wrinkled bullets

[Texantothecore]

The mold may not have been hot enough. I alos heat the sprue cutter as well as the mold and this seems to make a difference.

You may have some oil there, clean it and cast again. Some molds take a few casting sessions to get right. It is just part of the sequence of casting.

[geargnasher]

That's Brilliant! I look forward to trying that technique... Thanks for sharing.

I picked up that technique from a member who has since been banned. It really helps with moulds that don't have vent lines, or are very tight.

Gear

[Windyvista]

In Gear's post it states to run at a rate of Four Pours per Minute. Does the number of cavities in the mold make a difference relative to the pour rate ? If someone were pouring a 2 cavity mold at 4 pours / minute I would think that would be different than pouring a 6 cavity mold at 4 pours per minute. I am fairly new to casting myself and use 6 cavity molds. I am not sure if I could pour that fast or not.

I am also wondering about tin additions If the pot temp looks right and the mold is hot can adding tin at a rate of 1 or 2 % help fill out or decrease wrinkles ?

[462]

Memory says that a member conducted an experiment in which he timed casting with moulds of two, four and six cavities, and there wasn't as much of a difference as one would think.

Tin can aid fill out, but reducing the alloy's surface tension, but wrinkles are still the result of the above mentioned two causes.

[canyon-ghost]

Yes, clean the mold. Hot soapy water will do, rinse and dry really good. As Dean said:

One thing that was touched upon lightly already is not alowing your mould to stay open or empty any longer than necessary. I try to close up my mould as quickly as possible to reduce the chance of it cooling off too much.

When you pour again, the faster you pour to heat up the mold, the more hot lead goes through it. Just get a dull, frosted over sprue and empty and fill immediately. Keep going for six or so, then try holding the lead in the mold for a while (so the mold soaks up some really high temp). About three times of holding the lead in the mold (30 seconds after the dull sprue) and you'll have filled out boolits without wrinkles. Aluminum molds take slightly more than that but, that's the principle. It all requires keeping the mold closed.

When developing your technique, you best tool is your own attention span, pay attention and use your eyes. You can learn a lot just by watching what is happening.

Of course, this isn't the gloved hand method either, I use a mallet. If you wait too long, you won't open the sprue without a mallet.

And your first cast- Good going there, I see rifle bullets! You hung with it long enough to get a general eyefull.

[runfiverun]

the number of cav's and mold material will dictate your speed.
with my 2 cav rcbs 22-055 i cast as fast as i can move it's non stop open.close,pour, cut.
it's the same speed with my 2 cav 75 gr aluminum rapine mold.
the sprue isn't even fully hard when i open the mold. [i am probably close to 6 pours a minute with them]
it's just a titch [barely] slower with my 4 cav aluminums. [in the 5 pours a minute rate]
and my lyman 4 cav's seem to be loafing along, even with the alloy temp down to about 675-f.
they do make a pile of boolits. [i am doing about 4 pours a minute with them.]

[HDS]

It's probably the heat. I have the same problems with my 9mm aluminum 6-banger eve though it's a Mihec mold.



The brass .45ACP mold next to it heats up easily on setting #3 and it holds the heat! It tends to get too hot on setting #4 but that doesn't seem to be enough even for the aluminum mold however. Wrinkles and more wrinkles still. I run my pot at 700F and the mold have been cleaned while hot with acetone and a q-tip.

I will have to try more aggressive methods next casting session to see if I can get some better results from the aluminum mold. In an ideal world this would be an iron or brass mold though, even if it was only a 4-banger then. Sigh, aluminum...

[trixter]

Grab the Comet, and a toothbrush, and HOT water and scrub the inside of the mold untill your fingers hurt. Do a casting session and do it again. I have been using synthetic 2 stroke oil and very little of it to lube the mold. It seems that I can go about 250 boolits, then I have to shut down and let it cool and Comet it. Cast as fast as you are comfortable with. I use a bottom pour pot and I go very quickly; fill, cut sprue asap, pop open mold, drop boolits, slap it closed and repeat. I too hold the mold corner in the hot lead 675deg, for a count of 60; 1 mississippi, etc. Keep practicing, it will come.

[Lunarphase]

Gotta bump this back to top.
So much great info here. I've had the same issue with wrinkled boolits. I'm using (2) different 6 cav' AL. RanchDog molds, and pouring quickly. I have been finding the bright shiny boolits have the issues, not all but a great number, and the frosted boolits look great. I've had the temp' mostly at 600-650 deg, I think the frosted boolits were when the temp was higher. I'm casting with "hardball" alloy, and water quenching.
I'm gunna try 700 deg to see how that works out. I think my problem is with melt temp not mold temp', but I'm new at casting I can't be sure.
I'm so thankfull for this site and all the info/knowlege available through you guys.

Many thanks!
Lunar

[Texantothecore]

Try more heating of the mold and faster cycle rate. The frosted bullets may be slightly smaller because of the higher. A bit of tin might help too.

[Lunarphase]

I cast some more tonight with the temp at 700-725 Deg. and got MUCH better results. I still had some wrinkled ones but I think they were cast at the begining when the mold wasn't up to temp.

Thanks!
Lunar

[MtGun44]

Standard answer #1: Too cool and/or too dirty.

Next!




Bill

[jlaudio29]

Is the lead coming out nice a smooth? i ladle poor and the only time i see wrinkle bullets is if i goof on the poor and have sorta a sputter a hicup in the stream as its pooring in....

[prs]

and waiting 6 to 8 seconds after spru frosts is waiting too long.... I like 2 to 3 seconds for an easy spru cut without any mallet and especially with the lever on 6 banger. I wait another few seconds for boolits to fully freeze.

I opened a new Lee mold yesterday and it was the oiliest new mold I have ever received. Even after using Dawn and toothbrush and rinsing, I got lousy fill-out if TK bands and those darn worm tracks on about 20% of drops even with hot mold. Just have to clean again next time. The older a mold gets, the more I like it.

prs

[Gliden07]

I thought I read if you used to much lube to prep the mold you would get wrinkled bullets too? Could that be a possible problem? I don't know just throwing that out. I'd like to know too being new to this!!

[jethunter]

I've found most of my casting problems are mould temperature related, usually being too low. You're getting close when the sprue lube starts smoking. If the lube isn't getting hot enough to burn off then your mould is probably too cold.

Preheating the mould until it's smoking hot and then casting fast is probably going to fix your wrinkles. Pouring a larger sprue will help heat up the mould as more lead = more heat transfer from the pot to the mould.

Some of my moulds will need to have 40-50 boolits run through them fast to get them up to heat. Don't waste time inspecting boolits because that just lets the mould cool off again. Cast, cast, cast. Count to 2 after the sprue hardens and get more lead into it as quickly as you can. Aluminum 2C moulds under .40 cal seem to be the most problem for me to get warm enough to work well.

[FergusonTO35]

Most of my wrinkling problems have come from the lube for the alignment blocks and sprue cutter getting in the cavities. I always clean really well with brake cleaner then apply a tiny, almost invisible amount of lube to the parts which need it.

[Awsar]

well glad to see someone else had same problem as me . been reading alot and just started casting ,first batch same as yours-more reading get things hotter wow works better .
Thank you to all the great people on this site you have helped me alot .

[skud007]

and waiting 6 to 8 seconds after spru frosts is waiting too long.... I like 2 to 3 seconds for an easy spru cut without any mallet and especially with the lever on 6 banger. I wait another few seconds for boolits to fully freeze.

I opened a new Lee mold yesterday and it was the oiliest new mold I have ever received. Even after using Dawn and toothbrush and rinsing, I got lousy fill-out if TK bands and those darn worm tracks on about 20% of drops even with hot mold. Just have to clean again next time. The older a mold gets, the more I like it.

prs

This^^^^^ I know this is an old post, but I too was getting wrinkled bullets. Mold was heated up and pouring at temps of 730-750. Still wrinkled boolits. After the the spru frosted I was cutting and dropping the boolits right away. This method was ok for my smaller calibers (9mm, 30-30, 357), but for my 45 I found that if after the spru was cut, I let the the boolits freeze a few seconds later and then drop them no more wrinkles.

[44Blam]

I would say there's probably some machine oil. I have a little brush that I put Dawn on and really clean/rinse my molds before first use. I usually cast 4 or 5 drops in all cavities very quickly to get the mold up to temp and then throw it all back in the pot. Then I fall into the cadence for the mold once it's dropping good boolits.
Get a thermometer - that way you don't cook off all your tin! If the surface starts looking kind of yellow rainbowy, your oxidizing your alloy...

I have a little lee pot and I find that I put it on full blast to melt my lead and then I turn it down to about 3 which generally gives me just under 700 degress. That seems to really help the lead fill out especially if I'm casting HPs.

Keep at it, you'll end up saving enough money to shoot more!