To say I am discouraged is an understatement
I had the pot going, everything dialed in, and I knew that a 5 cavity mould would take a bit of heating. So, into the top ofthe Lee 10 pound production pot it went. I knew that wouldn't get all the cavities, but would be a start. Yeah, right.
When the lead fell off, I started, and for the first 50-100, not a single boolit was complete, partials and tails. OK, warm up time. I started speeding it up, trying to warm up the mould, and soon, complete and what looked to be good boolits were dropping. I kept the speed up, and was happy.
Until it came to to inspect them. Now remember, I am a low volume caster, so this was a lot of boolits for me. Out of about 200-300 cast, not ONE was good, all with incomplete fill out and severe wrinkles. All right, I dialed up the pot to 8, (whatever that is, no lead thermometer, I just make sure the lead isn't steaming, don't want to breathe lead vapors, bad for the health plan), and dump everything back in the pot. Wait for it all to melt and get up to temp, dip the mould again, and start over. Now the mould started off warm, so it was only a few casts before boolits were towel dropping again, and from where I could see, they looked good. Onward and upwards!
Yeah, right. Out of that 200-300 casts, I ended up with 11 usable, not good, mind you, but usable boolits. Same story, incomplete fill out in the lube grooves/driving bands, and wrinkles on the sides.
I haven't had this issue with my cheapie Lee 2 cavity moulds, what can I do? Do I need to jack the temp up even higher on the pot? I cast with two ways, one was raise and lower the spout on each cavity, the other to let it run as I moved the mould underneath it. No difference. Lead poured straight in, or swirled off the side of the funnel in the sprue plate, no difference.
Ideas? This was, for me at this time, a big monetary investment, and I would love to get it working right.