lots of fun

[bisley45]

well got all my casting stuff thursday and played hooky from work today to do same casting or I should say learn to cast this was the first time casting boolits and I learned alot for my first session got about a 75% rejecks hopefuly that will change to 75% good the more I cast I think I am hooked for life

[Buckshot]

..............They got 'lectricity and everthing there in Siloam Springs? I was wondering where you were gonna plug in that furnace 8)

Just wait till you get the alloy and mould temp purring along just right. Casting and dropping perfect boolits with each throw is a sublime experience. If you find it hard to stop, most of us here will understand.

On the other hand, nothing can be more exasperating, un-nerving, and just flat exasperating as a session spent with nothing to show for it. It may happen. Try not to throw large heavy items around the garage in frustration.

..................Buckshot

[JohnH]

Yeah, If your first casting session results in 75% rejects and you walk out looking forward to doing it again, youain't got the bug, you've definately seen the elephant!

Did you preheat your mold?

Most new casters I've worked with make the same mistake, spending their casting time examining the boolits. Molds do their best work at as constant a temperature as possible. So cast using as steady rythme as you can. Stop for nothing you don't have to. Have your make up ingots at hand, preheat them if you can by placing them on the pot rim on near the heat source.

Be sure your mold is clean adn free of oil in the cavity. My iron molds I keep in an ammo box wrapped in vapor paper. I leave em on the handles, the Lee 6 banger handles are inexpensive and can be fit to most everyones iron molds. Aluminum molds I just put back in the box and shelve.

I always top the pot up at the end of the session. When starting up a new session, I plug in the pot, and balance the mold I'm gonna start with on the lead (bottom of mold on lead with hanldes hanging past pot edge so they don't heat up) usually by the time the melt is complete, the mold is ready to cast with.

Having a shallow dish at hand with a small water soaked towel in it, gives a handy cooling pad to keep your mold heat even. There is frosting and there is FROSTING. This is an area of experimentation with eah mold to find the point of enough heat and too much heat. I can't tell you what that is, you'll have to learn it by experience. Best description I can give is FROSTING is defined by a very large nearly snowflake like grain structure on the surface of the bullet. It can also appear to look like a sandblasted surface. If you see that, you are too hot, in both mold and alloy temperature. You are looking for an smooth even grey color on the boolit but no apparant grain structure.

What you don't want is to have a boolit that is both frosted and bright. This usually occurs with the nose and base being bright nad the driving bands frosted. The frosted area will be smaller in diameter. Only cure is to get the heat up or down. You can cast at a quicker pace, that will usually solve it, or you can cool on the pad, that will solve it too.

You can play with the heat of the alloy, but I generally get less than satisfactory results that way. Others do OK with it. Experiment. But remember that turning the heat up or down on the alloy make take 5 minutes os so for the melt to adjust. Cast away while the adjutment settles in, you'll know when it happens, there will be a definate difference in the apperance of dropped boolits and in the casting quality of the mold itself. So with every change, give it a bit to see what effect it really has.

Last and perhaps most important is keep your alloy the same for a while. Whatever you are using at present, make up a bunch of it adn use that till you are comfortable with it's casting qualities. Every alloy cast different, and at this point int he game you will make yourself nuts switching from one to another. Each is a quality unto itself. Learn what you have , then once you can go in, set up and cast without interuption and can adjust to the mold/ally temperature without breaking rythme, try other alloys. Your learning curve with them will be shorter adn what you see dropping from the mold will be familiar and you will know how to work with it.

[The Nyack Kid]

what JohnH said .
my biggest problem ,that causes the most rejection , is Hard frosting . it looks like the sharp edges on the boolit have been "burned off" . that problem is caused by too hot of a mold . fix the problem by ajusting pot temp and casting speed . also anouther problem often encountered is poor base fill out . there are many differant things one can do to solve this problem , poor venting is the most common reason for this happening . try opening up the vent lines or loosening the spure plate .