So six or eight months ago, while deployed overseas, I decided that I was going to take up bullet casting when I got home. I began by pouring over this forum, trying to soak up all of this amazingly free knowledge. I've made a comment or two here and there, but for the most part I've just stuck to trying to learn from all the experience collect in these pages.
There's a bit of experience/knowledge and some manual dexterity gained only by the 'Doing', that all the written description in the world can't match. I like the example about trying to explain to someone about how to ride a unicycle
So, to start, I picked up a Coleman stove, a cast iron pot, a small bucket (all I could get at the time) of wheel weights and started smelting away. It turned out to be a lot more labor intensive than what I expected. But, after what seemed like hours of skimming out clips and non Pb weights, stirring and fluxing and fluxing and stirring, I ended up with what looked to me to be a pretty good clean batch of alloy. It was somewhat frosty when I cast it into ingots, so I figured I was running a bit high on the temp department.
It'll begin to go faster, or seem to anyway.You'll realize that you'll NEVER be satisfied with the amount of lead you have (whatever shape it's in). An afternoons afternoon's smelting can have you hopping, but the growing stacks of ingots will be very satisfying. Frosty ingots are fine. You're running the stove flat out to get the stuff melted down.
Next I got myself a Lee bottom pour pot, and an RCBS thermometer, plus a Lyman .44 200 gr. RNFP and a Lee .40 175 gr. TC and went to town.
I'll wager that 10 lb Lee will soon become obsolete
I had read several threads regarding using Kroil in the moulds, so I applied the thinnest film I could to the cavities. This didn't work as well on the aluminum Lee mould, but was brilliant on the Lyman. The bullets just dropped free.
NIrvana, isn't it?
All in all, my first session went pretty well.
It'll only get better.
I ended up with about 150 of each after culling ( I'd say I ended up culling about 10%-15%). It takes awhile to get the hang of doing a consistent pour, that's for sure. But, practice makes perfect, so no complaints.
That's it exactly.
I think my bullets are still coming out kind of frosty though. I'm having a hard time keeping the temp constant, but it was running between 700-900 degrees. Any input? Comments? Criticisms? Thanks for your interest.
That's another of those "doing/learning things. It's a kind of balancing act between pot/alloy temp and mould temp.