Lee 0.578 Minie Mold - Casting Tips

[RadarsRUs]

Brand new at this (second casting session) but I seem to have mastered the big .58 Minie casting technique to make great looking Minie balls in the Lee .578 mold.

Tried 1 1/2 sessions using bottom pour on Lee 4-20 but just couldnt get a propper looking / well-filled / sharp band edges, etc. using Rotometal pure lead.

Added 4 oz. of Tin solder (damn, that stuff's expensive!) to 15lbs. lead and got out the Rotometal 1.5oz. Ladel... Very small percentage Tin and should get alloy to just under 6 BHN (with 5 BHN being Pure Lead). Still very soft and fine for rifled musket performance.

Lead kept at about 775 temp. Loaded ladel nearly-full each time and poured Fast and Plentiful into spru hole with mold over pot to catch lots of overpour. Mold temp equal to lead as the spru-puddle ran off the top of the mold like water and back into pot. Could see lead kind of well-up out of spru hole for most of pour. Served to keep mold at near same temp as lead for big-bullet pour.
When cutting spru the effect was just a small button of lead-cone left filling only 1/2 of the spru hole.

Things in this operation obviously running at very high-heat, but bullets dropping bright, shiny, filled-out to sharp bands and uniform at .578 dia. Yowsa..!

Now know not to bother with the little lead spout on bottom for casting these big "Buicks"...

Hope helps someone who is having frustrating time casting large Minies.

[Yodogsandman]

It sure was frustrating until I figured that mold out! Your efforts just about mirror mine from years ago. Cast real hot with a ladle and add some tin to the Pb. I was so mad when it wouldn't shoot good from my M/L rifle!

So, does it shoot good for you?

[RadarsRUs]

I don't know yet...:-o I may try to burn some charcoal tomorrow and find out. Unfortunately, powder is 15 years old so not sure how good a reference I will get from it. Bullet does fit bore much better as used to shot with sized .575 traditional pre-mades.
I hope I see better predictability as, I'm sre like you, I have great expectations.
If accuracy sucks I will try to get Fresh Powder first, and if still lousy, will try on eof those Skirmishers' Target Bullet.
Barrel is about 1.5 Thou. over this new .578 bullet so much better than old 4.5 Thou. over previous.
Wish me luck with this old 1853 Enfield.

[Yodogsandman]

Good luck! 70gr FFG was best with mine (using the Lyman 505gr boolit).

[rsrocket1]

I use the Lee bottom pour 4-20 for the Sharpes .5" conical Minie's. The toughest part was to get the skirts to fill out. During my first two sessions, my success rate was about one good bullet out of 3-4 casts. Very frustration from a single cavity mold. On my latest session, I turned up the PID to 800F dipped the mold in the melt and cast very quickly to prevent the mold from cooling down. I got very good fillout of the bases and slowed down just enough to prevent excessively frosty bullets.
Here's a picture of them after ranch dipping them in 2:1 Beeswax/Vaseline. Now if only I can only find the right load to get them to shoot worth a darn in my inline :mad:
136290

[runfiverun]

when casting the big softies I use a 10 pound bottom pour and heat.
I pressure pour using the spout as a ladle funnel.
I open the spout and count to 5 then close it and open the mold close the mold and pressure pour again.
the heat and head pressure of the pot does the work for me and speeds things up.

[hcpookie]

Wow I just did this same thing this weekend! :) Turned my Lee pot up to the 7-8 setting for a mostly full to 2/3 full pot, and kept it topped off. I cast about 60 rounds total, and discarded about 20 of them. Dropped them in water, which seems to help for the most part. "Keep it hot" seems to be the key for those skirts. Be sure to inspect the base of the skirt... I found many with an air pocket there indicating it did get completely filled w/ lead.

[RadarsRUs]

OK...Back from the range! These new .578 bullets DO shoot much more predictably than the previous .575 traditional Minie in this musket.

It looks like the best load will be between 45 and 50 grains FFF Goex. The groups were printing about 3.5" - 3.75" at 50 yds. This is with not so much precision in pouring powder into a measure and then directly into muzzle. Don't have a nice cut-off measures and muzzle funnel.

Next musket trip to range will have more precision means of making and pouring charges. I'm very happy for first time shooting this Minie Ball and think there may be a little more "tightening-up" room left here yet...

Everybody stay well, SD