Good day for casting and a few other things too!

RBHarter

West Central AR
Brother Love you've got some great looking cast boolits. I'm totally jealous.

I'm doing my best to cast 9mm with my Lee aluminum mold .356-124-RN 6 cavity. All I seem to get is these frosty looking boolits. I'm using a Mag 25 casting pot at 650% and the lee aluminum mold .356-124-RN at 240%. I think I'm almost there but still getting frosty boolits.

I think I see the problem . Your pot is too hot . You need to loose that 650% turbo setting . ;) :)
 

Wieldbill

Member
I think I see the problem . Your pot is too hot . You need to loose that 650% turbo setting . ;) :)
I knew I was close to getting it but I'll change my BMW of casting pots to a low turbo of 600% to 620% and let you know how it goes.

Just one time I'd like to see those shinny finished boolits especially after I spent so much time learning to spell "boolit".....

Gracious ameigo...
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Shiny isn't always a good thing. Shiny can mean a cold mould and possible pout fill out.
Some light, even frosting can be good. I tend to like it. What I want to avoid is a heavy, pitted looking frosting. I also want an even frost over the entire bullet, uneven frosting mean the mould has hot spots.
Mould temp is mostly controlled by casting tempo. Cold mould means you need to go faster, too hot means go slower. A small fan blowing on the filled mould helps with too hot. Bottom pour vs ladle makes a difference.
Experiment with how long between pours, is it every 15 seconds? 20? This matters to each individual mould. Find what that mould wants and all is good.
 

quicksylver

Well-Known Member
Frosting ? Just the reverse wrinkles..bad fill out...

The mold is too cold..thought it might be when you said 240 deg.

Looks more like it needs another round of Dawn and run up to at least 300deg. before you start casting.

Smoking it lightly won't hurt either..

On ward ! you are almost there..!

Alloy again?
 

Wieldbill

Member
I knew I was close to getting it but I'll change my BMW of casting pots to a low turbo of 600% to 620% and let you know how it goes.

Just one time I'd like to see those shinny finished boolits especially after I spent so much time learning to spell "boolit".....

Gracious ameigo...
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
Um I feel like we lost something in translation .
650-700° is ok ....... 650% might be a problem .
The quip was about 650 percent vs degrees.
 

Wieldbill

Member
Oops misunderstood but now I see what you mean. I'll up the casting pot temp between 670 degrees and 700 degrees when I get back tonight and run the mold at 300 degrees.

Is there a particular separation in temperature between the mold and the casting pot I'm looking for?

What I'm looking for is after I reload the boolits that someone anyone will look at them and say wow..... So I'm looking for the wow effect...
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
You'll get that wow effect even more from well filled out bullets with clean sharp edges. Shiny doesn't shoot good but a quality bullet sure can. 670 to 700 degrees is fine for an alloy with tin in it. If there is tin in your alloy I wouldn't recommend going past 725 degrees cause you'll loose the effect of having the tin.
 

Wieldbill

Member
My allow has a BHN 14 hardness and has a combination of lead, antimony and tin. It's similar to Lyman no 2 but I started with WW then added antimony and tin.
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
I don't get many shiny bullets , but a tee shirt will go a long to make them pretty after loading .

I can't speak to my mould temps but I did discover that my pot temps were too high and the Lee reostat isn't consistent in setting but holds 25 degrees over 700 and 10-15 under ......Most of the time and per session . I will spring for pid pot when they come down to a reasonable price .
 

Wieldbill

Member
20170402_154325-2656x1494.jpg OK here we go again....

My Cadillac casting pot Lyman Mag 25 is just about 700 deg and the .356 mold is 394 deg. I'm again trying to cast those beautiful shiny boolits.

Well those beautiful shiny boolits cast out of my mold for 4 hours straight. You have no idea how happy I was. Thank you 1000 times for your advise. I feel like I finally reached the summit in boolit casting. God knows how much I've spent trying to get here but thanks to you "it's a great day for casting boolits".
 
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Wieldbill

Member
20170402_143859-1494x2656.jpg OK here we go again....

My Cadillac Mag 25 casting pot is just about 700 deg and mold is 394 deg. I'm again trying to not only cast excellent boolits but have that nice shinny look.

I attached pics and will update as I see what I get.
 
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Ian

Notorious member
Shiny matters not.

Sharp bases DO matter, above all else. Voids matter. Rounded, partially-filled band corners matter. Slight wrinkles on noses don't, except for appearance. Look closely at those "shiny" bullets cast by others and you'll usually see major imperfections in fillout, or the person was using a very rich alloy. Al Nelson is the only person I know who can cast mirror-bright, perfectly filled bullets from wheel-weight alloy and 2% additional tin. If I didn't know better I'd say he was casting in a vacuum or inert atmosphere.

The light sort of "frost" that just wipes away like condensation to leave a bright surface beneath is just about perfect and what to expect from typical wheel weight metal.
 

KHornet

Well-Known Member
Agree with Brad and Ian both. The only shiny bullets I have are maybe the
first 2 or three openings of the mold, after that it is lite frosting over entire
bullet.

Paul
 

Wieldbill

Member
Your starting to make me understand what I'm looking for in my boolits that I cast.

Your right I did notice in order to get a filled out form and the shinny look it took allot of time and work. I spent more time watching the mold temperature then anything. It was as you said that after the first group of 50 I had to slow down casting and constantly check temps to keep the shine on my boolits. Also I added tin to my mix to get the sharp edges on my cast boolits.

My temperature for my mold was best at 350 to 375 degrees and my casting pot did the good at 700 degrees.

I put a couple of pictures in my last reply.
 

Wieldbill

Member
9mm Lee .356-125gr-2R.jpg

I'm attaching an image of my cast 9mm Lee .356-125gr-2r boolit. I'm trying to decide if I can use my Lube-A-Matic II to lube this boolit or would I do better to use the Lee Alox.

They will be fired from my 9mm S&W Shield semi auto at my local range and will only be used for target shooting I just don't want to mess up my gun barrel with lead..

What do you think?
 

Attachments

  • Lee .356-125gr-2R Bullet mold.pdf
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  • 9mm Lee .356-125gr-2R.jpg
    9mm Lee .356-125gr-2R.jpg
    1.4 MB · Views: 4

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Looks a lot like the bullet Khornet uses in his 9mm. He lubes on a Lyman 450 so I don't see why your setup won't work.
Lee also can work but for a 9mm I would prefer a traditional lube.

By the way, leading the bore isn't a big deal. It cleans out fine. If you never lead a barrel then you aren't pushing the envelope.
 

Wieldbill

Member
You helped me allot to make the choice as to how I need to lube.

I am sitting here in front of my lube-a-Matic II waiting to see a reply to whether I lube by RCBS or Lee Allow. So I appreciate your help with this decision especially the part about leading on the barrel not being the end of the world. I was always worried about leading in the barrel because I wasn't sure if I could clean it out. As long as I can I guess I shouldn't worry as much ads I do.

I'm going to use the Lube-A-Matic II which as you know is like the Lee 450. Then I won't have to wait 24 hours to reload them and as long as you feel that my gun will be okay I can always clean it.

For month I was learning how to cast my boolits with a shine on them only to find out that if I get a shine great but as long and they fill out the form and are solid they could have a slight frost and would still make good boolits. I think your and the others I've met her on the forum have much more knowledge then the books I'm ready. I've learned allot more here in the last couple of weeks then from most things I read on the internet barring the Lyman 4th Addition casting book.

Big time thanks! I'm now going to start lubing.