To say I am discouraged is an understatement

[looseprojectile]

BUT I have read all 139 posts and replies and only one person has mentioned using a propane torch to heat a mould. Kroil has been mentioned once.
I don't want to come off as being an expert or a know it all but I try to keep it simple and just use some common sense.
Occaisonally I have some dificulty trying to cast perfect boolits. Most of the time when I start to cast I heat the mould with the torch and the first pour delivers perfect boolits. That being said I would never play the flame of a torch on the sharp corners of the inside of the mould blocks. My torch has a four or five inch long about half inch in diameter flame and it would take some serious effort to melt aluminum with it.
I had a four cavity mould once and I gave it away, too heavy. I now have about thirty eight boolit moulds and all are one or two cavity.
Armoredman would be well advised to go with a single or two cavity mould to start with so that he could enrich his expertise with experience.
Use enough heat!!!!!!!

Life is good

[buck1]

True, ANY chem fumes are on my list of things not to inhale. I am no chemist, but I have read of various things used to denature alcohol including gasoline (no foolin) and I dont want to breath them eaither. But when dry there cant be much left IMHO.
Its all toxic to some extent but chlorine is in the water we drink , alcohol is also consumed etc, so good luck staying away from it all 100%. All of it deadly in the right amounts. So dont sit there and sniff the stuff wile evaporating .
Notice I did not condem denatured alcohol (a poision by definition and law) as a cleaner, I just said break clean was -ALSO- a good cleaner . And after drying and pre heating I sure cant find any left nor can my hot lead find anything to cause defects.
Quite honistly if you re read my post I dont see any arguement made except that I disagree with handloader or other mag that it was read in about break cleaner being not good to clean a mold. If something else was sugested it was not my intent.
Always cast and use cleaners in a well vented area reguardless of what you clean your mold with. Heck thats basic common sence...

[CJR]

Gear,

With all due respect, I don't propose to be your instructor in understanding how smoking a mould improves the quality of cast bullets. I'm just relating documented information on what the NRA tested and recommended, i.e. smoking bullet moulds to obtain high quality bullets. Whether you believe or accept that recommendation is of no consequence to me.

Best regards,

CJR

[codgerville@zianet.com]

I use brake cleaner to clean and de-grease all my molds. I have never found any residue left in the molds. I have a couple of bottles of the old NEI Mold Prep which I use with a Q-tip to lightly coat the cavities and the sprue plate.

[armoredman]

looseprojectile, I appreciate your support, but I have been casting for a couple of years with Lee 2 cavity moulds. Never had this issue with them, always dipped the corner of the mould into the melt to heat up, and when the lead didn't stick to it, it was warm enough to get started. This was a special opportunity, a real custom boolit that I wanted, something to make my vz-58 and CZ 527M sing with cast, as the only mould I have for 7.62x39mm is the Lee 160 grainer, which is a bit heavy for the caliber. So, when I saw this opportinuty, and with full co-operation from the better half, I jumped on it, and I NOT unhappy I did, I will always be grateful to the seller for letting me have this at a great price, as I am grateful to all the posters here with great advice. I just want it to work right, and I think the main culprit here, after reading ALL of the responses, is cold mould. The way I pre heated moulds works great with the aluminum two bangers, but with a 5 slot it isn't enough, I see now. So, on pay day, I will drop by the thrift store for a cheap hot plate to pre heat the mould.
The last question I had was how long to warm up, and that was answered with, "Start when the pot starts, pots is ready, mould is ready", roughly translated.
So one cheap hotplate, if I can squeeze it out, (bad payday), and we will be in business!

[skimmerhead]

all my molds steell, aluminum, brass are treated with kroil. when time to use i use a little acetone in a small container with a 1/2" brush or tooth brush, first i let soak ten minutes then scrub, remove, blow with compressed air. empty container put fresh acetone and repeat. clean mold.

skimmerhead

[Recluse]

We might not be shooting cast at 2500+fps because we might have thought that antimony was a wive's tale and never added it to our mix, since Lord Elmer was so stuck on his beloved 16:1. All I'm saying is technology advances, and if you don't understand the reasoning behind techniques you're using, you may well be doing things the hard way or not the best way.

Nowdays, we have things like Felix lube, which is FAR, FAR, superior in every way to the NRA formula, although it doesn't contain any space-age ingredients. In fact it is made from 17th century ingredients, just put together with a 20th-century understanding that came about from research in petroleum plastics. We also have Veral's lube, and let's not discount the magical properties of certain modern lubricants such as that in Bullplate sprue lube or Polydimethylsiloxane compounds.

Gear

Interesting observations here that I'll throw in on. . .

I will hypothesize that there are more people casting their own boolits today than there were when Colonel Harrison and Elmer Keith and Skeeter and those pioneers were casting their own.

Harrison, Keith, Skelton and others were the trailblazers in the field of using lead to make our favored and beloved projectiles. . . like John Browning and Arthur Savage, Samuel Colt, (Horace) Smith & (Dan) Wesson, Dr. Richard Gatling, and John Garand to just name a few, were to the modern firearms we so love today.

But does anyone really think that the engineers and Glock or Sig or H&K turn their nose up at Browning, Savage, Garand, and company? Having visited those corporate headquarters, and many others, I can personally tell you that is not the case.

At the same time, the engineers will tell you the best way they can honor their predecessors is by making better and stronger firearms. Likewise, I think John Browning would be fascinated by today's semi-automatic handguns. John Browning would be amazed at firing the Barrett .50 calibre rifle, and Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson would be blown away by what Glock did with polymer frames.

There are those who accept the status quo and there are those who do not. I wasn't satisfied with Lee's Liquid Alox, so I took what I'd read by the folks ahead of me on Cast Boolits and what they'd tried and experimented with and finally settled on this 45/45/10 blend.

Now, Glenn (Larson) is looking to take the idea of a "liquid" tumble-lube and take the alox right out of it and in doing so, he very well may revolutionize the entire concept of tumble-lubing. . .maybe lubing altogether. Who knows? But it will be fun to watch and try.

Felix lube is a PERFECT example of utilizing today's knowledge with yesterday's resources. Likewise, the Freechex gas-check punch system and our fellow casters experimenting with aluminum as a cost-effective way of reducing leading in high-velocity cast boolit rounds.

Look over at the Special Projects section of this forum. What some of our members are doing and developing will blow you away.

Look at the sticky on Lee-menting. Amazing! You can take a $20 mold and in less than an hour, have it casting perfect boolits like a $100 mold. Not saying aluminum will be as durable or easy to work with as steel or iron, but what I'm saying is that for those who like Lee molds or who do not have the cash to spend on a more expensive mold, the problem with mass-produced aluminum molds now has a solution.

NOW, compare our solution with that of Lee's, with both their aluminum molds and the lubing of their tumble lube boolits. OUR solutions blow Lee's away. Period.

So not everything that is "written in stone" is the absolute end-all or be-all. In our case, here in the cast boolit world, many of those "stone tablets" are seeing signs of erosion. Some are just flat starting to crumble away.

[armoredman]

LLA in tumble lube boolits works for me...I never did do pan lubing. But, that's just me. Maybe someday I will step into the 21st century and get a lubrisizer.
In the meantime, hot plate.

[frankenfab]

Interesting observations here that I'll throw in on. . .

I will hypothesize that there are more people casting their own boolits today than there were when Colonel Harrison and Elmer Keith and Skeeter and those pioneers were casting their own.

Harrison, Keith, Skelton and others were the trailblazers in the field of using lead to make our favored and beloved projectiles. . . like John Browning and Arthur Savage, Samuel Colt, (Horace) Smith & (Dan) Wesson, Dr. Richard Gatling, and John Garand to just name a few, were to the modern firearms we so love today.

But does anyone really think that the engineers and Glock or Sig or H&K turn their nose up at Browning, Savage, Garand, and company? Having visited those corporate headquarters, and many others, I can personally tell you that is not the case.

At the same time, the engineers will tell you the best way they can honor their predecessors is by making better and stronger firearms. Likewise, I think John Browning would be fascinated by today's semi-automatic handguns. John Browning would be amazed at firing the Barrett .50 calibre rifle, and Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson would be blown away by what Glock did with polymer frames.

There are those who accept the status quo and there are those who do not. I wasn't satisfied with Lee's Liquid Alox, so I took what I'd read by the folks ahead of me on Cast Boolits and what they'd tried and experimented with and finally settled on this 45/45/10 blend.

Now, Glenn (Larson) is looking to take the idea of a "liquid" tumble-lube and take the alox right out of it and in doing so, he very well may revolutionize the entire concept of tumble-lubing. . .maybe lubing altogether. Who knows? But it will be fun to watch and try.

Felix lube is a PERFECT example of utilizing today's knowledge with yesterday's resources. Likewise, the Freechex gas-check punch system and our fellow casters experimenting with aluminum as a cost-effective way of reducing leading in high-velocity cast boolit rounds.

Look over at the Special Projects section of this forum. What some of our members are doing and developing will blow you away.

Look at the sticky on Lee-menting. Amazing! You can take a $20 mold and in less than an hour, have it casting perfect boolits like a $100 mold. Not saying aluminum will be as durable or easy to work with as steel or iron, but what I'm saying is that for those who like Lee molds or who do not have the cash to spend on a more expensive mold, the problem with mass-produced aluminum molds now has a solution.

NOW, compare our solution with that of Lee's, with both their aluminum molds and the lubing of their tumble lube boolits. OUR solutions blow Lee's away. Period.

So not everything that is "written in stone" is the absolute end-all or be-all. In our case, here in the cast boolit world, many of those "stone tablets" are seeing signs of erosion. Some are just flat starting to crumble away.

WOW! That was very well written, quite true, and DEEP!

I didn't come here to learn how to cast, but I did come her to learn how to cast BETTER, and enjoy the company, of course!

[buck1]

If we can see far , it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants..

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I have cast boolits 3 times now.
(that is 3 casting sessions, about 300 boolits each time)
some success, some failure.
I have read through this thread...all 150 comments.
Lots of valuable info here, I can't wait to fire up the pot tomorrow.
I wish I had a thermometer to know where 700º is on my Lee 4/20 pot adjustment dial.
Jon

[sha-ul]

I use brake cleaner to clean and de-grease all my molds. I have never found any residue left in the molds. I have a couple of bottles of the old NEI Mold Prep which I use with a Q-tip to lightly coat the cavities and the sprue plate.

One thing that some folks are forgetting, is that not all brake cleaners are the same, yes CRC's brakleen is chlorinated, but I prefer Oreilly's non chlorinated, which is pretty much spray acetone.

[geargnasher]

Gear,

With all due respect, I don't propose to be your instructor in understanding how smoking a mould improves the quality of cast bullets. I'm just relating documented information on what the NRA tested and recommended, i.e. smoking bullet moulds to obtain high quality bullets. Whether you believe or accept that recommendation is of no consequence to me.

Best regards,

CJR

Look, you don't have to act cornered, I just want to pin you down on WHY smoking moulds is the prep method you prefer. If "Col. Harrison said so" is the only reason why, that's ok with me, I just want to know. If you have an understanding of the properties of carbon soot in a mould that I don't that makes your boolits better than mine, I'd like to learn about it so I can improve. Fair enough?

This is starting to remind me of the old story of the new wife who always cut the end off the roast before putting it in the oven and gave the explanation "that's the way my mother always did it". Three generations back, same answer, until the great-grandmother was asked, and her reply was "we were too poor to afford a large roast pan, so I cut the end off to make it fit." I feel that it is important to know WHY we do certain things, especially if we're going to advise someone else on the same thing.

Gear

[armoredman]

If we can see far , it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants..

I like that.

[Bret4207]

I would bet that smoking the mould came from way, way back. If you read the very old gunsmithing and mechanical texts, even farming texts, you'll find reference to using soot from a lamp or candle for a variety of things from close fitting of parts to using it as a medicine. We'll probably never know from sure, but chances are some guy who cast iron or something passed sooting the mould onto an early caster who passed it on to someone who made Harry Pope look like a young whippersnapper and thus down through to Col Harrison.

I "learned" to cast from Elmer, Phil Sharpe, George Nonte, ancient Lyman manuals and old Rifleman Mags. Plus, I had a copy of the NRA Cast Bullets book and a mess of Handloaders from the get go. It took me a loooong time to figure some stuff out. My far from perfect boolits shot okay, they were cheap, they leaded and looked like garbage. I actually won some chickens using boolits I'd toss back in the pot today. The biggest change in sucess for me came when I stumbled onto a website called "shooters.com" and found a section just on cast boolits. Suddenly my eyes were opened! There were guys talking about crazy ideas there, like that the answer to leading might just not revolve around HARD CAST but around proper fit, that popping a boolit with a fast powder and making it obturate wasn't always a good thing and that smoking moulds simply wouldn't address mechanical issues and filthy alloy. There were even real pagans there that said a light frosting wasn't death to accuracy and that your mould wouldn't instantly warp into a figure 8 if you dipped a corner in the hot alloy!!!

Times change, best we learn from the past and the new.

[462]

Other than Lyman’s Cast Bullet Handbook, I started casting solo. I smoked my first mould because Mr. Lee’s directions said to, and when my first batch of boolits leaded, I started water-quenching, to make them harder. After experiencing continual leading problems, an Internet search lead me to Cast Boolits. Since then, I’ve been learning from the best mentors ever assembled in one place.

I removed the soot from that first mould, have never smoked another, and quit water-quenching. I learned that mould temperature is more important than pot temperature, when it comes to producing quality boolits. I learned how to beagle a mould to make fat boolits to fit fat cylinder throats. I’ve applied Kroil with mixed results, and swear by polydimethylsiloxane. The casting knowledge I've learned is both broad and deep.

However, the most important aspects that Cast Boolit members have taught me are that patience and an open mind are absolutely necessary.

Patience to not become frustrated when the results are not what were expected. Patience in that a failed experiment is actually a success, because something that didn't work was discovered and eliminated.

Though science and centuries of casting experience (old wives’ tales?) should never be overlooked, there are times when an open mind and the willingness to experiment (voodoo and black magic?) will overcome a problem and produce the desired results. To me, that is what this site is all about.

YMMV…

[cbrick]

Bravo 462, very well said and precisely the reason I am a member of this forum. I've learned and also re-learned many things from the forum members. Both things that do work and many that don't.

EDIT to add: Here is a fascinating casting/handloading tip from sagacious that is a perfect example of the knowledge here. This therad is in the Shooters sticky forum. I don't care how long I cast bullets this is something that I never would have thought of. This is extremely effective, economical and quick. It's not really off topic from this thread because I took this idea and used it to clean molds. Very effective and fast.

Citric Acid Brass Cleaning

Rick

[geargnasher]

The only experiment that fails is the one that fails to prove anything conclusively.

Gear

[codgerville@zianet.com]

Geargnasher, you are right on about experiments. Likewise the old saying that the only dumb question is the one you don't ask. This is the very best forum I have ever visited, the people here have "been there, done that" We never stop learning, or at least we shouldn't stop learning. Been casting a loooong time yet I learn something every time I come here.

[sundog]

Allow me to offer up a couple more of my experiences. First, I have moulds that have no vent lines, just flat mating surfaces. They make very good boolits. Next, I have a mould, I think made by Barnett, that makes a great boolit for my single shot (which shoots lights out). The mould WILL NOT cast a good boolit when clean. So, I lightly smoke it and get very good boolits. My RCBS 30-180-SP has won or placed many military bolt matches, even besting some of the finest jacketed BTHPs shot by competent competitors. It's shot both smallest groups and highest scores quite regularly. That particular mould makes its best boolits when cleaned and then 'painted' with mould release and buffed with the dry endof the q-tip. I doubt seriously that whatever is left on the metal could be measured with instruments that normal casters and hand loaders use. Do I advocate this for everybody and all moulds? Of course not. Always and never are big words. Here's another idea. Ever hear of cold bluing a cavity on an iron mould. I've done it, and it helps. Point here is that if you have things that help make life easy, well..., I like life easy. I will agree that fit is king. And case prep is queen.

Bret, you are right about all that came before shooters.com was good. But since that first day after logging in and talking with the rest of the 'real boolit' world, life has changed for the better.