Moving to Virginia

VAshooter · Post by **VAshooter** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:51 am

I still want to check my RCBS thermometer against another one just to see if there is a difference. I have an IR gun that hooks up to a digital thermometer at work. I may bring it home and see what it says. I like the idea of checking the mold temperature to see what it is when it's turning out good bullets. Thanks for the information and suggestions.

powderburner · Post by **powderburner** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 9:20 pm

I have cast 3/4 of a billion bullets and always got frost when the melt heated up but only when using antimony in the mix my lead tin doesnt frost even at 850 degrees could it be an antimony contamination issue?
I always get it with WW metal .Stuff like 95-5 solder has antimony in it . it doesnt take too much of the stuff to frost bullets

Ken Hartlein · Post by **Ken Hartlein** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 11:04 pm

I cast with a Waage pot and a "Antimony Man" thermometer also, and cast at 800 degrees, I've never had a frosted bullet. Lee and I use the same lead, comes from Exide Battery Co., and is supposed to be 99.6 % pure. I get my tin from the "Antimony Man", and use a lyman mold 457132. Last cast I got two groups of 80+ bullets each group that were within .4 grains. I'm just guessing but it seems to me your melt is higher temp than you might think or maybe your mold is too hot??

VAshooter · Post by **VAshooter** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 7:59 pm

I'm sorry I took so long to answer but I had a little problem.
I was all set to check my thermometers and bring home an IR gun and do some serious casting and hopefully learn more about it.
About one in the morning I woke up with severe pain in my chest and watched TV until seven AM when my wife woke up. My chest still hurt so we took a little trip to the emergency room where they poked and prodded and tested and finally decided that my gall bladder was broke and would need to come out. They took it out Saturday and I was back home on Monday but it will be a while before I can do any casting. I am able to reload as that isn't very strenuous.
The bad thing is that the weather turned warm and it is perfect for a little spring training and sorting out loads but it will be two or three weeks before I can tolerate the recoil of a black powder rifle.

VAshooter · Post by **VAshooter** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 7:30 pm

I finally felt good enough to try casting and I used a Fluke digital thermometer with a K type thermocouple.
I use a gas cooker powered by bottled propane so I started her up and melted the alloy. Once it was hot I checked the temperature with my RCBS thermometer which read 730 deg. F and with the Fluke Digital which read 760 deg. F . So the first thing I found was that my thermometer reads 30 deg. low. I let the Paul Jones mould heat up untill it reached 425 deg. F and started casting. (I usually just heat the mould by setting it on the rim of the pot for a few minutes and then warm it up to temp by casting bad bullets.) By waiting until the mould was heated to 425 Deg. the first bullet was good. I monitored the temperature and fine tuned the gas flow to keep the temperature constant and all the bullets came out perfect with no rejects. The lightest bullet was 539.8 gr. and the heaviest was 540.5 gr. The mould temperature rose from 425 at the start to 525 when I finished. The only difference I could see from the mould temperature was that it took longer for the lead to solidify. When it seemed to be taking too long I would rest the mould with a fresh bullet in it while I stirred the pot and skimmed it.
I think I am beginning to learn something about this casting stuff. I wish I had tried some of these things years ago. My pot only holds abou 20 lbs. of lead. I am going to look for a bigger pot. One that holds at least 30 or maybe 40 lbs of lead.