jamesp81
04-10-2017, 12:14 PM
As mentioned in another thread, I did some lapping of a mold that was dropping undersize bullets, which worked reasonably well. I left my lapping tool in a bucket of water I was water dropping bullets into. When I came back to these bullets a day later, having let them dry, there was a good bit of powdery looking stuff on them, the grinding compound I assume.
Didn't think much of it beyond that the bullets were scrapped, so I threw them all back into the pot along with my used lapping tool and remelted them. Then it occurred to me that this might not be a good thing. I don't really want grinding compound in my bullets scouring the rifling out of my barrel. With that in mind, I fluxed my melt, a lot, and skimmed it. A lot. FWIW and in case it matters, I'm fluxing with wooden paint stirring sticks.
I poured bullets with this melt into my recently lapped mold. I guess they are ok, but it's kind of hard to tell. The bullets are somewhat textured because my Leementing is not complete, the cavities still don't have a super smooth finish. I'll do some casting with this batch of melt into one of my very smooth 357 molds to see if it still comes out looking textured, but I guess my question is, how big of a concern is this really? Will skimming and fluxing take care of the lapping compound like it would any other impurity?
Didn't think much of it beyond that the bullets were scrapped, so I threw them all back into the pot along with my used lapping tool and remelted them. Then it occurred to me that this might not be a good thing. I don't really want grinding compound in my bullets scouring the rifling out of my barrel. With that in mind, I fluxed my melt, a lot, and skimmed it. A lot. FWIW and in case it matters, I'm fluxing with wooden paint stirring sticks.
I poured bullets with this melt into my recently lapped mold. I guess they are ok, but it's kind of hard to tell. The bullets are somewhat textured because my Leementing is not complete, the cavities still don't have a super smooth finish. I'll do some casting with this batch of melt into one of my very smooth 357 molds to see if it still comes out looking textured, but I guess my question is, how big of a concern is this really? Will skimming and fluxing take care of the lapping compound like it would any other impurity?