Good boolits from a cold mould

[DLCTEX]

A couple days ago I was needing a few more 38-150KT boolits to finish a batch of 38's I was loading so I plugged in the pot (Lee 10#) and saw it had about 5# in it. I usually preheat my moulds by dipping it in the melt but the pot has to be almost full to reach it. I was in a rush, so I decided to just start casting and throw the rejects back in the pot. As soon as the alloy was well melted I began casting and dropping the boolits on a towel. I was very surprised to find no wrinkles on the first pair, so I continued casting and keeping the boolits. All of them looked perfect. I pushed the first dozen aside to check later. The boolits did want to stick in the mould until the temp came up, but a couple taps on the bolt shook them loose. The first boolits measured and weighed the same as the later ones. I've been casting for more than 10 years and have never gotten good boolits from a cold mould before. Yesterday I wanted to change alloys and there was about two # left in the pot, so I tried it again with the same results. The alloy was 8# WW +1# isotope lead, so I guess the extra tin was the contributing factor as my past casting has mostly been ww, pure lead, or a mix of the two.

[deltaenterprizes]

I know it is hot here in Texas but hot enough to preheat a mold?

[Doby45]

I cast mainly clip-on WW and every now and then do a mix of 50/50 with clip-on and stick-on. But, I just got me some pure tin ordered and can't wait to see if it helps with my casting. I am going to use as little as possible.

[DLCTEX]

My reloading room is air conditioned and the temp is kept at 80 until I go in and turn it down to 72. I had thought of that and eliminated it as a factor.

[geargnasher]

Must have been some magical sub-atomic particles in that isotope lead, did those boolits glow in the dark? :kidding:

Gear

[DLCTEX]

It is probably the tin, I made a batch today and halved the isotope lead, The boolits were wrinkled until the fourth casting. It still made shiny boolits that were filled out well. I'm being stingy with the isotope metal as I'm not sure when I can get more.

[deltaenterprizes]

The isotope metal I have gotten is similar to WW metal. Am I missing something?

[DLCTEX]

The isotope metal I have is definitely higher in tin content than my WW metal. I have only melted down the smaller ones so far. There is a large one (15 #) that I haven't tackled yet that I hope is the same composition. When melted there is a lot of tin oxide that takes lots of fluxing to get back in the melt.