To say I am discouraged is an understatement

[Big Ryan]

Just a FYI but if you want a easy way of hardening up your lead insead of using those straight wheel weights, just add alittle bit of Tin solder, you know those spools you use to solder with. I use about a 2% mix for 90% of my castings. Besides being clean, and good thick smoking on the mold is very important. Even after all of that your first 20-30 still may look crummy till your mold starts to heat up properly.

[Recluse]

Hell, I must be an old wife. . .

With my Lee two-bangers, I run my alloy hot with a thick layer of flux on top, but use the BruceB method (wet towel/sponge) for keeping the molds at a fairly constant temp to keep the casting rhythm going.

Good fillout, no frosting.

It works for this old wife.

[armoredman]

I think I identified a problem. I am used to the method I was taught, to try to swirl the melt around the opening in the sprue plate, to get an even fill out. This mould doesn't allow that, with frequent plugs forming in the sprue plate. I just measured with the handy dandy calipers. All Lee sprue holes measure between .40 and .60, (for the older one), while the biggest sprue hole in the new mould is .32, with two measuring .15! No wonder I can't get a good fill out - I can't get a good stream INTO the thing.
Does that sound like a likely villian? The sprue plate is VERY thick, .185", compared to the wider holed Lee, (that just don't SOUND right! ) is at .12". Being detached from the mould, it doesn't heat like the mould does, and being such a small hole, it freezes the melt far earlier than the mould itself does.
Of course, I might be grasping at straws here...thoughts?

Edit to add, I am going to figure this thing out one way or another, I never had a real quality mould before, and I ain't getting rid of this one!

[Char-Gar]

Armorman.... You can be assured the problem is operator error at some point. It maybe pollution in the mold, alloy at the wrong temp. or wrong technique. Molds are individuals and often require different techniques.

I find these kind of threats very frustrating as the problem could be solved quickly if an experienced caster was standing by your side. But when you throw it out to a board like this you get all sorts of advise and opinions, some good and some bad. Everybody thinks they are an expert and you have no way to sort through the stuff you get.

You would be better advised to purchase a good book on the subject or pick out one person you want to work with and do the exchange through private messages.

I have no problems with multi-cavity aluminum molds, but they are individuals. Rest assured your mold will do a good job if you operate it correctly. There is a finite number of errors you can make. You just have to eliminate them one by one until you find your current problem.

[Charlie Two Tracks]

I feel your pain. It took me quite awhile and a lot of advice here before I got boolits that would work. I did need a thermometer and I got a electric heating burner for heating the mould. It helped a lot. There is an art to casting. It took and will take me awhile to get it all right. The distance that you have the mould from the bottom of the pot makes a difference. The speed at which the lead comes out of the pot makes a difference. The amout of sprue that you have on the mould makes a difference. The time and technique you use to cast makes a difference. I had cast two (yes two) full Folger coffee cans of boolits and had to melt them all down. I kept reading and asking and trying new things and finally it is paying off. I really enjoy casting now but there was a time that I thought I had made a big mistake and that the guys on this forum were using some kind of magic to get their boolits. Practice and patience was what worked for me. Be careful. 800 deg. can burn bad. Real bad. I have not found this out first hand and don't care to. You can do it.

[casterofboolits]

I think I identified a problem. I am used to the method I was taught, to try to swirl the melt around the opening in the sprue plate, to get an even fill out. This mould doesn't allow that, with frequent plugs forming in the sprue plate. I just measured with the handy dandy calipers. All Lee sprue holes measure between .40 and .60, (for the older one), while the biggest sprue hole in the new mould is .32, with two measuring .15! No wonder I can't get a good fill out - I can't get a good stream INTO the thing.
Does that sound like a likely villian? The sprue plate is VERY thick, .185", compared to the wider holed Lee, (that just don't SOUND right! ) is at .12". Being detached from the mould, it doesn't heat like the mould does, and being such a small hole, it freezes the melt far earlier than the mould itself does.
Of course, I might be grasping at straws here...thoughts?

Edit to add, I am going to figure this thing out one way or another, I never had a real quality mould before, and I ain't getting rid of this one!

Small holes in the sprue plate will restrict the flow of lead into the cavities and will allow the lead to cool enough to ause wrinkles and voids. Trying to sworl the lead going into the cavity will do the same.

Just checked several brands of sprue cutters for hole size:

Lyman two cavity (two moulds) .150

RCBS two cavity ( one mould ) .200

Lee two cavity ( thee moulds) .175

Lyman four cavity (four moulds) .190

NEI four cavity (two moulds) .125

IMHO the problem you are having is due to the small holes in the sprue plate choking the lead flow into the cavities.

Regards

[armoredman]

Sounds like some of your are even smaller, hmm.

Chargar, I appreciate the backup, but you make it sound like there has never been a bad mould made. i only know one person who is a caster, and he stated he hasn't turne on his pot in 2 years, owing to the fact he made thousands of boolits then, and hasn't burned through them yet. He's also my bosses boss, makes it a little difficult to ask him to drop by.

[longbow]

I have recently bought two NOE moulds 316299 and the 0.314" x 129 gr. in four cavity and find that they like really hot lead and casting temperatures as does my Mihec Cramer brass mould.

I am a ladle caster and use a 2 burner gas hotplate. I pre-heat the mould on one burner and the lead on the other. I pre-heat the mould until it takes a pour of lead a few seconds to harden then all is good to go.

I get the most perfect boolits I have ever seen out of my NOE and Mihec moulds casting this way.

I also use straight wheelweights and/or range scrap. Nothing fancy and no special alloys.

I do not use a thermometer so cannot give exact temperatures but I keep the lead hot enough that I often have to cool 2 cavity iron moulds.

Also, I think the fast pour from the ladle helps with fillout.

In short, I think heat is your friend and a fast pour can't hurt.

Not sure if that helps but that is what I do and it works for me.

Longbow

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

On my NOE five cavity mold, because the mold was not up to temp I had difficulty getting the cavity filled, the sprue would solidify too fast . . . so . . . I just kept filling . . . till it ran over the edge . . . let it absorb some heat for 15 sec, then cut it, and dump what boolits had started inside, and start over . . . that large sprue plate is gonna take a bit to come up to temp . . . try getting it started in the oven.

[Heavy lead]

I must be simple, always use hotter than hell water and dawn, hot enough water that the mould is hot enough so most of the water just evaporates off. While the pot is heating up I let dry on the pot, then after it's completely dry use denatured alcohol (I buy this 1 gallon at a time and have a spray bottle with some in for degreasing purposes) sprayed in the cavities. After I've got the lead fluxed and ready to go I stick one end (NOT SUMMERGED) in the melt for 30 to 50 seconds depending on how big the mould is, then go to it, usually the first pour is fine, if not it just takes a couple more and off to the races. A wet rag is kept near to cool if necessary.
This is the same regardless of moulds, from 2 or 4 cavity iron, several 3 cavity aluminum mountain moulds, 5 cavity NOE, 6 cavity Mihec, 4 cavity RG NOE or whatever they are. Even though I do have a couple Lee 2 cavities, I dispise the things. I run the Lee pot at about 7 and crank down to 6 or so as I get moving, have perfect boolits most of the time as long as I swirl the lead in, always get better results this way rather than straight down the sprue hole.

[geargnasher]

I will do that this weekend Nasher.. I have to say I cast well, I am not some lost sheep, BUT I do want to get it better and I think your advise will help me do exactly that. Thanks.

My bad, I wasn't assuming you were an amatuer, I know better, just that by trying what I suggested you you can learn a lot and make better informed decisions about alloy and mould temp regardless of what the rest of us think. That was a little excercise I figured out when I was first learning, and often check with a new batch of alloy just to see how it does. I don't use a thermometer much, because the alloy will tell you when it's happy, and a thermometer will only tell you the temperature!

Ok, I feel a rant coming on, ya'll are warned!!!

Anybody that thinks me and Rick are full of it, that's fine, but there are certain things that, for many reasons, are done a certain way because it works best. I will concede that if you are happy the way you are doing it, that's all that matters. But if you're not, try it my way and see. I challenge anyone who thinks smoking a mould is the way to go and casting with ternary alloys at 750-800 degrees is good for metallurgy to just try what I have recommended. Also, you might also go read a good book on casting nonferrous alloys or the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook and see we are simply using proven industry methods. I spend a lot of time trying to find what works best, even relearning and reinventing processes based on the recommendation of others, this is the best way I've found so far, and I've been the smoke/wax/high temp/no tin route plenty of times. I've learned more from the collective here than I could possibly have learned in five lifetimes of casting because the membership brings many big guns of education and experience from an amazing array of fields with just the parts pertinent to casting distilled down, so you can get facts on boolit alloys from professional metallurgists, chemists, and doctors, facts on lube from petroleum engineers, beekeepers, benchies, you name it, you get the idea. Again, many things in life and this hobby have many ways of being done correctly, but in some cases the physical properties of the materials with which we work demand certain practices for best results, and I feel like I have named a handfull of practices that are best, based on a lot of doing it other/not-so-good ways myself. Just tryin' to pass it along and cut through some of the pitfalls and bravo sierra that have pervaded my own casting experience.

Rant off.

Gear

[Doby45]

LOL, sometimes you and I just miss it in the translation of the text. I was not saying you made an assumption that I was an amatuer. I was saying I cast fairly well and I think your suggestions are great. I am not so proud or prideful to disregard better wisedom than my own simply cause it was not mine first. Rock on Rick and Nasher, I think what you both have said is deadnuts on.

[Echo]

Sounds like some of your are even smaller, hmm.

Chargar, I appreciate the backup, but you make it sound like there has never been a bad mould made. i only know one person who is a caster, and he stated he hasn't turne on his pot in 2 years, owing to the fact he made thousands of boolits then, and hasn't burned through them yet. He's also my bosses boss, makes it a little difficult to ask him to drop by.

No problem at all to ask him to drop by. He should be pleased, and honored, that you thought enough of his expertise to ask his assistance. I would be...

[doghawg]

Rick and gear...

Lurking here paid off! I just came upstairs from trying a cooler alloy and hotter mold and I'm convinced. Last nights maiden voyage with the new Waage pot was at 750 degrees and tonight I ran it at 700 with better results and easier bullet release with the RCBS 270 SAA. Thanks!

[Doby45]

My molds are always good and hot by the time the pot is up to temp. I am gonna try it at 650-675.

[casterofboolits]

Sounds like some of your are even smaller, hmm.

Chargar, I appreciate the backup, but you make it sound like there has never been a bad mould made. i only know one person who is a caster, and he stated he hasn't turne on his pot in 2 years, owing to the fact he made thousands of boolits then, and hasn't burned through them yet. He's also my bosses boss, makes it a little difficult to ask him to drop by.

Sorry, I thought you were saying the holes in the spruecutter was .040/.015.

Holes not the problem then.

[geargnasher]

Sorry, I thought you were saying the holes in the spruecutter was .040/.015.

Holes not the problem then.

Maybe you did what I do a lot, being used to just "seeing" measurements to three decimal places, when someone just posts two (which is fine) I automatically add a zero in front in my mind. Used to automotive and boolit meaurements, always to the thousandth or beyond.

Gear

[armoredman]

Sorry, not an engineer, nor do I play one on TV. I guess I will have to find a hot plate somewhere, any old dimestore cheapie wil work?

[a.squibload]

Harbor Freight, Walgreens, Walmart, about $10.
Don't lean your elbow on it while casting!

[sargenv]

Personally... I get my mold, I apply bull plate on the important pivot points, I do not clean the mold with anything.. The more I futz and clean the thing, the more frustrated I get. My method for warming up a Lee 6 banger or an LBT 4 banger is to move the sprue cutter to the side and just pour the lead from my pot into the moulds so you get 4 or 6 bullets joined by a sprue that is connected. I do this 4 or 5 times and figure by the time the last one is poured, the mold is pretty much up to temp. To open, I simply use the sprue cutter to dislodge one side of the mold, then I lightly whack the all stuck together lead out of the mold, close it up and repeat.

Maybe it's because I don't care that each and every bullet has to be absolutely perfect.. I don't know.. but once the mold is up to temp, I pour and pour, and cast, and pour until it's time to fill the pot again. Actually I put two corn cobs of WW or whatever alloy I am using on top of the pot to warm up. When I hit about a pound or two poured, I drop a heated ingot into the pot, which melts quickly but never gets to the point where it stops pouring. My pouring temp according to the thermo is about 725 deg. When I drop the ingot in, it drops to about 675, but then quickly recovers and I keep on pouring. My Lee pot is set to about a 7.

I also turn down the speed at which it pours. I found that if the lead was going too fast, it would cause more problems than if I nearly shut it off. Usually I get it down to a dribble, and then open it back up about a 1/4 turn and that is about perfect for pouring anything from 110 to 190 gr boolits. I use a Lee 4-20 bottom pour pot. I have about 5 or 6 - Lee 6 bangers from a 105 Gr .358 cal semi wadcutter to the 175 gr .40 cal truncated cone-TL. I have a few 2 cav molds.. but they take too long to get any number of bullets so I rarely use them. I also have an LBT 4 cav - 185 gr pointed RN in 40 cal that makes all the perfect (to me) boolits I want.