stubbicatt
08-21-2015, 07:34 AM
Guys, received my 32-40 mould yesterday. It is a 200 grain Pope style bullet, mould by Saeco. I've always been happy with Saeco moulds. I had strange fill issues with it however, with an estimated 75% of the bullets cast having voids in the base band. Not sure what is causing this. I should have kept a few to photograph, but I dropped them back into the melt as they were discovered upon casting. Some too had overly large base bands, measuring .324", while most were right at .323".
Otherwise nice shiny well filled bullets. I am puzzled about this base band under fill/ over fill issue. Any ideas?
Just for grins I'm going to take another run at it, and clean the mould again before trying. I had smoked the cavities with a wooden match rather than using spray mould release. I haven't been all that impressed with the mould release, which I find sort of hit or miss in application... sometimes you get too much.
ETA: Only thing I can think of is I touched a piece of wax to the pivot screw, perhaps some migrated to the cavity? I just cleaned them really good and got some sort of blackened residue from the mould half that had been giving me issues, but it is the cavity without the sprueplate pivot. Oh well. Perhaps I didn't get all the preservative out of that one upon receipt. Mysteries galore. :)
Otherwise nice shiny well filled bullets. I am puzzled about this base band under fill/ over fill issue. Any ideas?
Just for grins I'm going to take another run at it, and clean the mould again before trying. I had smoked the cavities with a wooden match rather than using spray mould release. I haven't been all that impressed with the mould release, which I find sort of hit or miss in application... sometimes you get too much.
ETA: Only thing I can think of is I touched a piece of wax to the pivot screw, perhaps some migrated to the cavity? I just cleaned them really good and got some sort of blackened residue from the mould half that had been giving me issues, but it is the cavity without the sprueplate pivot. Oh well. Perhaps I didn't get all the preservative out of that one upon receipt. Mysteries galore. :)