oldracer
06-21-2010, 10:15 PM
I have been reading the posts and all associated links for several weeks since I decided that I wanted to try casting my own boolits, specifically 148gr DEWC. I took some time and decided on:
- Lee microband six cavity mold with their handles. I figured if this was too hard I could always just use 2 or 3 of the openings.
- Lee bottom pour pot.
- Lee sizer die with their liquid lube (sure smells different).
- RCBS ingot molts (2).
- Single burner cooker from Walmart site to store which lets me make the ingots and flux out any crud, etc from the lead which is in 50# bricks mil surp. The pot that came with it had a crack but I gave it a try and it worked okay.
- Welding gloves, face shield, leather coat and pants from my welding days and a Black and Decker Workmate that I covered the top with a steel sheet having a rounded up lip in case of a spill.
I used the cooker and melted 50# of lead and did some fluxing with candle wax (what I already had) and made a bunch of ingots and actually got little crud on top as the lead was pretty pure. I did notice that the cooker has to be really roaring to get that much lead melted well. I did this in my driveway in the late afternoon when that part of the house is in the shade and we had a good breeze blowing fumes away from the garage. I let the ingots sit for a few days and then on Sat afternoon did some casting. I cleaned the mold well, used some matches to heat and smoke the cavities as many said to do. I applied some Alox to the bottom of the sprue plate and pins as noted and by then the lead had melted in the pot. I had set the temp on max and it took about 10 minutes to melt the lead and I did put some wax on top to flux and as I discovered it was not enough I guess? I also set the mold on the top of the pot and the first several pours were into a mold that was too cold.
The nice thing about this project is if you goof you can reuse the lead so back in they and the excess went. After several tries the casting seemed to steady out and I got used to the flow rate out the bottom and how to move the mold staring closest to the handles and then to the end filling each cavity with excess and after a minute or so I could easily pop the boolits right out. After several mold full I would put the excess back into the pot. After about 350 boolits I decided to use up the lead and I noticed the flow out the bottom was really slowing down. I found this later was because I had not fluxed enough and was not using a piece of wood or similar to keep the pot mixed up well and had some crud settling. After the pot cooled there was some so I heated it back up to full temp and cleaned it put after removing the valve and cleaning the opening with a piece of wire.
That was about the only issue except for a few bullets that had some "lines" in them possibly from too cold of a mold so I decided to rune them all through the sizer and Lee is right that their mold needed no sizing! I loaded several and tried them out yesterday with my daughter at the range and they shot as accurate as the Missouri Bullet Co.s DEWCs with the two bands and hard lube. They do smoke less than the hard lube and that is great when indoors.
If anyone has any thoughts or comments or additional advice please let me know as this is really a great part of the shooting hobby!
- Lee microband six cavity mold with their handles. I figured if this was too hard I could always just use 2 or 3 of the openings.
- Lee bottom pour pot.
- Lee sizer die with their liquid lube (sure smells different).
- RCBS ingot molts (2).
- Single burner cooker from Walmart site to store which lets me make the ingots and flux out any crud, etc from the lead which is in 50# bricks mil surp. The pot that came with it had a crack but I gave it a try and it worked okay.
- Welding gloves, face shield, leather coat and pants from my welding days and a Black and Decker Workmate that I covered the top with a steel sheet having a rounded up lip in case of a spill.
I used the cooker and melted 50# of lead and did some fluxing with candle wax (what I already had) and made a bunch of ingots and actually got little crud on top as the lead was pretty pure. I did notice that the cooker has to be really roaring to get that much lead melted well. I did this in my driveway in the late afternoon when that part of the house is in the shade and we had a good breeze blowing fumes away from the garage. I let the ingots sit for a few days and then on Sat afternoon did some casting. I cleaned the mold well, used some matches to heat and smoke the cavities as many said to do. I applied some Alox to the bottom of the sprue plate and pins as noted and by then the lead had melted in the pot. I had set the temp on max and it took about 10 minutes to melt the lead and I did put some wax on top to flux and as I discovered it was not enough I guess? I also set the mold on the top of the pot and the first several pours were into a mold that was too cold.
The nice thing about this project is if you goof you can reuse the lead so back in they and the excess went. After several tries the casting seemed to steady out and I got used to the flow rate out the bottom and how to move the mold staring closest to the handles and then to the end filling each cavity with excess and after a minute or so I could easily pop the boolits right out. After several mold full I would put the excess back into the pot. After about 350 boolits I decided to use up the lead and I noticed the flow out the bottom was really slowing down. I found this later was because I had not fluxed enough and was not using a piece of wood or similar to keep the pot mixed up well and had some crud settling. After the pot cooled there was some so I heated it back up to full temp and cleaned it put after removing the valve and cleaning the opening with a piece of wire.
That was about the only issue except for a few bullets that had some "lines" in them possibly from too cold of a mold so I decided to rune them all through the sizer and Lee is right that their mold needed no sizing! I loaded several and tried them out yesterday with my daughter at the range and they shot as accurate as the Missouri Bullet Co.s DEWCs with the two bands and hard lube. They do smoke less than the hard lube and that is great when indoors.
If anyone has any thoughts or comments or additional advice please let me know as this is really a great part of the shooting hobby!