Bullet casts heavier when ladle pouring

[milrifle]

I cast my second batch of minnies today with my Lyman 575213OS. I've never ladle poured before, other than to cast a very few and decide I like bottom pour better, but today I thought I'd give it another shot. After only a few, I had the hang of it and found that I had a lot less rejects due to voids at the core pin. Well, after casting 100-150 or so, I shut down the furnace and weighed my bullets. These things weighed 10 grains more than the first batch I did a couple of weeks ago. Exact same alloy. Pure lead from Rotometals. Same temperature. 800F on my PID. They are suppose to weigh 460 grains, but the first ones ranged something like 492-496. These today were 503-507. When weighing these, I had maybe 15 that were in the 198 gr range, then a big jump to the 503-507 range. I suspect that the few light ones were a few that I had bottom poured today. Couldn't prove it, but I suspect it. What the heck is going on? Were the ones I thought were good the other day full of voids? They shot OK.

[jimb16]

The ladle pour puts a little more pressure on the lead going into the mold and gives you a better fill. If you use a magnifying lense, you can see the difference along the edges of the grooves. They will be a little sharper on the ladle filled. That is where the extra weight is coming from.

[Hickory]

Do not worry or give it a second thought.

[WebMonkey]

Use a smaller ladle.

[runfiverun]

keep doing what your doing, the ladle will do a better job of filling out the larger boolits.
I usually use 400grs as the cut off point between bottom pour and ladle casting.

[Scharfschuetze]

Pure lead does not fill out as well as a lead alloy with tin in it. Given that, those noting the incomplete filling out of the grooves and bands on your boolit using pure lead in the bottom pour pot make a lot of sense.

If you ever change your alloy, it would be interesting to run the same mould with both types of pots using an alloy of say 1 to 20 and compare the boolits' weight from the two methods.

[milrifle]

Thanks Guys. I'll keep ladle pouring on these big ones. It worked pretty well. I'll keep an eye on my weights and look for consistency.

[blikseme300]

keep doing what your doing, the ladle will do a better job of filling out the larger boolits.
I usually use 400grs as the cut off point between bottom pour and ladle casting.

Been my experience as well but I went a different route to fix this problem. I make my own bottom pour melters and I made one with a larger diameter hole in the spout to allow more volume of melt/time. The tiny stream from commercial pots is insufficient to properly fill 350gr> cavities, IMHO.

[6bg6ga]

I would like to see some info from people with Magma and Ballisti-cast bullet casting machines as opposed to ladle casting.

[Shiloh]

You can tweek the drop from your bottom pour. Just be sure and keep the leadd as a steady stream and not beading up.
I have limited experience with ladle pour, but get quality boolits from a LEE botton pour.

Shiloh