Hi everyone,
My first time casting, and every single one of the bullets I cast are out of round(left half of mold doesn't line up with the right). The problem is bad enough that it is clearly visible. I'm using an rcbs pro melt pot & a lee 6 cavity .356'' mold for 9mm RN. This is a new mold.
Here is what I did from A-Z:
First, I appled 91% isopropyl alchohol to the cavities with a q-tip.
After drying, I smoked each cavity with a butane torch. Here's where it got weird. The mold never turned black, despite holding the torch to the mold for 30 seconds or more at a time. The cavities remained completely shiny. I tried using a lighter too, but got the same result.
I then heated the pot, melted lead, fluxed with sawdust & removed crud with a spoon, then put the corner of the mold into the pot to heat it. Once the lead stopped sticking to the mold I opened the mold & sprue plate, and lubed the bottom of the sprue plate, tops of the mold, and all hinges with bullplate lube.(As per bullplate instructions I shook the bottle & used only the residue in the cap, applying a thin even coat to the mold)
Then I started casting. However bullet #1 to bullet #100 all came out out-of-round. There wasn't a single bullet that was correct. I made sure that there were no lead obstructions between the two halves of the mold, and I tried lubing the surface between the two mold halves with bullplate(and later A-lox) after I noticed they were out of round, but this didn't seem to do anything. The Lee reloading handbook says that lack of lube is the #1 cause of out-of-round bullets but I'm fairly sure lube wasn't an issue. I was sure to fully close both halves every time & lock the sprue plate in place. With the bullplate there was no resistance to locking the mold. I also made sure there was generous excess lead for the sprue.
I feel like I did everything to the T(except maybe lubing the contact surfaces, wasn't sure whether that was ok or a bad thing. At any rate it didn't make any difference). Apart from being out of round, all of the bullets were nice & shiny & fully formed.
Am I missing something obvious here, or could my mold be bad? I've attached pics below. Unfortunately the issue doesn't show up as well in the photos, but the second pic should give you an idea.
--Varun