What's going on here?

[long_arm]

Casting today and the results are in the pic. Those in the foreground are from when the pot was full, as the pot emptied I noticed the bullets were coming out frosted and you can see those in the back.
Turned down the temp to accommodate the lower level in the pot, But that didn't seem to make any difference.
What am I missing?

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[Land Owner]

Heat increase with decrease in pot mass. Boolits look good though.

[long_arm]

Drat!#$!
I had a 50:50 chance of getting that one right and.. no.

Thanks LO and a happy 4th to you and yours.

[Stopsign32v]

Got too hot when your lead got low. Bottom boolits are I believe pictured in the dictionary under "perfect boolit specimen"

[HWooldridge]

Light overall frosting is OK so long as you don’t see any “sink” or voids. Isolated hot spots will generally cause defects.

[Winger Ed.]

They look fine to me.

Not sure what the numbers are, but the temp. difference between a little frost and none might be pretty small.
I wouldn't worry about it.

[rancher1913]

your temp regulator might be failing, the pot really should stay reasonably close the whole way. might need one of hatch's pid's

[long_arm]

Wait... For the sake of clarity, Land_owner and stopsign32v:

Are you saying the same, or opposite things??

What's the consensus? As my lead pot got low the temperature of the alloy had dropped?
Or as my lead pot got low the temperature of the alloy was higher??

[pworley1]

Those are all great bullets. They will shoot just fine.

[long_arm]

Thanks pworley1.
I'm curious as to what caused the second half of the pour to frost

[Oldfeller]

As the temp came up, the sprue cut off easier and the frosted bullets dropped easier.

These things made you cast faster and get a little more extra frosty.

Yes, casting faster causes frosting to increase slightly.

You gotta get over wanting shiny bullets, lightly frosted is just fine. Shiny costs you time, wasted sorting efforts and increased amounts of "picky scrap" too.

Weigh some shiny and some frosty and realize that the weight change you see there is a subset of the cast to cast the mold close variation (measure 90 degrees from the parting line to get a measurable number for closing variation) that you are going to see across a run of cast boolits anyway.

Molds don't close perfectly each time, it is a fact.

Powder coat some of each kind and weigh them to see that it is all meaningless compared to coating weight variations and the sizing "normalization effects" seen in larger batches of PC bullets that are all sized "post powder coating".

Yes, those minor pits and wrinkles really did get filled in by displaced fully cured powder coat material.

Your gun doesn't care about any of it after the boolit gets reformed going through the sizing die and then reformed a final time by your throat and bore itself and neither should you. Go get a fired bullet from your berm that has been resized and engraved by your bore and just stop and LOOK at it a bit , none of this picky stuff matters really .......

[45workhorse]

What Oldfeller said^^^!

[auto5man]

Good looking boolits! What mold is that...just curious

[JeffG]

I prefer mine on the edge of frosty. If you are tumble lubing, that is preferred. I use a PID and take note of the temp needed for a given mold to keep the time interval to about 5 seconds from the time I complete the pour to when the sprue frosts over or sets. Your bullets look fine. Preheating the mold on a hot plate will allow you to start getting good bullets quicker.

[long_arm]

Thanks fellas. I'm pretty new to this so I very much appreciate your input.
I may indeed have been speeding up as the session went on. May have had some to do with the frosting.

Mold is an iron Lyman 429-421.

Hot plate in use here.

I powder coat and will do that to all of these once I inspect them for any flaws.
However once in a while you end up with a run of nice shiny bullets and I really do regret putting powder on those. I don't have the scratch to pony up for a $300 wax lube unit just now.. someday.

[GregLaROCHE]

Lead takes time to cool down. You would have to wait a while or add more lead. Nothing wrong with frosted boolits, especially if you’re going to PC them.

[Land Owner]

Wait... For the sake of clarity, Land_owner and stopsign32v:

Are you saying the same, or opposite things??
We mean the same thing.
It is all academic. Those ARE some very nice boolits.
See Oldfeller post #11 and worry only when too frosty, which is too hot.

[Bird]

Let the mold cool down.

[John Guedry]

They all look great!

[Sasquatch-1]

I agree that if you are worried about the temp of the lead add an ingot or two to cool down the pot a bit. You may also need to give the mold a few minutes to cool down.

[long_arm]

Got it! Thanks gents

[Gtek]

Cadence, I count in my head and vary as needed. That information is also entered in "The Book" with pot temp, alloy, etc.. Great looking drops you have there and as stated above, little variance, little difference. Probably most all of us here are guilty of fighting the perfection bug at one time or another. Go shoot them!

[bruce381]

mine do that if I DO NOT slow cadence as mold get too hot. You can just shoot them they are fine or put a wet towel out next time and when they frost too much cool mold every drop or so.