Lets talk about casting bullets

[Lead Pot]

Hi all.

I been seeing a lot of posts on first time casters hear and elsware.
I think it would be good to let them know what people like you do that have done this for a while,I would like to have your input on this.
Thie is how I do it.I know every one has his or her way,but this workes for me.
First I will let you know my fealings on over the counter moulds,I know they are not to expensive, but I feel that is like putting a $35 scope on a $1500 fine varmint rifle and wondering why it wont hold zero.I dont think there has been a good blackpowder mould since the Ideal name.I havent found one anyway.I dont think any are made for lube carrying.I placed many phone calls to RCBS/Lyman/Saeco,and pritty much got the same answer, NO MARKET.

First you have to get the mould and alloy up to temp.I dont flux to often,just when I first start,and I never use a acid based flux if you do just make sure you clean and oil the mould when your done.I use bullet lube or candel wax.I used to use rosin flux when I had some on hand it is expensive but workes great.
I use a temperature controled lead pot , I have a 20lb lee with the bottom pour pulled off.It holds temp good.I dont use a fish cooker or my old plumbing lead pot furnace for this job,it gets used for mixing up 40 or 50 lbs of ingots. I feel that is just as important as consistancy on how you pour.
I try to keep my soup at 750 deg.I dont add more alloy to the pot till I'm done with the batch I'm making It will change the weight of the bullet,boath by cooling the alloy and it might be a diferent alloy mix.I cast 1-30 for lube bullets and 1-50 for paperpatch I also swage the PP bullets with that alloy.
I use a ladle only I get more consistancy.I use the RCBS ladle I like it.When I pour I empty the hole ladle,I know your going to say that hakes a mess,Ya I'm a messy caster.But the reason is when the mould is full I keep pouring to let the bullet harden and you will have less shrinkage.When my sprew cools you have to look hard to see a dimple.
My bullets will not varry 3 tents of a grain from light to heavy.
I dont let my bullet frost.The first sign of frosting comes under the sprew,you will see it there first.I feel the frosting contributes to leadind and I is an indecation of the alloy seperating.
Keep the sprew cutter loose it should swing free.
when first starting and your mould is oiled from storage,clean it with a solvent,like a gun scrubber or alcahol,I boil a pot of water and put the mould in that.
I use a rag with bullet lube on it to put a little on top of the sprew cutter and under it to keep the solder from sticking on the block and the sprew will fall off when cutting it.I do this when the mould is hot.(a little goes a long way)

Well I will let some one else put there input in this.I hope this will help some.I cant type so it takes me a long time to get this down and kinda for get what I was going to say I know there are different opinions on this but I would like input in this for the new casters.

[Omaha Poke]

Good post Lead Pot! I agree with a lot of what you said. However I quit using a small dipper like the RCBS or Lyman in favor of a large Rowell bottom pour ladle some time back, and haven't regretted it one bit!

I too only flux when adding alloy or at the beginning of a casting session. During casting, I just push the oxidized metal on top over to the side and when it builds up to much, I skim it into a coffee can and later remelt it with fluxing. I use either candle wax, parafin, or what ever I have on hand.

As far as moulds go, I have quite a number of good moulds and have been lucky to only have had one not quite up to snuff. I think Paul Jones makes the best mould I have ever used, but haven't tried the Brooks or Hoch moulds yet. I have seen some nice bullets cast from these moulds as well.

I use my plumbers propane furnace for most of my casting, mainly because it can get up to temp a lot faster than the electric plumbers pot. Mine is an old electric 30 lb. pot that only has a high and low on it. Maybe one of these days I will break down and buy a Waage!

I am a messy caster too, and believe that if the sprue on top of the plate is not nice and thick, the bullet will be light. I can often tell before I cut the sprue whether the bullet will be a keeper or not. Any that have rounded edges or what some describe as a crater are discarded right out of the mould. With my Jones moulds, I rarely have a weight variation of more than +or-, .3 grs.

As far as frosting being an indication of alloy separation, once these metals are in alloy, they are there to stay. They could probably be separated by a skilled metalurgist, but the average caster like me probably couldn't do it.

I lube my sprue plate and the outside of the mould with a mould prep that has (I believe) graphite in it. It keeps the sprue plate from galling, and the lead from sticking. It can and should be brushed on to a cold mould for it is flammable.

I wait for the color, texture, shine or whatever you want to call it, changes from a bright shinny to a dull satin before cutting the sprue. This usually happens a few seconds after you see the small dimple appear in the top of the sprue which indicates that all of the metal possible has been drawn down into the bullet chamber of the mould. Only then do I cut the sprue.

There are probably a hundred other things that I do that I haven't thought of here, and maybe as this post continues, I will remember them.

[David Kunkel]

Hi All, As a new caster I hope this thread goes to record lenghts!

Two comments, first (I may be way off), but the frosting seems to be a tempurature thing. and Second is that The Steve Brooks mould that I have throws a beautifull Bullet, Bright and shinny. Its surfaces are very smooth, much nicer than any of the commercial cast bullets that I've been able to buy.

Dave K

[Omaha Poke]

Dave, you are absolutely right about the frosting being related to temp. It is generally a sign that the mould has gotten too hot. When I see this, I usually set the mould down and take a smoke or bathroom break. Randy

[MikeT]

Omaha Poke,
Question: When using the large Rowell bottom pour ladle, how do you get the base band to fill out (the bottom of the bullet has a slight radius on the edge instead of being square)? If I alternate between the RCBS laddle and the Rowell, each bullet poured from the Rowell has the round base band, but each bullet poured with the RCBS is perfect.
Regarding frosting, sometimes the bullet will be frosted on one half only, with the other side shiney; this can be corrected by slowing the rate at which the mould block is tipped upright. So I am guessing that in this case, air is trapped in the mould long enough to oxidize part of the bullet.
Keep on hav'n fun!
MikeT

[Lead Pot]

Ok lets go on.

Randy your right with alloy not seperating to an extend.Lead will only except so much tin.But I think that stuff you skim is tin(not that dry gray powder) that the lead did not obsorb"for give my spelling this old plumber never did learn how"when ste soup cools a little the excess tin sulidefies and floats to the top.That is my thinking but I'm not up on metals.
I read an artical once on casting I dont remember who wrote it Elmer Keith or it came out of a old Lyman casting book that said you have to add a little antimone to the lead tin alloy.Tin alone in lead tends to smear the bore.I add 1/2 lb lina type to 30 lbs tin when I have it,gut I usually take 2lbs no lead solder or 95-5 to 60 lbs lead.

Ok I hear my mould casts out of round bullets.I find it hard to see a mould out of round. The Cherry spins in a Mill so it has to be round unless the table mooved and they had to remill the face of the mould.In a lath bored mould the tool post has to move.

I feel when you cast and open the mould to soon it will stredge the soft lead bullet.With the old Ideal moulds that I have the lube walls in some are straight walled,that makes the bullet a little harder to fall out.The moulds that Steve and Paul make have tapered walls that elimate most of that problem.But even those good moulds will make a out of round bullet if you get in a hurry.
What I do if the moulds seperate easy is tap the hinge pin lightly and let the weight of the handle open the blocks.
Paul recommends you press on a 45 deg down on the corner of the block that workes good with his tight pins and the bullet will just fall out.

Dents in the base of the bullet I find those when I get to much lube under the cutter plate.

Unfilled Ogive is a good indecator for the mould being to cold or still oil in the mould.Or UGG using some kind of release stuff in a iron mould.I feel it should not be used.As far as-- o boy-- aluminum I dont use them.

Well In will let someone else add something If I could use morse code I could get this written up faster

Kurt

[Lead Pot]

Mike I find that happening when the sprew plate is to tight or the soup or mould is to cold or there is lube or oil under the plate.as far as the side of the bullet oxedized i dont know i dont get that.

Kurt.

[Kelley O.Roos]

My 1 cent here. I don't have thirty years experience casting, I do have some time invested in learning how to cast. Casting big bullets is an art in its self, I'm talking 500 grains and bigger and the biggest I cast is 700G's..

I don't use that marleux flux as its junk. I use wax or a waxed based flux and flux often, 20 bullets or so and if the flux sets itself on fire then the leads to hot for me. I add lead to my pot every 20 or so bullets and found weight doesn't very at all for my bullets. I keep my moulds oiled when not in use, which isn't often and clean with a fast drying laquor thinner. If I have it, I use mid-way mould prep on the out side of the blocks and not on the inside or inside of the sprue plate, put a Q-tip in the sprue plate fill hole to keep mould-prep from getting inside of mould cavity. I don't add anything to the pivot pin or even smoke the inside of the mould. My Waage pot will melt lead faster then my plumbers pot and is a whole lot cooler to be around and keeps the melt to a finer temperture. When I cast I cast enough for shooting for a couple of months and thats a lot of bullets.

I believe to many guys get carried away with making casting way to complicated, whats that saying, KISS, KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID, works for me and as the Coydog B. say's "your milage may very."

Speaking of the Coydog B., Can you imgine laying in a cold wet field with hundred of geese decoys out, just trying to get a shot at a goose and thats starting at 3:30 A.M., Shivering and it sounds like fun.


Kelley O.

[Gravity Railroad]

Greetings to the forum

This is a great post by Lead Pot. I hope I can add to it with my 2 cents.
This forum is full of “what to do” examples by experienced shooters. The long and short of it is, spend wisely up front on the best items. These are not necessarily the cheapest items. Buy the Kowa spotting scope, not the cheaper one. Buy the custom iron mould, not the over-the-counter aluminum one. Buy the Waage pot, not the blue light special production pot.
I know that money is tight, but everyone is better off spending a little more on the core items and getting something that can stand the test of time. I have some cheap counter aluminum moulds in the basement that I will not use, because they require too much work, and the bullets from these cannot compare to the bullets that drop from my custom mould. I wish this forum was around when I started, ‘cause it would have saved me money in the end.
All the best, Dave

[Omaha Poke]

Guys, all good posts and I think we can all agree on quite a number of issues.

I used to flux often, probably too often. About every half hour or when I would dump the cut of sprues back into the pot. Then I began reading and talking to guys like Bill Ferguson at www.antimonyman.com and learned from an expert that once in alloy the metal will not separate. The bright shinny surface you see after fluxing is metal that has not been exposed to the air except for a couple of seconds. The longer it is exposed the more gray and less shinny it gets. That is Oxidation.

Kelly is absolutely correct on saying that Marvellux is not worth buying. It may work for a bottom pour pot where the surface is not disturbed, but it will foul your ladles, etc to a degree that you have to take a very stiff wire brush to them just to get some (not all) of the crap off!! It took me nearly a year and a half of working with it to learn that. I even used a salt shaker to sprinkle just a little on the top of the melt and then tried to stir it in and flux. Same result. Crud!!!!!

I like the mould prep from Rapine for the sprue plate and outside of the mould like I said before. I do also put it on the bottom of the sprue plate and the top of the mould, and have never had a galling problem.

I generally cast only as many bullets as I need for a specific match, practice, whatever, just so long as I cast enough to be able to select the correct number that I need that are all uniform.

The Rowell bottom pour ladle, I use the (i believe) 1 1/2 pound model, and when I am pouring BPCR bullets, I pour the whole ladle just to make sure that I am not going to have air pockets. Maybe one out of 20 bullets will have round edges on the base of the bullet, and I usually know when that has happened before I ever open the mould.

I have 6 aluminum moulds, 3 by NEI and # by Rapine. They are not cheap moulds, and they work nearly as good as the Paul Jones iron moulds. They have a slight line on the bullet where the mould halves come together, but are , I would say, about 85% as effective in casting bullets within my weight contraints.

Mike, I think you are right about frosting on one half of the bullet to a certain extent. That half of the mould may also be the down half when you are pouring, and stays hotter than the other half. Just an assumption on my part.

Kelley not all of those 30 years were spent casting bullets, about 8 were spent casting lead jigs for fishing. I even made my own moulds out of room temperature vulcanizing silicone rubber. Poured in a dixie cup with the jig I wanted to copy or make from a wooden model I had made, and then cut down the middle with a knife. I then cut the sprue hole by hand. When poured, I cut the sprue with a pair of dikes. Made thousands of jigs for myselt and friends.

Well this is about the longest post I have ever made, and I have enjoyed about as much of it as I can stand Hope ;it helps someone, Randy

[Lead Pot]

Dave I would like to see everybodys hints and kinks, that is why I started this for the new casters and me.Like Kelley said I want it simple and easy but not to the point were the Quality of the bullet suffers.
You can take a 545 and 555 gr. bullet 10 gr difference in weight,I just calculated this out, will hit the same point at 500 yds the only change is energy in ft-lbs which is 20 betwean the two.But this is the important point in weight differential,you take that 550 gr bullet and have a inbalance in it like a void or driving band not properly filled and with that .45cal bullet with a 18 twist barrel spinning at 75000 fps you have a problem.I could tell you better how fast that thing is spinning but I lost the formula.

This summer I burned almost 5000 primers 2700 went through my new #1 I got last june and the rest went through my other powder rifles,thats almost 50 lbs of goex I guess what I'm tring to say is I cast alot but I'm still looking for a better way.for the new guys starting, and for myself.

Kelly I would like to have your input, I mean How you cast.

Kurt.

[Kelley O.Roos]

Omaha Poke,

That wasn't a slam about the thirty years,hell I'm not that old yet .

That was interesting about making you own moulds for fishing weights. That vulcanizing silicone handles heat pretty well? How heavy were the fishing weights? By the way I'm the worlds worst fisherman, when I fish the fish become extinct


Kelley O.

[Omaha Poke]

Kelley, I sure did not take it as a slam, just thought I would clarify my casting history a little. The Silicone rubber takes heat ok as long as you don't try to pour too fast. I will swell a little, which for fishing jigs doesn't matter much, but it wouldn't be any good for bullets/accuracy. Plus the rubber gets hot from the alloy, and even with gloves you have to put the mould down for a few minutes every once in a while to cool.

About being not too old yet , I am going to be 60 in two days Never thought I would live that long. Especially when I was across the pond in Viet Nam. 65 and 66. Then 30 years in the Seattle Fire Dept as a FireFighter and the last 25 of those years as a Paramedic on Seattle's Medic One, I learned that no matter what you do, who you are, what you eat, how much you run or work out, when you have used up your alloted number of heartbeats, that's it. So I don't run, jog, or work out because the faster you use up those heartbeats, the sooner you are going to go tits up. Randy

[BuckeyeShooter]

Happy Birthday Omaha.

I have to agree about some of the production moulds not casting a bullet that carries enough lube. The Saeco that I have is the worst. My Lyman 500gr goverment is pretty good though.

I also agree that we try to make things too difficult. I haven't cast bullets very long but have not experienced any real difficulties with it. My Lyman and Saeco moulds have cast great right from the start. I like to flux about every 30 or so bullets with parrifin wax. It's cheap and you can get it anywhere and it works so figure why use something else? I may flux too much but figure it don't really hurt to do it either. I use a Lyman ladel and haven't seen any reason to make a change. Of course the Waage electric pot goes a long way in making it possible to cast good bullets due to the consistency of the temperature.

Should have my Paul Jones mould in a few weeks and then the Saeco will be put away probably forever.

[Ken Hartlein]

Speaking of the Rowell ladles, don't hang up your old Lyman or RCBS just yet. There has been some "behind the forum" discussion going on about the Rowell bottom pour ladles and some very professional casters say they make a good wall decoration. I have one but haven't used it yet, so I'll wait to make a comment on them, I'm just saying if you have a Lyman or RCBS ladle don't throw it away!! (unless you send it to me, I can't find my old Lyman).