Cast my first boolits yesterday

[stang68]

I had my first casting session ever yesterday with my Lee TL158-358 SWC double cavity mold, 10#pot. After about 10 bad boolits I got the hang of it and cast about 50 water quenched keepers although they're just slightly frosted, guess I had the lead a little too hot. Mixed up Recluse's 45/45/10 lube formula and lubed my boolits today. Will reload tomorrow or Monday then see how they perform in my 1894 .357 Magnum Marlin. Don't know why I waited so long to get into casting, it's quite a satisfying experience, reloading at a higher level.

[462]

stand68,
Welcome. Sounds like you're hooked. Let us know the shooting results.

[jmsj]

Welcome stang68,
I think you'll find this is a great place to hang out and learn/figure things out.
Glad things worked out for you on your first try. That bullet(6 cavity mold) and that lube recipe/method was the same combination I started with too. jmsj

[stang68]

Thanks all, I researched on this site for some time before I even ordered my equipment, so much valuable info here.

[mooman76]

Great deal. Frosty bullets shot just as good as the non-frosty ones. I just assoon have frosty ones that fill out good as apposed to non-frosty ones that fill out sometimes and sometimes not.

[Lead Fred]

You have made the first footsteps into a larger world

[303Guy]

Oh heck! Oh no! Run! Oh oh - too late! We gotcha! Welcome aboard!

Great folks here on this site. You'll gain heaps and no doubt it won't be too long before you'll be teaching us a thing or too! I'll be looking forward to your results. By the way, you're not supposed to get it right the first time! Glad you did!

(Frosty boolits are just fine - I used to aim for frosty).

Hopefully your range results will be a big success too. All the best!

[WHITETAIL]

stang68, Welcome to the forum.
And don't hold back on any question.
The fokes here are the best.
NO putting you down for a dumb
question, Because we all have
been their done that.
Also don't be afraid of your spelling
We all have a brain fart now and thennnn.

[Blammer]

ya know, frosty boolits hold more lube.

[stang68]

I went to the range today and am quite pleased with the way my bullets performed in my Marlin 1894 .357 magnum with microgroove rifling, not quite as good as the 158 gr RFN's at .359 dia. that I had been using from a local caster but pretty damn close. With me it's hard to tell, I'm not that good a shooter with my physical problems. I used the same loads that I did with the RFN's, 15 shots with 11.3 gr. of AA #9 and 15 shots with 5.5 gr. of Unique. I'm still getting a couple of fliers with each load, I did with the other bullets also, don't know what the cause is, I'm very careful to be consistent with crimp and powder charges. Regarding the 45/45/10 tumble lube, I had no leading whatsoever and the bore was a cinch to clean. Again I'm pleased with my bullets and intend to get better at casting and produce more accurate bullets/loads, will experiment with different powder charges.

[NSP64]

Welcome, I used a Lee bottom dripper and had to run the lead hot to get good fill out and would get frosting on the edges of the lube grooves. I started using a ladle and don't have to run as hot with no frosting. Are you sizing? I see it is a TL design - I still size the TL designs (lee push through) Do you have a way to measure them? Also weigh them you may have some internal voids(air pockets) causing the fliers. welcome to the addiction

[Edubya]

Strange68, are you using magnum primers with those powders? That would cause some inconsistencies (fliers).
Does your new mould drop at .358, or are you sizing them to .358? If .359s were working before, why not .359 with these?

EW

[stang68]

I'm not using magnum primers for the powders that I use. I'm not sizing because they're dropping at .359 and I'm using a Lee seating die without the innards in the 4th hole of my Turret press for crimping instead of the factory crimp die since I found that the FCD sized the bullets down to .358. I weighed every one of the ones that I cast and except for two of them that were about 4 grains heavier than the rest they were within about .3 grains of each other. I'm going to go back to experimenting with different powder charges as I did when I was trying to get my .358 LSWC's to work with the microgroove, nothing worked. I only used a couple hundred of the .359 RFN's that I bought and didn't experiment with different charges since they did OK with the charges that I mentioned but I'm now looking for better performance.

[stang68]

My apologies to all if my comments in the previous post sound rude or ungrateful, it was not meant to be, I was just trying to reply to the previous comments and recommendations. My wife continually criticizes me, and rightly so I guess, for making rude comments when I don't even realize I'm being rude. Anyway, thanks to all of you that are trying to help me find my way.