seaboltm
12-30-2015, 02:58 PM
I received my Oreo/MiHec 10mm mold this summer. It was the group buy with 3 pin sets. 4 cavity brass mold. Texas is hot, plus I moved this summer, so I just got around to using the mold today.
First, I have only been casting for a couple of years. I started with a Lyman pot and ladle and used Lee molds. I had some success, and some failures. I then upgraded to a Lee ProMelt 20. So for this pour session I did several things different:
1. I did more mold prep. I used brake cleaner and thoroughly degreased the mold. I then carefully lubed the pins and sprue plate.
2. I bought a hot plate to pre-heat the mold. Wal-Mart, $10. Money well spent.
3. I bought a thermometer. More on that in a moment.
I fired up the furnace and got it to the temperature I normally cast at, except this time I used a thermometer: 900 degrees! No wonder I tore up several sets of Lee molds. I backed the temperature to 800 degrees and did pour one. As I expected, even using the hot plate my first pour had bad fill out. By the time I had filled the mold three times, I was rewarded with near perfect boolits! I got perfect pours after that until the last pour. I decided to experiment with temperature in the middle of the session. Things started to get sluggish at 750 degrees. Boolits were OK. I discovered that this setup worked good at 775 to 800 degrees. Maybe I am just too slow. But for my pace and the huge brass mold, that was the temperature that worked.
Results: with the flat nose pins installed I got 226 grain boolits measuring .402.
Very impressed with the mold and pleased with the results.
Forgot to mention, alloy was WW, or at least thats what I was told it was.
First, I have only been casting for a couple of years. I started with a Lyman pot and ladle and used Lee molds. I had some success, and some failures. I then upgraded to a Lee ProMelt 20. So for this pour session I did several things different:
1. I did more mold prep. I used brake cleaner and thoroughly degreased the mold. I then carefully lubed the pins and sprue plate.
2. I bought a hot plate to pre-heat the mold. Wal-Mart, $10. Money well spent.
3. I bought a thermometer. More on that in a moment.
I fired up the furnace and got it to the temperature I normally cast at, except this time I used a thermometer: 900 degrees! No wonder I tore up several sets of Lee molds. I backed the temperature to 800 degrees and did pour one. As I expected, even using the hot plate my first pour had bad fill out. By the time I had filled the mold three times, I was rewarded with near perfect boolits! I got perfect pours after that until the last pour. I decided to experiment with temperature in the middle of the session. Things started to get sluggish at 750 degrees. Boolits were OK. I discovered that this setup worked good at 775 to 800 degrees. Maybe I am just too slow. But for my pace and the huge brass mold, that was the temperature that worked.
Results: with the flat nose pins installed I got 226 grain boolits measuring .402.
Very impressed with the mold and pleased with the results.
Forgot to mention, alloy was WW, or at least thats what I was told it was.