New to bullet casting BUT...getting frustrated

[DickelDawg]

Not a patient person by nature. BUT...have been casting for about 2 weeks. 1st sessions weren't too bad. Things have gone downhill from there. Have varied temp from about 600*F to almost 800*F and bullets continue to have wrinkles and voids. Using Lee aluminum molds, cleaned & lubed (sparingly). Started out with WW alloy then added some plumber's lead. Have fluxed a couple of times with sawdust. Any suggestions about where to go from here would be appreciated.

[RickinTN]

Smoke the cavities of the mold with a butane lighter or a candle and most likely the wrinkles will go away. The wrinkles are a sign that your mold is not hot enough...not the mix, the mold. The smoking makes the mold more forgiving on temperature.
Rick

[Jailer]

Before you go smoking that mold try pre heating your mold on a hot plate with a "cover" of some type to get it up to temp. I use an old coffee can for my cover. This pre heats the entire mold and sprue plate and makes it a lot easier to find your cadence with a mold that's near casting temp to start with.

[bedbugbilly]

Hotter mold . . . and don't get frustrated! If you've only had a few "molding sessions" . . you'll learn more each time. Part of it is getting your rhythm down . . . once you get that, you mold will/should stay hot enough to do way with the wrinkles.

I use a LP gas single burner hot plate to melt with - pretty low tech. I always preheat the mole (Lee aluminum, NOE aluminum, Lyman/Ideal steel) as I'm melting the lead. With the mold heated up, I maybe have a couple of bad pours which go back in to the pot and then once I get going, the mold stays plenty hot. With the Lee molds, I have more problems keeping it cool enough so my sprues harden and I can keep going and not have to wait and waste time between pours.

It's like anything else . . there is a learning curve. I've been doing it for 50 + years and I still learn new things all the time. Once it comes all together for you . . you'll go "Oh . . yea!" Just give it time and you'll get it . . . and I'm betting that once you do, you'll find the whole process as enjoyable as reloading or shooting. Best of luck!

[Bill in Ky]

Ditto the hotter mold.. I dip the corner of my Lee mold down in the lead to heat it up. Even then it sometimes takes 4 or 5 cast's to get it hot enough..
Good luck..

[TXGunNut]

Try scrubbing those moulds again, sometimes the oil is stubborn. When you re-lube just touch the pins and sprue plate, keep it out of the cavities. Which Lee moulds do you have? I finally found a hot plate to heat-cycle and pre-heat moulds, best piece of casting equipment I've bought recently.
Hang in there, sometimes it takes awhile to get things down.

[CPL Lou]

Try re cleaning the molds with Dawn dishwashing liquid.
Sounds like some oil sneaked in somehow.
3X on preheating the molds !
Also, try speeding up your casting rhythm a bit, not letting the mold cool until you get really frosty boolits.

CPL Lou

[strobro32]

I've been casting for 11 days now with 4 new aluminum Lee molds. I've been very successful. Here's my 12 step program.

1. Remove protective paper label from Lee mold.
2. Spray with non-chlorinated brake cleaner.
3. Blast with air hose to remove brake cleaner
4. Smoke mold halves with Bic lighter
5. Apply 1 drop of Kroil to mold handle hinge with a droper
6. Apply 1 drop of Kroil to sprue plate screw
7. Apply 1 drop of Kroil to both mold pins, both sides
8. Turn on lead furnace
9. Set mold over top of furnace until lead melts
10. Once lead reaches 800 deg, fill mold.
11. Wait for lead cap to frost, and knock open sprue plate.
12. Open mold, tap handle hinge to drop beautiful bullets into bucket of water. Repeat.

Bonus step: Go back and read hours of wonderful knowledge from these guys.

[prs]

You did pretty well with WW alloy and then not so good with WW alloy blended with more lead. You took a tin poor antimonial lead alloy and were lucky to do well with it, by adding more lead you have an even more tin poor alloy. Add enough lead free solder or other tin source to the alloy so that you are close to 2% tin content by weight. Then also follow the advice above for pre-heating mold.

prs

[mrrch]

+1 on preheating your mold. I had the same problems but I got it figured out by my third casting session.

[longbow]

Here's another vote on pre-heating your mould and just as importantly keep casting at a steady pace to keep the mould hot. Don't stop to examine each boolit as you cast.

Be careful pre-heating as you can overheat the mould too. I tend to watch for a bit of sprue plate lube smoke when I pre-heat. When the lube just starts to smoke the mould is actually a bit hot but casting starts well and the mould will cool a bit as you go and get into a steady casting cadence.

The sprue puddle should take a few seconds to freeze up and not be totally frozen when you cut the sprue. You don't want molten, it has to be "solid" but not quite full hard.

Longbow

[Wolfer]

I agree with all the above but the biggest problem I've had with wrinkles was because of oil in the cavities.
The lube doesn't actually have to get in, just the smoke from the Alighnment pins will cause wrinkles.
I have several Lee molds and while they are a little sticky when unlubed I can only get good boolits when their at the stage their needing lubed again.
Lube very sparingly before the mold heats up seems to help.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Not a patient person by nature. BUT...have been casting for about 2 weeks. 1st sessions weren't too bad. Things have gone downhill from there. Have varied temp from about 600*F to almost 800*F and bullets continue to have wrinkles and voids. Using Lee aluminum molds, cleaned & lubed (sparingly). Started out with WW alloy then added some plumber's lead. Have fluxed a couple of times with sawdust. Any suggestions about where to go from here would be appreciated.

See this FAQ
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-wrinkled-quot

after you click on the link that is in this link, be sure to read from the first post to AT LEAST the 10th post...it should help you understand why your mold needs to be hotter.

[cbrick]

I first recommend forget the smoking the cavities. How many times have you now cleaned it and how much time have you spent doing so? Now the first thing you do is gunk it up? Smoking a mold is an old wives tale and will do nothing to prevent wrinkled bullets. The very best casting mold is a perfectly clean mold.

As was said, make sure it's CLEAN, use bullplate sprue lube (2 cycle oil) VERY sparingly on the underside of the sprue, use a Q-tip to almost dry it. Pre-heat the mold using a hot plate. Do not inspect your bullets while casting, aluminum looses it's heat VERY quickly while your doing that, keep casting and when they start to frost simply slow up a bit but keep casting. Keep the mold closed and full as much as possible. It is important to keep the sprue plate hot also, do this by pouring a very generous sprue puddle & look at that as pouring heat. Don't worry about water dropping them, you didn't say what your casting for but making them harder is probably not needed. Again you didn't say what your casting but the straight WW should cast well, no more than 2% tin will help with fill out. Keep the pot temp at around 700 degrees or only slightly hotter.

Rick

[Handloader109]

I'll give you my take on casting,being new myself. I agree that heat makes a difference,but in my use of four different molds for my 9mm, there is a lot of difference in the molds results with different alloys. My NOE HP mold wont drop a decent bullet with the sa,me alloy I have used with the RN from Lee. It ain't temperature..... Or cleanliness...... Or contamination. Needs more tin. WW and straight range lead won't cut it.

[nemesisenforcer]

Frankford Arsenal Drop out spray. I've tried smoking the molds, but never had any luck with anything other than Frankford.

[bangerjim]

I NEVER clean my molds. And cast PERFECT boolits from the 1st one right out of the box. I have proven in over 25 molds oil does NOT cause wrinkles. I lube my molds with PAM for casting hot melt glue boolits and only wipe them off lightly and go right back to casting lead with NO wrinkles. And there IS PAM in there!

Scrub and clean all you want, you will still get wrinlkes!

OK......what causes them you ask:

Peheat you molds to FULL CASTING TEMP on a hotplate as several have stated above. A FULL HOT mold will give you excellent results. A hot plate is faster and more efficient than just laying them on top of your casting pot. And you can also preheat your feed ingots too!!!!!!

Wrinkles are 95% of the time generally caused by cold mold, cold mix....OR......LACK OF TIN! Your WW's have only 0.5% Sn and you are just diluting it even more adding pure lead as said. Add some pure Sb or solder or pewter and get that Sn content up to 2%. Sn lowers the surface tension of the molten lead and gives you excellent fills and no wrinkles. Try it. It is amazing what that little % of Sn will do for you!

Wrinkles can also be caused by you not pouring the molten lead directly down the sprue hole and you are getting a swirl down in there. Try to pour right down the hole and not the edge. Don't treat the sprue as a swirling sewer drain.....hit the hole dead on.

Let us know how you do!

bangerjim

[John Boy]

Once lead reaches 800 deg, fill mold.

800 degrees is not a valid absolute constant temperature! Each mold is different and I have cast with 205 molds in my collection

Heat the pot alloy and mold to a temperature which will be less than 800 degrees - with a clean mold - constant rhythm - with a 5 seconds pour so the sprue puddle frosts in 5 seconds. It's that simple.

I cast on a yearly average close to 4000+ bullets with different alloys from 42 to 550 grs that are perfectly filled out, sharp bases and with no wrinkles - not frosted and the Bell Curve weights are within 1 gr. You might ask, so ... the 42 gr pure lead bullets are used to reload 22LR primed empty cases with black powder

[sthwestvictoria]

Obviously I agree with the warm mould - like others I preheat on an electric hotplate. I also support the idea of adding more tin, I use charity shop pewter at around the 2% by weight to Wheel Weights (shooting rifle).

I am curious about BangerJims contention about oil not being a factor. I have always just followed suggestions of others here and degreased and cleaned. Perhaps I will trial a casting session after oiling and not cleaning.

[dromia]

I rarely cast at that high a temperature, most of my casting is done around 700, except for pure lead which I run about 750.

I never put anything in the cavities but melted alloy, I never clean new moulds but I do season them for a week or so on top of the cast iron stove. If you feel the need for smoking the mould or using mould srelease then you have another problem that needs dealing with.

I lube the mould with Bull plate lube as cbricks instructions and then get it up to temperature by sticking it in the melt if aluminium or with a blow torch if iron or brass, I keep the torch moving and have never had any warping over thirty years and hundreds of moulds.

The key is getting the mould, and the sprue plate, up to temperature, especially with aluminium moulds. The aluminium will heat up long before the steel sprue plate, I like to get my mould very hot to start with so that the sprue puddle takes a while to solidify I then cast slowly till the mould cools to my casting temperature and then away we go.

Get the sprue plate hot too not just the mould.