First Ever Casting

[49FMarlin]

A friend loaned me his C309-113F mold


so i did my first casting ever this morning,


Lyman #2 lead
water dropped,


the pot is a Used Lee Pro 4-20 i got for 20.00 but has no knob, so i had it turned up on high,,


where should it be for casting? mid? 3/4? high?


opinions welcome as I'm a newwbee and want to learn
john

[Mk42gunner]

Those look a lot better than my first casting attempt.

Most Lee pots are slightly different as to where the dial needs to be. If you left at least a half full pot, I would adjust the dial to slightly less than halfway on a cold pot then see if it will fully liquefy the alloy within about thirty minutes. If not, increase the dial a small amount, you only need about 50-100 degrees over liquid for good casting. It has been a few years since I used my 4-20, but it seems like I ran it at about 5½ or 6 with wheel weight alloy.

I also don't think you need to water drop, but if it works for you, okay.

Robert

[runfiverun]

those in the top right corner need to go back in the pot.

you are looking for sharp corners and well filled out square bases on your boolits.
how you get there isn't the important part.
you can try to zoom into a 'zone' but all this does is give you a place to target from session to session, and doesn't mean a whole lot.
trying to gauge where to set a temperature of an alloy by using a LEE dial is like farting in the wind.
your dial and my dial are gonna be different temps at the same setting.

[mongoose33]

You need a thermometer. The dial is useless for determining temp.

I cast at 700 degrees.

[Yodogsandman]

Congratulations! You'll get the temperature right with a little foolin around with your no knob nub. The lead and mold temperature should cause the sprue puddle to "set" and change to a duller color in about 5 seconds. If you don't use a hot plate, heat the mold up by casting as fast as you can without looking at the boolits too much. Just watch for when they start to get a frosted look to them. Leave a big sprue puddle while doing this to heat up the sprue plate, too. When you see them start to frost over, cut back a little on your timing/cadence and they'll start coming out perfect.

[pworley1]

Those are good for a first try, very shootable. I have used my Lee pot so long the dial is no longer readable. What I usually do is turn the heat up until the bullets begin to get frosty and then very gradually turn it down until the frost goes away. By the way there is nothing wrong with frosty bullets, I just like mine shinny.