Casting Mihec's 556 Nato: Difficult

[L1A1Rocker]

I finally got around to trying out the 556 Nato mold. I had made up some Lyman #2 just for this mold last week.

I couldn't keep the mold hot enough. The spru was harder and harder to cut each cast - no matter how fast I tried to run this thing. I kept having to put the mold on the hot plate (spru side down) to warm it back up.

I had problems with wrinkles because of the mold going cold and the first cavity filled was cutting high making a hump on the base.

Anyone have any suggestions? Anyone having the same issues?

Thanks.

Edit to add: I started with the lead at just over 600 and kept raising it to 700 and still had these problems. I also started with the mold 1/2 inch from the bottom pour spout and moved it up to 1/4 inch. I also varied the flow of lead from a drbble to gushing out (and various flows in between). Still couldn't keep the mold hot.

[Springfield]

Very small bullets are the most difficult for me to do because of this, although I did not seem to have any real problems with the Mihec mould. I think 600 may not be hot enough to start, I go 685 wtih my Magma pot.

[L1A1Rocker]

Very small bullets are the most difficult for me to do because of this, although I did not seem to have any real problems with the Mihec mould. I think 600 may not be hot enough to start, I go 685 wtih my Magma pot.

Thanks, I did turn it up to 700 but still had problems. I read on the Safety Boolit thread that Miha recommended going up to 780 on that mold. I may try going up a bit more and see what that does.

[357 Voodoo]

I ran mine with a pot temp at about 680 gave the mould a real generous preheat on the hot plate and cast very very fast and the boolits would just rain out. i found that if the mould inst hot enough to start with that i couldn't get it to come up the rest of the way by casting just not enough lead going in.

[MajorDude]

I was having trouble at first, but finally got it. I actually wound up turning the pot down a little bit from my last casting session. When I was getting good boolits, they seemed to have a little "frost" in the middle of the body, but this wiped right off later. I was fiddling quite a bit with the hot plate to get it right. I got a pretty good pile before I ran out of patience. The lead goes a long ways with .22s! Lube too. I also found that you have to be really careful with the sizing and bullet seating operations, because it takes a little bit of nothing to deform a .22 bullet.

[L1A1Rocker]

OK, now I've got it figured out. SUCCESS!!!

I have to keep the melt above 750. As long as I do this I can maintain a 2 to 3 second count after the sprue goes frosty. Anything under 750 and the sprue gets harder and harder and I end up with wrinkled boolits. I also upped the temp on my hot plate.

Thank you folks for your input!

[Doc Highwall]

L1A1Rocker, how are you measuring the temperature? The reason I ask is I just started using a PID controller I bought from Frozone and I found my thermometer was off almost 50 degrees.

[L1A1Rocker]

L1A1Rocker, how are you measuring the temperature? The reason I ask is I just started using a PID controller I bought from Frozone and I found my thermometer was off almost 50 degrees.

Using a Lyman (IIRC) thermometer.

[vparra559]

What do you size these boolits to for a 5.56 ar? And what do you use to size them? Any info would be appreciated.