New BACO mold questions

[vikingsword7]

Hi all, While I'm not new to reloading and casting, I received a new mold from Buffalo Arms and did my first bit of casting with it this morning and the results were extremely impressive, except for one thing, which is why I'm posting. I recently fell into a deal for a like new Pedersoli 1874 45/70 and started loading it with 500 grain paper patched bullets from Bufflao Arms. and it did quite well, so I then ordered a mold from them in.451-540, which I used this morning. The projectiles are slicks for paper patching and are beautiful . I ended up casting 233 bullets and the used a Hornady digital scale to check their weight range. what i found was that I could divide the 233 into exact thirds ranging from 47 to 48 grains, 52 grains, and 53 grains. The alloy consisted of 100 left over 500 grain bullets and a double handful of stick on pure lead WW. Is this, or does this sound normal for one of these molds?

[sigep1764]

47 to 53 grains for that boolit seems awful small :kidding:
Im sure you meant much heavier. I am also sure that a range of 5 grains in weight between all boolits is a 1% variance. I'd never see the difference on the target is my guess.

[vikingsword7]

LoL, yeh well, I meant 547 to 553 grains, but these will be for hunting Elk(got two tags to fill).

[charlie b]

A 5gn spread isn't bad. If you are looking for perfect then remelt the bottom third. But, I'd probably try shooting them first and see how they do.

[sigep1764]

My thought would be the mold and melt temp came to a head towards the end of your casting. I'd also like to think that the last third have really nice sharp edges and extremely good fill out. Regardless of whether you melt them or shoot them, that boolit will shatter the shoulder of any elk.

[cwtebay]

I didn't realize that my mold for my 45-90 was casting 15gr +/- heavy until 2 elk were dead. Guess they should have known those darn bullets were out of spec!!

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[vikingsword7]

Thanks everyone for the replies! I was thinking that a custom mold would give closer bullet weights, and I guess they are really not that far off after all considering there are other variables that go into the results. I'll just shoot them as batches in their weight classes.

[mehavey]

Here's a 3-grain spread in a 400-gr bullet
https://www.marlinowners.com/threads/bad-groups-at-100yds.548962/post-7505265

[Edward]

That spread is to be expected since your lead is a mutt mix ,use certified 1-20 and those suckers will be close to identical depending on your casting ability/and attention to heat/cadence and (like trigger pull )consistency./Ed

[mehavey]

your lead is a mutt mix...How does that affect variation in casting weights ?

[DHDeal]

I've got 3 or 4 (don't remember exactly) of the BACO moulds and they'll cast closer than that. Now in my case, they casted better after a couple cycles and I used as close to a certified mix as I can make. Other than a few outliers, I can keep a bigger batch (say 200) within a grain or two. I have both grease groove and paper patch moulds from them.

My casting for heavy bullets goes like this: hot lead (750°), big pot full (close to 40 pounds), ladle only, hot mould, and big sprues. As I have time while casting, I'll sort and inspect while casting and line them up in order. It helps me to have them in order so I have a good idea of any issues while casting. I also don't add any more alloy in the pot as it's not necessary and I don't want to introduce any variables or have to wait for the alloy to get back to temperature.

As OCD as I can get while casting, at 300 yards I've shot some groups of variable weight bullets (from the same mould and same alloy) that shot very nice groups.