Hello! First post here but a long time lurker!
I recently purchased a Lee 356-102-1R from midway and just got around to trying it out this weekend. This is not my first time using Lee aluminum molds, or even casting a light weight bullet, as I also have the 356-95-RF. Which always seems to cast beautifully for me when using the same rhythm and alloy. Which is straight clip on wheel weights. However this is my first RN style mold as I prefer the RF designs, which may be a contributing factor to my issues.
I am using a Lee pro 4-20 bottom pour and a full pot of alloy with a temp of 6 on the dial, and not pressure casting, with less than half an inch between the mold. I did not seem to get to the point where I had any frosted or “sandblasted” looking boolits. My first thought was that it could be a pouring issue, and I will need to increase the stream or decrease my distance from the pour spout? Or maybe it just wants to run at a hotter temp?
I started by degreasing the mold and lubing it up once it was hot and cast around 700 in one setting over the course of 2-3 hrs, and at the end found I had the highest rejection rate of any of my other molds! Out of the 700, I had around 70 rejects! Surprisingly all the bullets did fall out of the mold freely, most with just a turn of the wrist on a open mold, and with no handle tapping. I used a moderate pace, but I did allow the mold to cool once the sprue started to run and took longer than the usual 2 or 3 seconds to flash over and solidify.
I can’t help but notice how terrible midway packaged this order, it was in a plastic mailer with the box inside crushed on both ends! Shame on them! I thought for sure the mold was going to be beat to death with dents, upon inspection, it turns out it was not. I did find a small burr on the nose ends of both cavities as well as both sides of the mold blocks, which certainly shows as tiny imperfections on the nose of my final product.
I would like to try to give this mold a heavy dose of “lee menting” I just haven’t built up the courage yet as this would be my first try. Mainly I would like to find a way to get rid of that burr without changing the cavity dimensions. I took a random sample of bullets and measured them and had a large variance in weight as well as diameter of the band. Weight was 102.5-104 grains, with the heaviest being close to 105. While the diameter of the bottom band ranged from .3565 to just a touch under .358. After inspection all put through a .356 lee sizer and each one seemed to touch and get sized on the base end, however I did notice the slight variance in the pressure needed between them.
How can I get them more uniform? How can I get rid of the “swirl” marks sometimes found on the side above the band? This was one of the worst bases pictured, but what may be happening there? Are they still usable like that or should the bases like that example all be thrown in the reject pile too? Why is it that sometimes it looks as I am not getting good and sharp base fill-out, with the occasional rounded edge of the bottom band or even sometimes missing a little chunk of the base as pictured?
If anyone could look at my pictures and advise me on some of my issues I would be greatly appreciative! There are no casters local to me that I am aware of to bounce ideas off of or to gain insight! Maybe I am being a bit obsessive haha. But one can always learn and grow from mistakes.
Thank you!
-VOLKSRVA.