Crash_Corrigan
02-18-2010, 10:43 PM
I have two Lee 4-20's One is a vetern relegated to melting alloy for the main casting pot and is located on a higher shelf where I can channel the hot alloy down a chunk of channel steel into the casting pot and I know it is the right temperature.
The second or casting pot is a newer model...maybe 4 years old and the other one is 16 yrs old. Today I was casting some HP's in Mihec's new 503 .44 Cal mold and I was happily going along getting excellent results from the get go.
What a pleasure to use. With an about full pot of 775 degree alloy the plunger rod that controls the flow decided to lose the hole. Now I had a solid stream of molten alloy flowing into the cast iron ash try under the spout and I could not get it stopped.
Luckily I had a half dozen of those handy cast skillet ash trays handy and I just loaded them up one at a time and decanted the cool ones into a carton and kept on dropping the level alloy until it was dry. Finally I could see the hole and inserted the rod into the hole and the flow was over.
When I got done I had ash trys all over the table. To my dismay one of them was resting against a tiny bottle of Bullshop's Sprue Plate lube and of course the plastic melted and now I have a nice coating of Sprue Plate lube all over the kitchen table. Good thing I no longer have a SWMBO to go into a fit.
I salvaged some of it but almost the whole tiny container is wasted. What a heresy against the casting gods. It is a good thing that I have another small container and two almost full bigger ones that I have been using for the last year or so.
I do hafta say that the MIHEC mold is the BOMB. Great boolits from the get go and really easy to use with the cabin tree locking mold handle. NOTICE ALL YOU SNIPERS...I AM USING HANDLES, WEARING GLOVES AND ALL THE APPROPRIATE SAFETY GEAR INCLUDING A LEATHER APRON ETC. I am being careful to place the empty mold on a piece of 2 x 4 to line everything up prior to closing this mold. Lubed with Bullplate Sprue Lube this thing is producing excellent boolits. I am using a soft alloy of about 30-1 for SD loads for my Charter Arms Bulldog Pug.
That is one nasty gun. Strictly business and accurate but with 6.5 gr of Unique under a 256 gr Mihec boolit it kicks like a mule on steroids. I am going to have to tame this baby down and play with smaller amounts of powder to achieve a pleasant load to shoot that still will expand these boolits.
I can see a lot of milk jugs with water and soaked telephone books in my future until I can fine tune this boolit with an appropriate load for this lightweight gun.
Right now even wearing a glove this thing really hurts and is no fun to shoot. Maybe I should start playing with some Holy Black for this little beast. If I miss the target I can escape the scene in a cloud of white smoke and confound the BG.
The second or casting pot is a newer model...maybe 4 years old and the other one is 16 yrs old. Today I was casting some HP's in Mihec's new 503 .44 Cal mold and I was happily going along getting excellent results from the get go.
What a pleasure to use. With an about full pot of 775 degree alloy the plunger rod that controls the flow decided to lose the hole. Now I had a solid stream of molten alloy flowing into the cast iron ash try under the spout and I could not get it stopped.
Luckily I had a half dozen of those handy cast skillet ash trays handy and I just loaded them up one at a time and decanted the cool ones into a carton and kept on dropping the level alloy until it was dry. Finally I could see the hole and inserted the rod into the hole and the flow was over.
When I got done I had ash trys all over the table. To my dismay one of them was resting against a tiny bottle of Bullshop's Sprue Plate lube and of course the plastic melted and now I have a nice coating of Sprue Plate lube all over the kitchen table. Good thing I no longer have a SWMBO to go into a fit.
I salvaged some of it but almost the whole tiny container is wasted. What a heresy against the casting gods. It is a good thing that I have another small container and two almost full bigger ones that I have been using for the last year or so.
I do hafta say that the MIHEC mold is the BOMB. Great boolits from the get go and really easy to use with the cabin tree locking mold handle. NOTICE ALL YOU SNIPERS...I AM USING HANDLES, WEARING GLOVES AND ALL THE APPROPRIATE SAFETY GEAR INCLUDING A LEATHER APRON ETC. I am being careful to place the empty mold on a piece of 2 x 4 to line everything up prior to closing this mold. Lubed with Bullplate Sprue Lube this thing is producing excellent boolits. I am using a soft alloy of about 30-1 for SD loads for my Charter Arms Bulldog Pug.
That is one nasty gun. Strictly business and accurate but with 6.5 gr of Unique under a 256 gr Mihec boolit it kicks like a mule on steroids. I am going to have to tame this baby down and play with smaller amounts of powder to achieve a pleasant load to shoot that still will expand these boolits.
I can see a lot of milk jugs with water and soaked telephone books in my future until I can fine tune this boolit with an appropriate load for this lightweight gun.
Right now even wearing a glove this thing really hurts and is no fun to shoot. Maybe I should start playing with some Holy Black for this little beast. If I miss the target I can escape the scene in a cloud of white smoke and confound the BG.