Ranch Dog TLC460-425RF...First cast and questions.

[crgaston]

I did my first smelt and cast today...wheelweights smelted in a turkey fryer, then cast in a Lee 4-20 bottom pour. Overall it went pretty well...got about 80 good bullets and five for setting up my dies. Figured I'd start small.

Couple of questions though...

1. I was getting some orange-ish rust-looking crud on the top of my melt in the Lee. Looked like it was coming off the sides of the pot. Is it really rusting that fast???

2. My bullets are thumbnail soft. Did I skim off my tin? When I was sifting out the steel clips in the smelt, there was all this dark charcoal-looking stuff on top of the melt. I assumed it was dirt from the nasty ww and skimmed most of it. They were air-cooled, BTW.

3. The mold worked great, I think. It only took a few casts to start making good-looking filled out bullets, although about half of them are frosty on the tumble-lube bands only, and only in a small area of them. What's causing that? Is it a problem?

4. Sometimes both bullets would drop right out. Sometimes they would take several whacks on the hinge pin. Is this a timing issue? I tried varying the time to open the mould and didn't detect a pattern, but I didn't cast that many bullets, either, so ??? The mould is unmodified at this point. A Lee-menting may be in order.

5. Also, the bullets appear to be slightly out-of-round by about .003-.004, and not along the mould line or perpendicular to it, so it's closing fine.

6. Has anyone ever had Lee remove the gas check shank from an RD mould? I asked Lee and they said it would be no problem. I'm thinking that at .45-70 pressures a gas check might just be extra work. If anyone has prior experience with this I'd love to hear about it. If I'm going to Lee-ment, should I wait until after it's modified?

7. What is the deal with solder these days??? I went to several places looking for 50/50 and found none. It was all lead-free. Is lead-free solder a decent source of tin? Do the bismuth or silver have any negative effects?

Lastly, anyone got any load reccommendations? I've got Accurate XMR 2015, IMR4895, and H322, and I'm loading these for a Marlin 1895. Not looking for mega-loads...I'm thinking 1500-1700fps will be plenty.


Thanks in advance to anyone who has enough free time to answer,

Charles

[runfiverun]

i kan help with some of these and i am sure others will also
1. possibly did you clean it?
2. flux and them skim after getting the clips out a large magnet is good for this.
3. you probably need to clean that area just abit more, or wait a bit longer to open the mold
4-5. would see how they size firdt, and you may need to wait a bit longer before opening mold
6.i would try it with the g/c first. and then wait to lement it as they may use a cherry to open the mold up.
7.lead free solder is like 95% tin antimony and bismuth are good but there isn't enough
in the solder to matter unless you add about 10% tin
hope this helps...

[35remington]

You did flux the melt?

Tin doesn't gravity segregate. You didn't lose any; it forms a solution with the lead.

Watch your mould temperature. Whether two or six cavity, there is a lot of lead in a little aluminum mould. It heats up fast and stays hot. Experiment with mould temperature and cooling to find out the optimum rate of production to avoid frosted spots and irregular areas. You may find a fan blowing across the mould and cool days are most favorable to cast these heavy bullets. Alternatively, you may use a wet sponge to draw off some BTU's to keep the mould at a more constant lower temperature. Aluminum doesn't have issues with so doing.

Your WW lead requires a coupla three weeks to get back up to its previous hardness after being cast.

I wouldn't worry about the bullets dropping out save for looking at the cavities with a 5X magnifier to see if a few burrs remain.

I would not remove the gascheck shank. This is a high performance bullet, and you spent good coin to get this mould, so that means a gascheck. Think of it as a full power bullet, and yes the 45-70 needs the check on the warmer 14-1500 fps + loads. Yes, checks are expensive anymore but so is lead.

If you need a larger diameter 45-70 bullet in plainbase for cheaper shooting consider another mould that is known to cast to a larger diameter, like Lee's 405 hollowbase.

[Ranch Dog]

I missed this but it is easy for me to do with my work load as of late but it looks like 35remington covered it well.

Be sure the mold is clean. I use Coleman fuel and a toothbrush. There are a lot of little ridges among the Micro-Bands®.

To me, it sounds as though your alloy wasn't ready. Stir and flux and do it again! If you are scraping the sides of your pot and this discolored material is appearing (as in 1 and 2 above), your alloy isn't ready and still contains contaminates. The absence of tin in the alloy is easily answered by fill-out, band definition depends on it.

I'm really against Lee-menting the cavities. A lot of work was done to insure this bullet fits the chamber of the Marlin 1895. Any polishing of the cavities will increase their diameter and possibly the bullet will no longer chamber. Get your alloy right first and if the bullets still are hanging up, lightly drag an Exacto knife with the blade trailing along the outline of each mold half. In that the poor release was coming in cycles, it might be caused by a lack of carbon. Smoke the mold with a match or lighter stick. The discoloring in the band area causes me to think this is a possibility and that there isn't a good covering of carbon in the band area.

The out of round still makes me think of the alloy not being ready. As 35remington said, this is a huge chuck of lead and care must be taken with it. You did mention timing the release of bullets from the mold and this is important, more some with air cooling. It is very easy to get bent bullets or dings as this big bruiser stays hot a long time.

Check or plain base... is up to you. Eventually I would like to offer some of the RD designs as plain base bullets. I see pressure curves rather than velocity limits. It takes a big bump of pressure to get this bullet moving.

[leftiye]

STIR WITH A STICK! Nuthin else works near as well. It is a fluxing agent too itself. Also, consider casting hotter, a light frosting will give you better fillout, and better weight constancy. If you aren't making a puddle on top of the sprue plate after the pours, do so. You need extra molten lead there to feed (boolit to draw lead from) the voids that would form if you didn't have the extra lead. Sprues should stay molten for a while after the pour.

[crgaston]

Thanks for all the advice, guys. The bullets are well-filled out, so I guess there's plenty of tin.

I stirred with a stick for smelting, but not for casting. I just threw in a little chunk of birthday candle every now and then. The orange stuff didn't show up while I was smelting in the stainless pot, just when it was in the Lee melter.

By "not ready", do you mean I needed to have smelted longer? Just keep stirring and skimming?

Looking at the Lee pressure/hardness chart, I will keep the GC on this one. Found the load data on your site, RanchDog, for H4895.

I'll try again soon and let y'all know how it goes.

Thanks again,