Doby45
05-26-2010, 10:23 PM
I get home yesterday with great excitement because my daughter called me at work and told me "Mr. Brown" paid me a visit at the house.
I had ordered my 6cav 45cal 200gr SWC mold, Lyman pouring ladle and my Lee push through 452 die. SO at this time I was ready when I got home to cast my first bullet. First, I grabbed an old deep pot and got some soapy water going on the stove. All the while my wife is looking at me like I am an idiot and my oldest daughter acts like she is embarrassed. Their loss.. I have a plastic bristle fingernail brush that I keep running over the face of the molds and cavities and then put the mold back in the water. Finally, the mold is shiny and gorgeous.
I gather my "casting" gear and head out to the back patio. I don't have an actual casting pot yet, so I decided to use a small quart size sauce pan from the Goodwill store on my turkey fryer. This was both good and bad and is NOT something I will do with regularity. The fryer is WAY too much fire and had the temp going between 700-900.
One thing I have learned here is that you mold needs to get up to temp for a good fill out. But, since I literally had fire wrapping around the pot I did not want to put my new mold on the fire. Instead, I just started pouring. I poured as quick as I could paying no attention at all to what was being dumped out. I poured at least 6 sets just to get the mold up to temp and then I was kinda low on alloy. So, I would toss everything back in the pot to get my level back up and to basically clean up all my stuff. The mold dropped clean from the very first sprue cut. I had nothing at all to call sticking. I mean when you cut the sprue and started to open the mold the boolits would hit the other block if you did not open it quick enough. I was pleased.
Finally, I was dropping bullets that I would consider keepers and once I hit that mark I started water dropping them. Did not look at anything, just pour, drop, pour, drop. I think I ended up with about 25-30 when all was said and done. I can NOT wait to get my 4-20 pot. It will be nice to have something that will hold a good bit of alloy and keep it at a steady temp. I was using straight clip on WW and could have prolly used a little tin in the mix, but this was just some down and dirty quick casting.
I went ahead and pan lubed 25 of them in Carnuba Red, then pressed them on through my new Lee 452 sizer die. I will post a few pics here in just a sec, the camera battery is charging.
Here is the bad news though. I figured I would load a few of these up to take with me this weekend up to the farm to see how they would do. I also wanted to see what the weight of the bullets were, as dropped and lubed. I am bringing my scale to my loading bench (dining room table) and on the way I drop it on the hardwood floor from a height of about 4ft. Needless to say the scale works no more. Now I need to order a new scale when I order my pot.
http://i50.tinypic.com/2s156rd.jpg
Proverbial Group Shot
http://i45.tinypic.com/30k94es.jpg
Finished Product
http://i46.tinypic.com/xn6pmh.jpg
Unsized on the left and Sized on the right.
http://i48.tinypic.com/257q1c4.jpg
Bullet bases
I had ordered my 6cav 45cal 200gr SWC mold, Lyman pouring ladle and my Lee push through 452 die. SO at this time I was ready when I got home to cast my first bullet. First, I grabbed an old deep pot and got some soapy water going on the stove. All the while my wife is looking at me like I am an idiot and my oldest daughter acts like she is embarrassed. Their loss.. I have a plastic bristle fingernail brush that I keep running over the face of the molds and cavities and then put the mold back in the water. Finally, the mold is shiny and gorgeous.
I gather my "casting" gear and head out to the back patio. I don't have an actual casting pot yet, so I decided to use a small quart size sauce pan from the Goodwill store on my turkey fryer. This was both good and bad and is NOT something I will do with regularity. The fryer is WAY too much fire and had the temp going between 700-900.
One thing I have learned here is that you mold needs to get up to temp for a good fill out. But, since I literally had fire wrapping around the pot I did not want to put my new mold on the fire. Instead, I just started pouring. I poured as quick as I could paying no attention at all to what was being dumped out. I poured at least 6 sets just to get the mold up to temp and then I was kinda low on alloy. So, I would toss everything back in the pot to get my level back up and to basically clean up all my stuff. The mold dropped clean from the very first sprue cut. I had nothing at all to call sticking. I mean when you cut the sprue and started to open the mold the boolits would hit the other block if you did not open it quick enough. I was pleased.
Finally, I was dropping bullets that I would consider keepers and once I hit that mark I started water dropping them. Did not look at anything, just pour, drop, pour, drop. I think I ended up with about 25-30 when all was said and done. I can NOT wait to get my 4-20 pot. It will be nice to have something that will hold a good bit of alloy and keep it at a steady temp. I was using straight clip on WW and could have prolly used a little tin in the mix, but this was just some down and dirty quick casting.
I went ahead and pan lubed 25 of them in Carnuba Red, then pressed them on through my new Lee 452 sizer die. I will post a few pics here in just a sec, the camera battery is charging.
Here is the bad news though. I figured I would load a few of these up to take with me this weekend up to the farm to see how they would do. I also wanted to see what the weight of the bullets were, as dropped and lubed. I am bringing my scale to my loading bench (dining room table) and on the way I drop it on the hardwood floor from a height of about 4ft. Needless to say the scale works no more. Now I need to order a new scale when I order my pot.
http://i50.tinypic.com/2s156rd.jpg
Proverbial Group Shot
http://i45.tinypic.com/30k94es.jpg
Finished Product
http://i46.tinypic.com/xn6pmh.jpg
Unsized on the left and Sized on the right.
http://i48.tinypic.com/257q1c4.jpg
Bullet bases