Lack of filling in the mold

[nueces5]

I hope you can help me!
thanks

[G W Wade]

Thinking your vents maybe plugged GW

[Rizzo]

You did not mention if you were preheating your mold.

A cold mold will cool the lead from flowing into all of the mold areas and give you bad results.
I use a hot plate to heat the mold.
Some place the mold on the lead pot to warm it up.
Or, you can pour lead into the mold several times to heat it up and put the lead back into the pot.
Then start your casting.

Hope this helps.

[wesson357]

I just had that exact problem with an alluminium NOE mold! See my posts.
It was a mold temperature problem. After I mesure the temperature of my mold while casting, I noticed it was well below the expected temperature.
As soon as I preheat the mold on a hotplate to 400-420F (with alloy temp 700-725F) I had good bullets immediately.

[Rich/WIS]

Not sure if that is not filling or if the problem is shrinkage when it cools. Clean the mold and pay particular attention to the vent lines. Pre heat the mold on a hotplate and watch the time it takes for the sprue to harden If it hardens in just 3 or 4 seconds the mold is still cold. If it takes long time then the mold is too hot. Adjust your pre-heat for somewhere in between. When filling, if a bottom pour pot pressure feed, that is hold the mold against the spout for a second or two and let the full weight of the lead in the pot force the ally into the mold, and see if that helps. Another trick is make sure you have a healthy puddle on the sprue plate and while still molten drop the mold lightly on a hard surface like a wood block. Have had this issue with various bullets/molds and for some reason once this is done they seem to work like they should, no idea what changed but it did. One other issue may be pour speed, too fast a pour will not allow air to vent and leave a void or a spot where fill was marginal. You didn't mention if this is double or single cavity mold, if a double is only one cavity doing this or both.

[gwpercle]

If nothing seems to work ... go old school . A Lyman Ladle and pressure casting ...leave a large sprue puddle for the cooling boolit to draw from . Mould and metal have to be hot ...you want them to drop right at light frosty .
Those boolits are rather long ...this is the method that produces the best boolits for me ...
well filled out , sharp base and bands no voids .

That boolit in your photo looks like shrinkage ... need more heat and more metal alloy for it to draw as it cools .
Keep on pouring
Gary

[alamogunr]

I've never seen anything like that. I do all the things mentioned above. The biggest problem I have is getting the sprue plate hot enough to not restrict flow thru to the mold cavity. I should fashion a tin can shield over the mold while it is on the hot plate. Now I just pour an excess of lead over the sprue plate until it is up to temp.

I should add that I mostly cast pistol boolits which for me is easier than rifle.

My standard is, as gw mentioned, light frost. Non-casters think that very shiny boolits are best. I've given up correcting them.

[nueces5]

answering some questions
The mold is clean, I do it with a small piece of wood. So it doesn't seem like a vent problem.
I preheat the mold, placing it on the oven, I also make some boolits, which always have wrinkles, until they come out well.
This happens in the middle of the casting session.
I increased the temperature of the lead to 393°C and dipped the mold lightly into the hot lead, this seems to have fixed things.
Thank you very much to all!!!

[nueces5]

I just had that exact problem with an alluminium NOE mold! See my posts.
It was a mold temperature problem. After I mesure the temperature of my mold while casting, I noticed it was well below the expected temperature.
As soon as I preheat the mold on a hotplate to 400-420F (with alloy temp 700-725F) I had good bullets immediately.

great answer!!
and the article that answered you provides even more
Thank you very much!!

[nueces5]

They tell me that the page that hosts the photos has advertising for sexual content at the bottom, I can't do anything to change that, so if you prefer to avoid the page, don't open the link,
next time I will look for another host.

[243winxb]

Some thing from Lee & me. https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?media/casting-with-lee-molds.4127/full

[Hanzy4200]

Hotter alloy, hotter mold, faster pot flow, more tin in the alloy.

[GregLaROCHE]

I can look the other way as far as sexual content, but haven’t been able to see any pictures of the defective boolits. A general suggestion would be the make sure everything is hot enough, the mold is free of grease and oil residue and pour fast leaving a generous sprue.