stuff than in previous casts although I am a real newbie to casting and do not have more than a dozen melts under my belt.

The sprues were solid in about five seconds and the mould needed a few taps on the hinge bolt to get the boolits to drop after 10 seconds.

I ran about 100 and then while inspecting them I noticed that the nose and bands looked good but just ahead of the bands it was frosty and one side had a "Coke" bottle shape. It was not one side of the mould but both sides involved at the part line, the boolits almost look like they slumped during oven heat treating. I do not know if it was the side closer to the handles or not.

I wondered if I dropped them too early and they were not fully set?

Back to the drawing board I guess...

Thanks in advance!

Wineman

[NVcurmudgeon]

Spot frosting has been cured for me by lowering the temperature. (This is different from the light overall frosting that is an indicator of good boolits.) I have made boolits that looked like they were bent like a banana, wth the frosting on one side of the nose.

[garandsrus]

WineMan,

Lower your temp to around 650-700 and see if that works better for you... I think you were running the mold a little hot.

If you have a second mold, you could alternate casts with the two as a way to slow down the pace without waiting for the boolit to cool. You can cast the second mold while the first cools down and then alternate back and forth.

John

[oso]

Ditto. I'd lower the temp for that alloy. Alternatively I'd skip the tin addition. Otherwise your bullet work and mold prep are good!

[leftiye]

Wineman,

Go a little hotter, until your sprue stays molten for a while. It looks like the boolit froze on the outside, then collapsed when it solidified (and was not able to draw more lead from the sprue due to the boolit base being frozed). Your collapsed area does not look frosted.

If it is frosted there where it collapsed, then polish that spot in the mold. There's a hot spot there, probably with something on the surface of the mold that is acting like mold prep and not letting the lead cool there as fast as elsewhere on the mold. Your boolit overall is still less hot than necessary for the mild overall frosting that NVC mentioned, and unless you clean that area (steel wool on a Q-tip) you can't cast any hotter than you are (rather will have to cast cooler like NVC said), and can't utilize the light frosting that is desireable to minimize voids, and maximize fillout.

It being a new Lee mold, this is actually better than most Lee molds cast first time out. Clean again like you did before, and try again. My molds(Lee) generally don't settle down until the fourth or fifth session.

[44man]

Dump the Lee dipper and get a Lyman. Hold the ladle tight to the top of the mold until the boolit is filled before tipping it off. Don't depend on the boolit taking lead from the sprue.
Dribbling lead in from the Lee dipper might be swirling the lead and it is setting funny. You can tell by pouring at different angles around the mold to see if the bad spot also moves to another place.
Make sure the vent lines are clean.
Making everything hotter so the sprue doesn't set so fast might help but then you have to wait longer before cutting.

[Ben]

Ditto

----- 44 man's ---suggestions ! !

Ben

[runfiverun]

that bend may be occuring where the lead is hitting the mold and creating
a hot spot that is keeping the mold a little hotter there for a bit longer
make your flip a little faster when you turn your ladle and mold,
and 1per. tin is not too much.
maybe just getting your lead temp down will help also

[HeavyMetal]

use the Lee dipper for fluxing and cleaning the dross of the top of your melt. Don't use it for pouring boolits!

The lyman dipper is a great suggestion! I suspect if you kept everything the same and changed what you used to pour your lead you'd find perfect bullets falling out!

I've had Lyman, and RCBS and a cool dual spout dipper that I think Saeco made years ago! these are the way to go if you insist on hand pouring!

[trooperdan]

And don't forget, you bought this mould from the "seconds" page; you might have discovered the reason it was listed there! :)

[Marlin Junky]

I've never used a Lee dipper because it's way too small but your temperature is fine, don't lower it. Are you sure you didn't get any Bull Plate in the nose area of your mold before casting?

MJ

[WineMan]

I will work on the suggestions ASAP. I took a closer look and many of the vent lines on one side of the mould did not go to the edge due to an extra bit of aluminum flash so I deepened them and extended them to the edge.

It is possible to have gotten some Bullplate in the cavity...

My feeling that these were overstocks but the fine print may have said "seconds"

I have seen votes for the RCBS dipper and votes for the Lyman dipper in other posts. Any reason to spend the extra on the RCBS?

Thanks again,

Wineman

[floodgate]

Wineman:

I normally use my Lyman dippers, out of habit; but I have an RCBS and the square "fin" on the bottom is handy for raking away any dross or ash on top of the melt before dipping. Some "lefties" here have discovered that the boss that is threaded for the handle has a matching lump on the "back" side of the dipper which can be drilled and tapped for a L.H. handle.

floodgate