115 grain 9mm pouring @ 94 grains?

[Funkmasterphat]

Hey everyone, I’m loving all the information here. Thank you!

I have a question though. I have a RCBS 82026 115gr 9mm mould and I poured 350 yesterday and weighed 5 of them today and they all came out between 94.1-94.7. Is this because of my mixture? I don’t know what it is because I got the lead from a buddy.

What can I add to it to make it closer to the 115gr? I don’t know how I’d load for 94gr so I’m not sure if I have to melt these back down and start again or not.

Thank you for your help

[Rcmaveric]

The harder the leader the lighter the bullet.

Hotter the melt and mold then the heavier the bullet.

Normally those deviations aren't that drastic.

Never seen them that far off unless the mold is miss marked. I have a Lee mold for 308 RFbullet marked for 150g but drops a 180g. It was miss labeled.

If it's a Lee mold take a look at their bullet mold chart to see if you got a miss marked mold.

You can still use those bullets.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

[Muddydogs]

Probably your lead, could be pot and or mold temp. Cold mold and or pot tends to cast light bullets, what temp are you running your pot at.

Hard to say on your lead mix not knowing anything about it. Does it appear to be dead soft, can you mark it with a finger nail? Or does it take a knife blade point and some muscle to mark it?

Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook has loads for 90 and 102 grain cast bullets so with a little extrapolation and load work up a load for a 95 grain bullet is no issue.

[Funkmasterphat]

The harder the leader the lighter the bullet.

Hotter the melt and mold then the heavier the bullet.

Normally those deviations aren't that drastic.

Never seen them that far off unless the mold is miss marked. I have a Lee mold for 308 RFbullet marked for 150g but drops a 180g. It was miss labeled.

If it's a Lee mold take a look at their bullet mold chart to see if you got a miss marked mold.

You can still use those bullets.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

It is a RCBS 2 cavity mould. I’m going to try to turn up the heat a bit then make sure I have a generous sprue because I know that it can pull from that when it is cooling

[tomme boy]

Sounds like 50-50 lead/zinc

[Funkmasterphat]

Probably your lead, could be pot and or mold temp. Cold mold and or pot tends to cast light bullets, what temp are you running your pot at.

Hard to say on your lead mix not knowing anything about it. Does it appear to be dead soft, can you mark it with a finger nail? Or does it take a knife blade point and some muscle to mark it?

Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook has loads for 90 and 102 grain cast bullets so with a little extrapolation and load work up a load for a 95 grain bullet is no issue.

I can’t cut a groove into them with my finger nail but can with a knife and a little muscle. My lee pot is set to 7 but not sure the temp because I still need to get a thermometer for it. I will try to play with the setting on it and turn it up a bit then make sure my mold is nice and hot as well. I usually set it on top of the pot to warm it but may not leave it on long enough.

[BK7saum]

You may have linotype or monotype alloy. That's why they are so hard and lighter than spec.

[Muddydogs]

I can’t cut a groove into them with my finger nail but can with a knife and a little muscle. My lee pot is set to 7 but not sure the temp because I still need to get a thermometer for it. I will try to play with the setting on it and turn it up a bit then make sure my mold is nice and hot as well. I usually set it on top of the pot to warm it but may not leave it on long enough.

You really need a thermometer. With my Lee pots if set on 12 the lead will be about 900 degrees, 7 will hold around 750 until everything gets nice and hot then 3 or 4 is about 750. But the dial on the post means very little as yours might be different and depending on the makeup of your lead it might take more or less heat to get it up to temp. Molds take a while to heat up and lose heat quickly, without knowing what your pot temp is makes it very hard to even make a guess at what your mold temp is. If you are turning on your pot and setting it on 7 I would say your lead is cold unless your letting your pot warm up for an hour plus. It takes my pot about 1/2 hour to hit 700 degrees when set on 12, once it hits 700 I best be turning it down or I will overshoot my temp by a 100 degrees in about 5 minutes.

The lead "sucked" in from the sprue is minuscule at best, basically its the extra weight that can help fill out kind of. The size of the sprue can effect mold temp more then anything, if my mold is running cold I will pour a couple cycles with larger sprue's to bring the mold temp back up but when my mold is up to temp and running well my sprue is usually on the smaller size. From what I can tell when weighting bullets sprue size does little to nothing to bullet weight.

[Winger Ed.]

I’m not sure if I have to melt these back down and start again or not.

Not so fast.
Don't make extra work for yourself--- plenty of other people are more than glad to do that for ya.

I'd shoot 'em, and see how they do.

The weight thing is what the mold maker drops from them with their exact, specified, laboratory controlled, alloy.
Your mileage will vary.

[Rcmaveric]

That's the thing with molds. Cast with it. Your style and alloy dictates your average weight. A consistent average weight is more important than getting the weight marked on the mold.

If you have an average deviation of 1% or less on your lot of bullets then you are doing great at casting. Shoot those bullets.

I think RCBS molds are tuned for Lyman 2 alloy. It will tell you on their website.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

[fredj338]

Could be high tin alloy or if casting really hot, zinc.

[Rcmaveric]

Sounds like 50-50 lead/zincLol, but not possible. Max Zinc that will go into a lead alloy is 3%. The rest of the zinc would float. It sounds like his friend gave him some super hard alloy to cast with.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

[Funkmasterphat]

That's the thing with molds. Cast with it. Your style and alloy dictates your average weight. A consistent average weight is more important than getting the weight marked on the mold.

If you have an average deviation of 1% or less on your lot of bullets then you are doing great at casting. Shoot those bullets.

I think RCBS molds are tuned for Lyman 2 alloy. It will tell you on their website.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

I went and weighed a bunch more and they are all between 94.1 and 94.9 so very consistent which is good I guess. LOL

I’m going to order a thermometer before I do anything else and then play with the temperature and see if I can get closer to the 115.

I called my buddy and he said he was a kid when his dad poured the ingots and he remembers something about the #2 so I’m assuming he is talking Lyman #2. He can’t remember but his dad was a serious reloader so I’m willing to bet he knew what he was doing.

[reddog81]

Is that your only alloy? If you can cast some using wheel weights or pure lead you’d get an idea if the lightweight was due to a real hard alloy or a mismarked mold.

I’d guess you’re alloy is Linotype or something very hard like that.

[Funkmasterphat]

Is that your only alloy? If you can cast some using wheel weights or pure lead you’d get an idea if the lightweight was due to a real hard alloy or a mismarked mold.

I’d guess you’re alloy is Linotype or something very hard like that.

It is the only thing I have right now. My buddy has about 500 pounds of it in his basement that his dad left behind so it is what I’ve been using.

Where can I go to get wheel weights? Do tire shops just give them away? I only have the Lee 10 pound pot so I’d be melting them down in that

[kevin c]

It's been some time since wheel weights were free. Many states don't even allow them any more, moving to zinc and steel.

An alloy equivalent to clip on wheel weights (COWW) is about 3% antimony with a bit of tin and an even smaller amount of arsenic. The equivalent can be made up from hard lead, a cheap source of nearly pure tin like thrift store pewter, and bit of magnum shot for the arsenic in case you want to heat treat the alloy after casting. There are commercial vendors of metals that sell bullet casting metals (see the banner ad above by Rotometals), though they're not at bargain prices. Occasionally COWW ingots are sold in the S&S forums here.

BTW, welcome to the forums.

[Dusty Bannister]

It would be helpful to verify your casting by using a micrometer to measure the diameter of the bullet as cast. If a mold is casting undersized, it will also be under weight. That should be step one. Second, if you have no idea of the alloy make up, melt off a small drip of the alloy and send that sample and a pound of lead in payment for an XRF scan to list member BNE. If you send him a PM he will be able to give you any necessary instructions for mailing. AND, with the PM, he can easily send the results of the scan in a reply to your PM.

No guessing, no what if's, no mistakes, just get the correct information and then you can decide what is necessary.

If you bought the mold used, and the alloy is essentially a normal alloy for casting, then perhaps you just bought someone else's problem child. Find out what the alloy is, then you can make reasonable decisions without guessing. Dusty

[Hanzy4200]

Did you verify that your scale is accurate?

[Funkmasterphat]

Did you verify that your scale is accurate?

I did. I weighed some 115gr jacketed bullets that I purchased this weekend and they all came out good.

[Dusty Bannister]

Copied from the RCBS site:
All RCBS Bullet Moulds are machined to exacting specifications ensuring accurate and clean casts time after time.NOTE: All moulds are shown slightly smaller than actual size. Unless noted otherwise, all RCBS bullet moulds are double cavity type. Each mould is identified by a five or six digit number, followed by two or three letters. The first two or three digits identify bullet caliber, the last three are bullet weight in grains. (Round Balls are identified by caliber only.) Bullet weights are established by the following methods:• Rifle & Silhouette Bullets- Linotype alloy.
• Pistol, Black Powder Silhouette and C Sharps Arms Bullets- An alloy of one part tin to ten parts lead.
• Cowboy Bullets- An alloy of one part tin to twenty parts lead
• Round & Minie Balls- Pure lead. +Available in single cavity only.

And from the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, 3rd edition:
Lyman 358242 casts 96 grains from lead for the heaviest bullet. It casts 89 grains from linotype. That is a difference of 7 grains. Lead casts at .3558". Linotype casts at .3574".

When you are asked for the weight and the diameter of a casting, sometimes that will give additional information to suggest you have a harder than usual alloy. Or not!

[Beerd]

If he was casting a 500 grain bullet that came out 20 grains light I'd say it was the alloy and/or temperature.
My guess is the mould isn't what he thinks, either mismarked or modified.
..

[Traffer]

There is no way around it... You MUST figure out what that alloy is or AT LEAST how hard it is.
If it is Lynotype or Monotype or maybe pure tin?
Just about anything as dramatically different in density as what you are experiencing will be FAR more valuable than near pure lead.
Your alloy could be worth 10x the value of lead. If so you are throwing away money by using it.
I would get it XRF tested.
One thing you can do relatively easily is to test the hardness with pencils. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?75455-Testing-hardness-with-pencils

[Burnt Fingers]

It's not pure tin, that would yield a boolit that was 60% of the marked weight.

He's at 80% of marked weight. That could be a very high tin/lead alloy or high lead/antimony alloy or a very hard lead/tin/antimony alloy.

Ya need to get it tested. You're likely sitting on a gold mine.

[Funkmasterphat]

It's not pure tin, that would yield a boolit that was 60% of the marked weight.

He's at 80% of marked weight. That could be a very high tin/lead alloy or high lead/antimony alloy or a very hard lead/tin/antimony alloy.

Ya need to get it tested. You're likely sitting on a gold mine.

I’m going to find out about sending it in to get tested.

What would make it a goldmine?

[kevin c]

In the Swapping and Selling forum, lead can be bought for around a dollar a pound. Tin in the form of pewter is about eight or nine dollars a pound. Antimony is also expensive and relatively difficult for home casters to alloy the pure form into lead.

Folks will pay a premium for alloys with high Sn or Sb that can be used to mix with soft lead.

[Traffer]

One of the members here "BNE" I think is his handle, has tested lots of alloy for folks for the exchange price of one lb of pure lead per test. He tested some of mine for me. However with the covid thing, I don't know if he is still able to do it at this time.
What would make it a "gold mine" Is that the price of tin for example is about 12x to 15x the price of lead. Linotype and monotype may be 5x the price of lead and so forth. All of the metals that are alloyed with lead to make it harder are used in small portions to harden lead by bullet casters. But things like tin are only used at a 1% to 3% rate primarily because of their expense. High antimony and tin alloy (monotype or linotype for example ) are in BIG demand by casters for hardening their alloys. ...
You should probably familiarize yourself with this page. I know you are new to this but the more of this you can understand the better off you will be. http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

[Cherokee]

Funk.....go to your local scrap yard and get some lead pipe or whatever lead he has, blend it 50/50 with the alloy your friend is giving you. Back when his Dad was active, Lyman 5/5/90 (#2) alloy was recommended frequently as "the" alloy to use to avoid leading etc., I grew up reading about it and that was my focus for years. We know better today. If the blend get closer to the 115 gr weight, then you are going in the right direction. You can then alter the blend to get what you want.