FIRST EVER revolver casted boolits by myself. Please tell me what you think

[Stopsign32v]

Never before casted my own revolver rounds. Very excited and I figured the first ever ones should be none other than the ones below since 357 Magnum is my absolute favorite chambering. Interesting thing is I loaded and crimped them to the groove in 357 Magnum brass and it loaded just fine in my GP100 (others have had issues with the rounds being too long). Do you guys see anything bad/wrong or anything that stands out? I was dumping them in water so I have no idea which ones were the first to last. The bottom two bands (is that where you measure them at?) is coming out to .362 dia. I sized it to .358 before loading in the brass. I will be recycling them all to start over. Just wanted to see what I could do.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Looks like you're off to a good start. Some of the bullets that have flaws were probably cast when the mold was still a little cold, but overall they look good with sharp edges. You'll be a pro in no time!

DG

[Three44s]

That looks like a fine first effort!

Three44s

[Thumbcocker]

Other than the lead being a bit cold on the ones in the first pic they look great. Waiting for a range report.

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[nvbirdman]

My first boolits looked a lot worse, but with time and experience they're getting better.

[Mk42gunner]

They all look shootable to me. I agree with a bit of a cold mold on some of them. And I also agree they look a lot better than my first efforts, but that is the beauty of casting lead; you get to redo your mistakes, not many times in life that happens.

I would change whatever top punch or seating stem you are using to a flat top punch or a SWC seating stem, the edges of the meplat are looking kind of rounded in the loaded cartridge.

I started with trying water dropping, didn't really like it, then found out it wasn't needed for my use. I have happily been dropping boolits on an old pair of jeans for years.

Robert

[jim147]

Looks good. Make sure you have a good crimp. They don't have much room to move before they lock that pistol up.

[tazman]

Looks like you are off to a good start. What are you going to lube them with?

[405grain]

The boolits look pretty good. I agree with others that your mold probably wasn't up to temperature on the ones that have wrinkles on the nose. It does look like you seated the bullets with a round nosed seating stem. A flat or semi-wadcutter seating stem won't deform the nose like that. What type of bullet lube did you use? Also, I've found that it's best if you lightly flare the case mouth so that the bullet will start easily, then seat the bullet with the die body backed off a little bit so it won't crimp. Then after the bullets are seated, screw the seating stem up out of the way and lower the die body to crimp the already seated bullet. If I try seating and crimping cast bullets as one operation it frequently shaves lead off the side of the bullet. Except for full magnum loads with gas checked bullets, pistol cartridges rarely need super hard alloys. Water quenching to harden is usually used for rifle bullets.

[45workhorse]

Nice looking first boolits. Pretty soon you'll be in the market for four or six cavity mold!

[Stopsign32v]

I would change whatever top punch or seating stem you are using to a flat top punch or a SWC seating stem, the edges of the meplat are looking kind of rounded in the loaded cartridge.


Robert

Robert,

Run that stuff by me again...You lost me in all of that. I've never used a top punch or seating stem...??????

[Stopsign32v]

Looks like you are off to a good start. What are you going to lube them with?

Clear Eastwood powder coating.

[Walks]

Great Start, a Single Cavity Lyman mold. It's the way I learned.
Better looking then My first, that's for sure.

[kevin c]

Great start! Have a care, though; this can get addicting!

Agree that wrinkles will go away if the mold is hotter. Maybe just a few more cycles to bring up mold temp, or a faster pace for the same and to slow mold cooling, and/or higher alloy temp. At least for me and my aluminum multi cavity molds, going for a light matte frosting gives very consistent boolits with few culls.

You asked, so I'll offer some info. Apologies if this basic stuff you know already. The reloading die sets for my press each come with two seating stems: one each for flat nose and round bullet profiles. The correct stem for the bullet improves concentricity, though this isn't critical in some applications, say, in plinking ammo in pistol chamberings. Lube sizers, have similar stems I think (I use push through sizers with a blunt stem pushing on the base of HiTek'd casts). A hard jacketed flat point slug probably won't deform if the edge of the meplat hits the interior of the round nose stem instead of the flat of the wad cutter stem, but a softer cast slug might, as suggested by Mk42 gunner and 405grain.

ETA: my eyes are getting old. I could swear there are two different calibers in your pics.

[sigep1764]

In your seating die, the stem is what comes into contact with the top of the boolit to push it down into the case. You can change them according to what type of boolit you are loading, either round nose or semi wadcutter like you are loading. The wrong seating stem can leave marks or seat the boolit crooked. Same with your sizing setup, how are you sizing these? In a Lyman, RCBS, Star, Lee sizing kit?

[Sasquatch-1]

357 Magnum brass and it loaded just fine in my GP100 (others have had issues with the rounds being too long).

Are you saying other people have told you the rounds are too long or that the rounds are too long for other guns? If it is other people telling you they are too long ignore them. As others have stated they look great.

[Stopsign32v]

In your seating die, the stem is what comes into contact with the top of the boolit to push it down into the case. You can change them according to what type of boolit you are loading, either round nose or semi wadcutter like you are loading. The wrong seating stem can leave marks or seat the boolit crooked. Same with your sizing setup, how are you sizing these? In a Lyman, RCBS, Star, Lee sizing kit?

In a Lee sizing kit.

So basically all of my molds are Lee molds. How do you change out the seating die? And where do you buy the correct ones? I was wondering why the nose of the bullet got all jacked up.

[Stopsign32v]

Are you saying other people have told you the rounds are too long or that the rounds are too long for other guns? If it is other people telling you they are too long ignore them. As others have stated they look great.

Here read this https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...-and-the-GP100

[tazman]

Clear Eastwood powder coating.

That will work just fine.

[John Guedry]

Wish my early attemps looked that nice.