Blemished boolits?

[hanleyfan]

I shoot mostly recreational and will shoot slightly blemished boolits That I cast, don't seem to be able to tell the difference between them and the perfect cast boolit. How many on here only shoot the perfect cast boolit or will you shoot a slightly blemished cast boolit? Now when reloading for hunting I will sort through and load only the perfect boolits with the same weight, but for shooting for fun I don't see the need for being so particular.

[cs86]

When I'm testing loads I like to sort by weight and make sure they cast out full. I'm not sure what you consider as a blemish, but frosting doesn't bother me like wrinkles on a band does.

[dondiego]

For my pistol plinking bullets, the base has to be sharp but I shoot boolits with wrinkles in the nose and body.

[ioon44]

When I was a commercial caster, I used to shoot my culls in competition.
It takes a really bad boolit to tell any difference but it gives one more confidence to shoot prefect boolits.

[gwpercle]

I used to be all anal about perfect cast and completely filled out boolits, only keeping "perfect" ones. After years of shooting have discovered, at paper target, handgun range it's very hard to see any difference. I do insist on a perfect base, no major wrinkles or void in side. Minor wrinkle in nose or even frosty boolits all get loaded now. Base is the most important.
Gary

[fredj338]

As long as the bases are good, it's a shooter for handgun. I am way more picky about rifle bullets.

[45-70 Chevroner]

I've been shooting ugly boolits for 40 plus years. Good bases is the key though.

[mongoose33]

I shoot a lot of steel (in season, of course), and many of those targets are torso targets. Big, in other words.

What I need with those is minute-of-pop-can accuracy. The distance is generally no more than 50 feet.

So blemished bullets work just fine, so long as the base is fine.

[scottfire1957]

I recently tried PC, and those wrinkles simply disappear under the coating.

[dondiego]

"or even frosty boolits"
Gary


I prefer frosty boolits

[hanleyfan]

I get about 35% to 40% culls with my lee molds and my NOE molds I get 10-15% culls, same lead and equipment except different molds. These molds are well broken in and have over 2 hours casting but the lee throws far more rejects. I am not talking frosty boolits but other defects. How many rejects do you all get per 100 boolits?

[websterz]

I prefer frosty boolits

Me too. The frosty ones hold tumble lube better than the shiny ones.

[azrednek]

Me too. The frosty ones hold tumble lube better than the shiny ones.

Me three!! For exactly the same reason.

Quite the opposite of one of my casting mentors. His castings had to be bright, shiny and perfect. I suspect he used way more tin than necessary to get the silvery shine. His theory and not just the slug but the entire loaded cartridge. "If you feel good about'em you'll shoot'em better". I couldn't argue with his logic. Despite needing glasses and being considerably older than me. He could out shoot me.

[Echd]

I get about 35% to 40% culls with my lee molds and my NOE molds I get 10-15% culls, same lead and equipment except different molds. These molds are well broken in and have over 2 hours casting but the lee throws far more rejects. I am not talking frosty boolits but other defects. How many rejects do you all get per 100 boolits?

Very few. A handful as the mold comes to temperature, and then a handful if it gets too hot.

Make sure you are preheating your mold, whether you do it on a hotplate or dip a corner in the melt (which is what I do, although many prefer the hotplate).

I only had one Lee mold that I felt threw a disproportionate amount of rejects.

[Blackwater]

Hanleyfan, did you degrease the mould THOROUGHLY before beginning casting? Is the sprue plate fitting snugly against the top of the mould? You mentioned that you'd only cast with it about 2 hours, and that's not really a whole lot of casting, and Lee moulds, in spite of being aluminum, come with some sort of very sticky coating that needs to be washed off with solvent before using it to cast with. Could that be your problem? You're getting way too many rejects as it is now, so something's wrong somewhere, and it isn't likely the mould because you're getting way too many rejects with BOTH moulds.

[tazman]

I get about 35% to 40% culls with my lee molds and my NOE molds I get 10-15% culls, same lead and equipment except different molds. These molds are well broken in and have over 2 hours casting but the lee throws far more rejects. I am not talking frosty boolits but other defects. How many rejects do you all get per 100 boolits?

I use both Lee and NOE aluminum molds and only have the first fill being culled and not always then. I seldom find more than 2 or 3 culls in an hour's run and that being around 500 boolits.
The trick is to make sure your mold is hot before starting.
To me culls are wrinkled boolits, boolits with voids, and bases not filled out.

[Walter Laich]

another one here that shoots the culls. Usually when I pre-heat the mold on a hot plate I don't have that many to begin with. Cold molds = wrinkled bullets.

[hanleyfan]

I heat cycle all my new molds 3 times, than boil them in soapy water and rinse in boiling hot water, I then hit them with brake cleaner before molding, I have all molds drilled for a probe with a remote thermometer so I know the mold temperature at all times. I have lead pot on a PID controller to maintain lead pot temperature. I preheat my mold to operating Temperature before casting and lube the mold pins bull plate lube. I use basically range lead and wheel weights with some tin add. I flux my lead with wood chips and I have been casting for 15 years and so am not a beginner. Maybe I am too particular and throw many out that I could use.

[45-70 Chevroner]

I get about 35% to 40% culls with my lee molds and my NOE molds I get 10-15% culls, same lead and equipment except different molds. These molds are well broken in and have over 2 hours casting but the lee throws far more rejects. I am not talking frosty boolits but other defects. How many rejects do you all get per 100 boolits?
I average about 5 to 15% ugly boolits depending on the size of the boolit with all my molds, ie, Lyman rcbs lee, I don't have any custom molds. I usually cast hotter than most casters.
Some of my molding sessions don't produce any rejects.

[osteodoc08]

Not including the first few casts to get mold up to temp I'd venture to say 5-10%. If there's a wrinkle or deformity, back it goes, if the base isn't sharp, back it goes.

But I have to ask, if they're remelted and then cast perfect the second time around, is it really a cull or just a rehabbed previously molded piece?

[Echo]

Plus 1 for osteodoc, and often below 5%. Bases MUST be square, or they go back in the pot. Life is too short to shoot ugly boolits! Most recently I cast some 30 cal Lee's, and 30 cal Lyman -672's, and the Lee turned out a higher % of culls, maybe 20-30% (mainly ugly), where the Lyman was down around 5%.

[dudel]

I shoot the ugly ones, then no one knows that I made them.:oops:

As long as the base is ok, they make fine pistol plinkers.

[h8dirt]

I will start by admitting that I enjoy casting bullets almost as much as I do shooting them. I enjoy precision shooting and I typically do things in a deliberate, precise way. I do not cull as I cast. I cast, cool, inspect, sort. I remelt any bullets with pits, wrinkles, inclusions, etc. Then, I weigh each bullet in the lot and sort/segregate them into one grain batches. For the heavier bullets (250 -300 grains) I keep the three adjacent batches that comprise the bulk of the lot and re-melt the outliers. On average, this process will yield <5% discards and three lots with each bullet weighing within +/- 0.5 grains. Then I size/lube.

Is this process excessive? For most applications, yes. But, for me, it's part of the fun. FWIW.

[w5pv]

Dem critters don't know that they are ugly or the paper,can,or a spot on the log.

[4570guy]

It's all about the base! If the base is good then it will take a pretty major imperfection to screw up the trajectory. The base geometry is important because it affects potential for gas cutting and how symmetric the bullet exits the bore. On the nose - nose geometry sets the angle and position of the shock wave ahead of the bullet. Minor imperfections on the nose will have minimal impact on the shock geometry and therefore the aerodynamics of the bullet in flight. If the nose is severely damaged such that the nose geometry is significantly changed, then there will be an effect (such an imperfection would likely affect the weight too). Wrinkles won't affect the shock geometry or aerodynamics. Body imperfections matter even less unless they affect the weight or the base. The base is very important and should be perfect.

[MtGun44]

what dondiego said.