Help w/bullet deformities

[abcollector]

I'm trying to attach two pics of some bullets I cast that have deformities that I can't seem to get rid of. So, I'm asking for advise on what I am doing wrong and hopefully I'll be able to fix them.
Basically I have two problems that continue despite what I do. One is "impurities" that are cast into the bullet and two, more or less that same thing only it's more like discoloration's on the bullet. Hard to see that in the pics.
The alloy I'm using is either W/W or W/W/linotype and temp is ~ 725˚F.

Ideas?

Any casters live in the 91350/91390 area that could help me out?

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Looks like impurities/dirt/crud in metal that is causing surface voids on the boolit, or zinc contamination, or some trace of oil in mold. Working backward from oil, you can continue to cast and hope to burn it out, which would eventually work, but the quicker and better way is to thoroughly clean and reclean the mold blocks with a good sovent like acetone and a toothbrush and soak the blocks in it as well. As for zinc (the usual contaminant) thats a bigger problemo and a huge PITA. There are a couple of rituals possible....repeated fluxing and skimming of the dross while keeping the melt around 700 degrees so that the zinc tends to accumulate as dross at the top of the metal which then is skimmed and tossed, or diluting the melt by the addition of clean metal; the metal will eventually start to yield a higher number of good bullets....but this is a tedious way to drag out most of casting session. It too will, as the percentage of zinc drops, eventually work, altho its not fun, but definitely a better alternative (in the opinion of some casters) to tossing out the metal. As for the impurities/dirt/crud that requires draining the pot, scraping the sides and bottom of the pot to get as much garbage out of there as possible and then the metal when added again to the pot has to be well fluxed and whatever else floats to the surface must be skimmed until the melt is clean and yields good castings. Anyone who has been casting over the years has experienced these conditions at one time or another and had to deal with the wrinkles, the raisins, and sometimes other seemingly inexplainable symtoms of something wrong. Hope that this has helped. LLS

[454PB]

You took some very good pictures!

Yes, you have a lot of contamination in that alloy. A thorough fluxing will help, and I'm guessing this was done with a bottom draw pot that needs cleaning. Empty the pot and look down around the spout area, I think you'll find a bunch of dirt/crud gathered around it.

[leftiye]

There have been several threads about this inclusion problem lately. You might want to look them up.

My best guess (and it has worked for me with this same problem) is - First, ALWAYS stir with a hardwood dowel or stick. It will carry your fluxes on its surface down into the melt, and it is itself a flux. Just before first, empty your pot and scrape it very clean. This is about crud in your pot, get it out. Next, get a two pot system. Remelt your sprues and melt new ingots in a ladle-like pot (never throw sprues or other pieces of metal into your casting furnace. They will carry oxygen into the melt with them, and they create oxides as they melt) that you can flux, remove from the heat source and pour into (replenish as necessary) your casting furnace. Use a pot on a hot plate maybe. Flux with a good flux. About the best is stearic acid (Ivory soap or pure stearic acid flakes) and rosin. I use both at once. Thirdly, cover your metal with crushed charcoal (to keep oxygen away) in both pots. Keep it covered. Lastly, cast hotter. You'll probly melt a lot of that stuff at temps that produce a dull light frosting (not to be confused with badly frosted boolits), and a hotter mold will not allow it to freeze without melting in. Light frosting produces better filled out, more consistent size and weight boolits than the shiny boolit technique does.

[joeb33050]

There have been several threads about this inclusion problem lately. You might want to look them up.

My best guess (and it has worked for me with this same problem) is - First, ALWAYS stir with a hardwood dowel or stick. It will carry your fluxes on its surface down into the melt, and it is itself a flux. Just before first, empty your pot and scrape it very clean. This is about crud in your pot, get it out. Next, get a two pot system. Remelt your sprues and melt new ingots in a ladle-like pot (never throw sprues or other pieces of metal into your casting furnace. They will carry oxygen into the melt with them, and they create oxides as they melt) that you can flux, remove from the heat source and pour into (replenish as necessary) your casting furnace. Use a pot on a hot plate maybe. Flux with a good flux. About the best is stearic acid (Ivory soap or pure stearic acid flakes) and rosin. I use both at once. Thirdly, cover your metal with crushed charcoal (to keep oxygen away) in both pots. Keep it covered. Lastly, cast hotter. You'll probly melt a lot of that stuff at temps that produce a dull light frosting (not to be confused with badly frosted boolits), and a hotter mold will not allow it to freeze without melting in. Light frosting produces better filled out, more consistent size and weight boolits than the shiny boolit technique does.

I open the sprue plate and drop the sprue into the pot, open the mold and drop the bullet/s out; have been doing so since 1960. I flux seldom, frequently never in a casting session, start with clean ingots. For me, those sprues don't carry anything bad into the pot. Ladle, of course.
I clean new molds with hot water, dish soap and a tooth brush.
Those bullets look like they have debris in them. I'd set the pot up and flux and scrape and cast and throw the bullets back in the pot and get the metal clean. If it's debris, then I'd clean all the alloy I had.
joe b.
joe b.

[Linstrum]

If I had to take a guess I'd say that the mould has high temperature lubricating grease on it, try cleaning the molds again with a clean tooth brush and 99% isopropyl alcohol or other solvent that leaves no residue. A lot of problems can be solved by running a little hotter, too, what leftiye says about running a bit hot so they are just starting to get frosted is worthwhile to try.

As far as casting technique, I'm with joeb33050 as far as throwing the sprue cuttings directly back in the pot, I drop them back in as soon as they are cut off and I have never had a moments trouble with casting for doing it. I've been at it since 1964, including making my own molds. Lead, antimony, and tin do not oxidize all that quickly under 1100°F, they are actually pretty inert. That is not too say they won't oxidize, they will slowly, and is ONE of many reasons why we flux our metal. I flux very, very little as well, just skim the pot and use a little vaseline, sugar, sweet salt-free lard, pine pitch rosin (my favorite), paraffin or candle wax, even an old sandwich baggie, or saw dust, among many, many materials that all work great as fluxes.

I've never used a bottom pour pot so I don't know the vagaries of such a casting set up, but in the 44 years of casting I've never had anything that looks quite like the photos! I've had zinc problems, dirt problems, and you name it, but I've never seen anything quite like that. Is there anything inside the pockets?

The vast, vast, majority of problems I've had with mold fill out, voids, and such, are from inadequate venting. I cut plenty of vent lines and cut them plenty deep on the molds I make and re-cut all vent lines on all my purchased molds.

[WyrTwister]

I'm trying to attach two pics of some bullets I cast that have deformities that I can't seem to get rid of. So, I'm asking for advise on what I am doing wrong and hopefully I'll be able to fix them.
Basically I have two problems that continue despite what I do. One is "impurities" that are cast into the bullet and two, more or less that same thing only it's more like discoloration's on the bullet. Hard to see that in the pics.
The alloy I'm using is either W/W or W/W/linotype and temp is ~ 725˚F.

Ideas?

Any casters live in the 91350/91390 area that could help me out?



How do they shoot ?

I use tooth paste ( a very mild abrasive , an pld tooth brush and warm water to clean the mold .

I quit " smoking the mold " , but when I did I used a " propane match " .

God bless
Wyr

[SEF Sports]

I have been casting since 1966, and am also in the business of selling cast bullets. Your problem is dirt in the melt, and a melt that hasn't been fluxed very well. Fluxing also helps combine the metals in the melt. I have found the best thing to flux with is plain old candle wax. I cut pieces off an old candle with a knife. When you have about a table spoon full throw into the pot and stir like crazy, scraping the sides of the pot to loosen everything up. I use an old metal table spoon with a small wooden handle attached. When stiring push the wax down into the melt now and then. The draw back to this is the smoke the wax gives off. Do it where this won't be a problem. You can also light the wax with a match the burning wax won't smoke as much. Just stir real well and as the wax burns away the dirt will be floating on top. Skim off the dirt. Do this as often as nessary, but I have found that just one or two good fluxings are all you need to clean up a pot of melt.

[bigborefan]

abcoolector, I've posted pictures on the thread below which I believe is the same problem.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=28440
Check out the pictures and see if they are similar. The only way that I could cast good bullets were with the ladle. My picture shows a ladle cast on the right with bootom pour on left. Have you tried ladle casting with this bullet? I have done everything possible to try and remedy this with no success. I've used every different type of flux plus stirred with a large spoon, wood stick and also use a large soup ladle to bring the lead from the bottom to the top to make sure that the fluxing is a thorough operation. I've fluxed for as long as 5 minutes and have evben tried no fluxing. I've let the fluxed lead sit for 20 minutes before starting to cast. Nothing works. It's not the alloy either. I have cast wit everything from Linotype to pure lead with a little tin. Always ends up the same. I even bead blasted my pot and brushed on moul;d prep as someone suggested in the other thread. Still no success. It have come the conclusion that ladling is my only way of casting anything close to quality bullets.

[felix]

For some molds I have resorted to overflowing the sprue area dramatically to get good bottom pour fillout. I have never seen a mold that will not work when being intentionally sloppy. Just the opposite sometimes, because the mold gets too hot too quickly with such overflow. Just turn the heat down, but do keep up the pressure on the sprue plate. If the sprue plate is not covered with lead, then perhaps you are not sloppy enough. Worth a try until you get a handle on what that particular mold requires. ... felix

[44man]

That is NOT temperature, a dirty mold or anything other then CRUD at the bottom pour. Switch to a good ladle and get over it! :mrgreen:

[runfiverun]

that is just plain old dirt in the lead
i would re-melt in cast iron pots and flux it all there first
then remelt and cast again, if still a problem, then ladle pour

[chevyiron420]

this is the exact same problem i had. my boolits looked the same, but i couldnt post pictures. i went thru the same things as bigborefan and came to the exact same conclusion. as soon as i got the dipper out my problems went away, and i made nice boolits. i also found the problem is worse with lee molds. useing a good lyman mold i can cast better boolits with the bottom pour, not perfect, but exceptable. because of this i believe trapped gas is the cause. if you notice, there is never any debris in the bubbles, or rarely. i found i could improve the condition by keeping the mold about 1\8 to 1\4 from the spout so the spru would pile up and touch. then hold still untill the spru was almost hard. also the pour rate kept to a medium\slow helped. as it got better the defects would move toward the base of the boolit. the best i could do was about 30% reject rate because of bubbles like that in the bases. some folks may have thought they were ok, i dont know. i dont have a thermomiter but on my lee pot i found that a setting of 6-61\2 casted the best with WW.--phil:castmine:

[AZ-Stew]

You have "dirty" alloy in your pot. The "dirt" is unwanted metals that are probably oxidized and likely will not re-combine with the desirable alloy, even when fluxed.

Stir the pot gently with a spoon larger than a teaspoon, but smaller than a garden trowel, being sure to thoroughly scrape the sides and bottom of the pot. Frequently skim the floating gray trash metal off the top of the melt and discard it into a suitable metal container until it cools. Continue stirring, scraping the pot and skimming the top of the melt until you can't get any more of the stuff to come to the surface. Then you should be good-to-go.

There's nothing wrong with your mould. Counting from the left in your photos, boolits 1, 2 and 4 appear to have been cast at just about the correct temperature, while #3 doesn't appear to be completely filled out, indicating either mould not up to temp, or possibly spout flow just a little too slow. I'll lean toward the cool mould, since the other three appear to be completely filled.

Your biggest problem seems to be dirty alloy. Clean it up and I think you'll be in business.

Regards,

Stew

[joeb33050]

that is just plain old dirt in the lead
i would re-melt in cast iron pots and flux it all there first
then remelt and cast again, if still a problem, then ladle pour

It has been my experience that ladle-cast bullets are much more accurate, and ladle-casters are much nicer than bottom-pourers.
joe b.

[BABore]

Do a simple test on your current pot of questionable alloy. Heat it up to casting temperature, then skim the top until you get a nice shiny surface. Now, using a clean slotted spoon, stir the pot, scrapping the sides and bottom. Lift the spoon straight up. Does it pull up and deposit a pile of light black/brown dust on top? If it does, it's dirt.

Re-smelt all your ingots in a (separate) clean pot and flux well. After skimming the initial crud off, stir and scrap the melt constantly lifting the slotted spoon straight up. When you no longer see dust/dirt, flux again then pour into ingots. Clean your casting pot well and give it another go.

I have seen your bullet condition (not near as bad though) when using too much tin in an antimonial alloy. Unlikely in your alloy as your not adding any extra to the WW/lino.

Oh yeah! Ladle casters are a much more down-to-earth bunch.

[leftiye]

It has been my experience that ladle-cast bullets are much more accurate, and ladle-casters are much nicer than bottom-pourers.
joe b.

Yeah, all you nasty bottom pourers! Having room in the sprue hole for gas to escape past the incoming stream might help. You might even benefit from opening up the sprue hole some. Developing a technuque (nuke?) that doesn't splash lead around in the mold is another approach (large stream, low speed ?). Opening up or cleaning the vent lines obviously should be a move in the right direction. But there IS crap in them there voids, that's why they're called inclusions.

Babore's post shows why melting sprues, and additional metal in a separate pot prior th replenishing your casting furnace works. It's another smelting in effect.

[Lloyd Smale]

no matter what type of casting you prefer you still have to occasionaly clean your pot. Ive allways used a wire wheel on a drill and some scapers but Lumpie here said to try a mix of cider viniger and peroxide so the old lady just picked some up and im going to give it a try when i get the time.

[abcollector]

Wow! Thanks for all the replies.
Yes, the melting pot is a Lee bottom pour one (that drips too). There is crud (raisins is a good description of the crud- thanks LLS). And yes, there's foreign material in them.
I will go back and re-flux the ingots, clean the Lee pot and try again. I need to get this down.

Thanks again.

[44man]

The amount of crap in the bottom always amazed me. Stuff is supposed to float! :confused: I scrape and flux and everytime more crap comes up. When I dump the alloy for a change, the last bit out of the pot is more crap. I clean and refill with a clean alloy and the crap is back.
The stuff gets in the bottom pour spout and you can clean out most with a wire or letting it run for a while but it forms so fast I gave up and plugged the spout.
I don't know what the stuff is, some contaminant burning away maybe. Why it is heavier then lead is the part I don't understand.
I have run the pot down low, stirred and scraped with a stick, cleaned the surface and dumped the rest into an ingot mold only to find more junk on the bottom???????????? It is like black dust.

[BABore]

It's just plain old dirt that's super fine. It'll suspend in the melt and the only way to get it (mostly) all out is to to the stir and lift thing I mentioned above. My casting pot is 1/4" wall stainless and holds over 40 lbs of alloy (homemade lathe turned). When I change alloys it almost perfectly clean. It wasn't before I took my time smelting.

After I skim my clips and trash on a batch of WW's, I flux well with sawdust and motor oil. Then I do the stir, scrape, and lift thing, Sometimes for as long as 15 minutes on one 100 lb batch. When the dust no longer comes up, I flux again. I will even be anal and check it once more to make sure the dirt will no longer come up. Then it's ingot time.

I always thought I was doing a good job when I first started, but I occasionally ended up with inclusions like the original poster shows. Couldn't figure out where the dirt was coming from until I re-smelted a batch of ingots. I fluxed and stirred the PI-is out of it only to get a little bit of dirt that floated atop the oxidized metal. I had to stop stirring once to wipe the brow. My spoon was standing straight up in the middle of the pot. I lifted it straight up and holy crap Batman! It seems that a horizontal motion won't get the fine dirt to rise up easily. Vertical action does.

I like to really take my time on smelting and be absolutely sure I get everything possible out of it. It's a hot, nasty job that you would prefer to get done with ASAP. But, look what rushing will cost you in time later on.

[runfiverun]

you know a lot of tire shops send their ww's back to the manufacturer
i wonder if they clean them before re-casting.
i would suspect that black dust is brake dust.
i also wonder if the inclusion thing is caused by slick sided pots, as i have seen a lot of
it caught in my cast iron pots when smelting, have got so i completly empty
each pot out and dump the dust out of the bottom

[leftiye]

44 man is right. This crap (good term for it IMHO) has to be forming in the pot. One needs to consider just how this is possible. Just about the only possibility is that something in the alloy is combining with something else in a chemical reaction. About the only things available to combine with are the flux, and the air (here's a clue - it ain't the flux). Seems to me this should be recognized as one of the issues which must be dealt with by casters.

Ba Bore's vertical spoon technique also should be a good idea regardless of what it is or how its formed.

[Shuz]

abcollector--I had soom boolits given to me that looked exactly like yours except they we .44 caliber. Musta been 20 lbs worth! Well, I put them in a bottom draw Lyman 20 pound pot and fluxed the heck out of the melt with a little Marvelux at about 750 degrees, all the while the top was covered with kitty litter. The crud floated to the top and mixed with the kitty litter and the boolits I cast were perfect, with no dirt or inclusions. The mould I was using was a recently modified Lyman 4C 429215 that had the gas check groove machined out. I was anxious to see how close the boolits were in weight and dimensions. There was only .2g difference in weight amongst the 4 cavities, and the diameters were within .001 roundness! That outta formerly "contaminated" alloy! In my experience, Marvelux flux, used with kitty litter on top of the melt, allows me to cast nearly perfect boolits and keeps the sides of my pot clean as a whistle.

[44man]

That would be the secret for the bottom pour, exclude ALL oxygen from the surface.
Since I ladle cast and need to work at the surface, I can't do that.
The crap must be being formed at the surface and some of it sinks to the bottom. Why is the question since there is not much in the pot heavier then lead if there is anything at all.
It is one of those voodoo things, someone is sticking pins in a lead pot! :mrgreen:

[HORNET]

44man, I asked about that heavy black dust a while back an was told it was probably lead di-oxide. I've thought about saving a bunch and peddling it to the local benchresters as extra-heavy sand for their sandbags...

[jhalcott]

I always thought that the "dirt" got into the casting pot by melting the wheel weights in it. Once it's there it is near impossible to get it out. I use a separate gas fired pot to smelt the WW's and make batches of alloy and ingots. Using the dripolater Lee for casting bullets. I clean the Lee pots about once a week or so. I throw the sprue's back in the pot often. I flux with each refill of the casting pot.I do have as much luck with the bottom pour as I do with a dipper. I get a lot more bullets per hour with the Lee pot than the dipper though.!

[willwork4ww]

I'm with BABore. I used to have inclusions like that and I know people who still do. My problems went away when I started fluxing the bejesus out of my ww pot prior to pouring ingots. Now I just flux the pot one time after it heats up and go to casting. I dump my sprues back in periodically and never reflux. I bottom pour from a Magma furnace and never cover the melt with an oxygen barrier. No worries. My casting buddy doesn't flux his ingot melt at all and his pot will build dirt up on top of the melt to the point of overflowing. All sorts of inclusions, yet I still haven't convinced him of the necessity of thorough fluxing during his smelting operation. :roll:

[John Boy]

First, ALWAYS stir with a hardwood dowel or stick.
+ 1 for the stick - a wood paint stirrer split in half. Scrap the bottom and sides of the pot with the stick and a good swirling. Black dross will float to the top and spoon it off ... say good bye to contaminated lead and hello to good bullets!

[Duckiller]

I am one of those nasty, antisocial bottom pourers. If I couldn't use my bottom pour pot I couldn't cast boolits. My Gun Show special ladle freezes up before I can cast a single boolit. However when it comes to ingots I am a soup ladle pourer. You NEED clean ingots. Melt diry oily wheel weights in a seperate pot,cast iron is great. Then flux and stir until the melt is CLEAN. Clean ingots yield clean boolits reguardless of how you cast. Like WW4WW flux and reflux your ingot pot until you think the melt is completely clean. Sawdust and wood sticks work good.