NOE 360-180 WFN-GC Round Two

[Viper225]

Earlier in the week I did the Soap & Water wash with a Toothbrush. I Heat Cycles the mold on a Hot Plate 3 times. I smoked the cavities with a Bic Lighter, and then made a couple pour, and then Lubed the Sprue Plate with Husky 2-Cycle oil. Casting Day One I did not get my lead hot enough, and had lots of wrinkles. I pitched the entire batch of bullets back in the pot to remelt.
Friday I fired off the lead pot for a second try. This time I hunted down my Lyman Casting Thermometer. I smoked the cavities again, heated up the mold on the electric hot plate on a circle saw blade with an oven thermometer. When the pot got up to 700 deg. I started casting. I cast .358 bullets for a while, switches to a Lee 2-Cavity mold casting .312/155 gr bullets for the Blackout, then a few .429/310 gr bullets from a Mountain Mold. Then I was back to casting a second batch of the .358/180's.

The first batch of .358/180's had the vast majority of non keepers. The second run was much better. I ended up with 304 Keepers Total, 6 rejected with rounded bases that were not cleanly filled out, and 23 that looked to have small spots of trash in them. The First 200 bullets I inspected ( In the top of the bowl) only had 4 that I rejected. The other 25 rejects were in the bottom of the bowl with the first 104 keepers cast. I was pretty happy with the second day of casting with this mold.
I should get another day or two to cast next week. I am guessing my rate of keepers will be even better.

Bob R

[Tailhunter]

Is your mold aluminium?
Run it in the 430/440 range and the bullets will start to drop perfect. I find that I don't even need to smoke it, they just drop out. I keep my lead in the 700 degree range.

Mine is a 4 cavity aluminum. These bullets shoot great in my .357 Marlin.

[Tenbender]

I would buy the 360 180 FN gc mold if your not happy. I would like to have one for my Max. :popcorn:

[runfiverun]

leave the carbon out next time.
your blocking the mold cavity's from getting an oxide layer that will make it cast better and better as you get more heat cycles on it.

[Bzcraig]

leave the carbon out next time.
your blocking the mold cavity's from getting an oxide layer that will make it cast better and better as you get more heat cycles on it.

What he said! Smoking the mold is of no real value.

[Viper225]

TailHunter it is an Aluminum 5 Cavity 360-180 WFN-GC on all 5 holes. I am using a set of new Lee 6-cavity handles on it.

I think most of the rejects were due to some trash dropping in the mold from the outside of my ladle when I was starting to fill the mold. I noticed some material wanting to stick to the outside of the ladle. I may need to give it a good wire brushing.

I am happy with the mold so far. Casting 304 keepers with 6 not having crisp edges on the base is not bad at all. The bullets were falling out really nicely on all 4 bullet molds I used. The 360-180 had the second cavity sticking just a little to start with, then they started to tumble out of all 5 cavities very impressively.

After casting mostly .429/310 grain and .476/375 grain bullets the .358/180's sure look dinky.

After I finished with the .358/180's I reloaded the pot and cranked up the heat. While I was waiting to get the alloy back up to temperature I took the handles lose on both of my Mountain Molds, and turned them around so the sprue plate nose was off the front end. It seemed to open better this way. I ended up running my alloy up to 800 degrees. I started backing down the gas pressure to get back to 700 degrees, and started casting my .476/375's as it was cooling back down. I dropped the first 2 bullets in the sprue pile, but they really looked like keepers. I ended up casting 96 more bullets, and every one was a keeper. From 800 down to 700 I was getting frosted bullets.
I was casting at pretty well dead on 700 degrees until I refilled the pot and did not get a frosted bullet. The last .476/375's were still frosty when I got down to 700. I was surprised about that. I am wondering if 700 degrees on my thermometer is pretty close to frosted temperature. The big bullets might have been keeping the mold temperature higher than the smaller ones causing them to still frost at 700.

I was also using a new Lee 2-Cavity .312/155 grain. I was totally surprised with how well it worked. I only cast around 50 bullets with it. No sticking at all. Perfect bullets pretty much from the start. A year ago I might not have taken a Lee 2-Cavity as a gift. After using this NEW MODEL Lee 2-Cavity I may buy a couple more to play with. The new .358/200 grain, and a .452/300 grain are a couple I will probably try out.

I also cast a few .429/310 grain bullets using my Mountain Mold. Mainly to get some sprue plate lube on the mold. My hot plate was cycling up and down between 200 and a little over 300 degrees. I probably did not have the mold up to as hot a temperature as was ideal. The first couple pours were not perfectly filled out on the base. After that they were all keepers as the mold temperature came up.

I will have a couple days next week that I can do some casting. I think I will spend a few minutes wire brushing the rust off of my Ladle before I start again.

Bob R