4 hours, and that's all I have to show for it...

[FrankenMauser]

After setup and melt time, I spent 4 hours killing my back at my improvised casting station.

Apparently, it had been too long since I poured lead (4.5 years, it seems). I fought everything tonight... the pot, the thermometer, the alloy, the molds, the dross, the bugs...


And all I managed to do was get one Lee 325 gr .476" mold to drop 44 usable bullets (and that's being generous - about 12-15 of them will only be good enough for pressure-testing during load development). The other bullets would be rejects if I didn't want a few just for measurements and dummies.

It's still a win, since there's something usable.
But, man, was it frustrating....

(Lee 476-325 FP, Lee 476-400 FN, experimental Accurate 432-390W (2 variations), and NOE 315-90WC (HB or HP, depending on your point of view))

And you did see the HP pin stuck in the 432-265 FP, right? Yea... that's not the only one. I have six more pins stuck in bullets, right now. -Both pins in the 315-90WC 2-cav, and all pins in a 357-135RF 4-cav (first pour). I should have stopped. I know. I should have worked out the bugs on one of the RG molds before moving on. But I had nine new molds ready and wanted to get some bullets cast from at least two of them!

 

[Beagle333]

Sounds like all the molds were cold. Maybe get/build a mold oven? I use a hot plate with a coffee can on it.

This one isn't mine, but it looks almost identical.

If you were using a mold oven to pre-heat, then I can only guess that you were really trying to cast at about 650° and the problems with the thermometer didn't let you know that.

I hope you get it working. I know that a really wrinkly session can sure be frustrating.

 

[Chainsaw.]

Ugg. 4.5 hours? I get frustrated hen it takes me 2 hours to get 200 44 bullets. Next time will go smoother.

 

[FrankenMauser]

The RG molds weren't cold. They certainly would have burned a bare hand. ...But they were not at proper casting temperature. And, apparently, at least the pins were still fairly cold.

The problem with the thermometer was that it kept sliding down the pot and touching the bottom. Nothing big, but very annoying.

The alloy...
I was thinking about the alloy earlier today, and realized that it had been run through my pot and poured back into ingots (as leftovers) probably 6-8 times. By now, I've probably burned much of the tin out of it.


The most frustrating mold wasn't even one of the good ones. It was the Lee 476-400RF. I want 50-60 bullets for testing in the .480 Ruger, and I "need" at least 20 good ones for testing in the .475 Tremor. But, I could not get that mold to release, fill out, or stop leaving strange frosty wrinkles in the lube grooves, no matter what I tried. I'm going to tear it apart, give everything an acetone bath, true the sprue plate and take it to 400+ grit, deburr the mold blocks, and scrub it until the toothbrush falls apart. It probably won't help (my history with Lee molds is worse than 50/50), but that's the plan...

 

[Beagle333]

I use plumbers strapping to hold my probes (and my thermometer as well, when I use one). It is cheap and easy to bend into shape. If you use two pieces of strapping the friction of having the holes slightly misaligned will keep a grip on the stem of the thermometer/probe as well.

I preheat my molds to 400° in my mold oven. Some go less, but I am getting keepers after the 1st or 2nd pour.

Get the mold hot, get the alloy hot and cast fast at first until you get those pins hot and you start getting frosty boolits and it'll work for you. Toss in a little more tin if you think that might also be part of the issue with this pot of alloy.

I don't think you'd have as much trouble getting it hot here this weekend. We're going to be flirting back and forth across the line of 100° for about a week+, as so the forecast shows.

 

[reddog81]

More tin might help or bumping up the temp might also do the trick.

I don't even worry about a thermometer. If the lead is too cold it's easy enough to tell you're getting wrinkly bullets and if the sprue is taking to long to solidify you need to back off on the temp a little bit. I focus on the bullets to let them tell me what adjustments to make to the temperature.

 

[Sure Shot Mc Gee]

If anything you are certainly persistent Mr. FrankenMauser.

 

[FrankenMauser]

One of my problems with getting my molds to proper temperature is that I ran mostly Accurate molds for about 2 years.

When you get them above 275-300 degrees (mine, at least), they start falling apart and the mold blocks warp like crazy. Worst of all, are the brass molds.

I (me, this guy, yours truly) am the reason for the warpage warning on the Accurate Molds website.
After a very annoying battle with a particular mold, followed by annoying battles with TWO MORE replacements that were supposed to include corrections, I took it upon myself to do a quick test...

When Tom sent me a brand new replacement brass mold (blocks only - no hardware or spure plate), I cleaned the blocks, dried them thoroughly, and then put them in a 200 degree oven for 1 hour, with 2 large pans above and below to ensure that no direct heat reached the molds (it was a high-end gas oven, as well - so the thermostat was very accurate and direct heat wasn't really an issue to begin with).

Once the blocks were cool, I took measurements and photos, and sent Tom an email showing that just 200 degrees warped the molds by 0.003" in the center. He told me I was crazy, among other things, and informed me that he was done trying to get my bullet to drop at the right size; and the "over-heating" warning was on his website a few days later...

I can tell you, flat-out, that the warpage is due to the way he machines the brass blocks without stress-relieving (I've been in his shop and watched the process). But he won't listen to honest feedback. He just blamed me and told me to pound sand...


I didn't address the "falling apart". Quick example:
The 432-390W that I got a few usable exemplars from was cleaned and cycled in the oven (with screw adjustments while hot), as recommended, before use. After it got up to casting temperature and I was getting usable bullets, the sprue plate became insanely loose, the sprue plate hinge and stop screw set screws fell out, and one of the mold handle attachment screws was backing out. I grabbed the temperature probe for my multimeter (known accurate within 3 degrees F), and the blocks showed 288 F.

I didn't bother trying to tighten anything this time, because I know from experience that it just keeps happening about 50% of the time. (No issues with NOE, RCBS, Lyman, or Lee molds, in that regard.)

It could just be me, but Accurate Molds and I just don't get along. And it's an absolute shame, because Tom is the best avenue for obtaining ridiculous one-off designs (which I seem to want more often than not).

For my next custom mold (350-400 gr .476" with a gently-sloping tangent ogive for the .475 Tremor), I'll probably have to figure it out through Mountain Molds.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Anyway...

Happier subject...

I processed some range scrap today, and got about 52 pounds of alloy out of two loads through the dutch oven. (The dutch oven will hold 90 lbs of molten alloy, but my limit is 40, due to the turkey fryer's structural integrity. So with range scrap, I fill it to the top, and there's usually 22-26 lbs of alloy to pour into ingots.) --- Several more loads to go, but I ran out of light - the last batch is still cooling outside.

I also ran across some oddities that I found interesting.

Cleary entered the throat off center. One side barely has rifling engraved. The other side has the plating/jacket cut deep enough that it peeled back upon impact with the clay berm.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Two more oddities:

9mm boat tail:

.432" solid steel spitzer, that's hard as a rock (shown with a .452" FMJ). That little divot is all I could do with 24" bolt cutters!
(I found this bullet before it corroded and got nasty. It had no jacket, and does have nearly imperceptible rifling marks.)

 

[Beagle333]

I don't know if you are going to have to change mold makers or what, but I am pretty sure that you gotta get those blocks up to around 350° (and that is to begin with) and let the alloy take it where it needs to be from there, or you are going to have stuck pins all of the time. You might stick with RNFP solid designs and keep the mold cooler, but HP's love heat. And with brass, you have to run hotter than aluminum, even. I have some brass MiHec blocks that Miha himself told me to run the melt around 850°. Yes, it's a bear keeping the tin in the melt with it that hot, but these are exceptionally long HP pins (Ness Safety boolits) and it didn't warp the molds.

Almost all of my other molds get cast with alloys of 725-750°

 

[FrankenMauser]

HP or not, my experience with brass has been the same: The molds need to be hot, and the melt needs to be fairly hot.

No brass molds have been run recently, but I have several that I ran frequently before I moved (this is the first time I've melted lead since I moved from Utah 4+ years ago).

Anyway... The irony of Tom's brass mold block over-heat warning is that ... okay, I see that he has updated it now. It has been simplified and 'normalized'. I recall it reading that his brass blocks were not intended to run hotter than 275-300 degrees; and that anything over 350 degrees would void any guarantee or warranty.

But just to get decent bullets out of them, his brass blocks (especially for large bullets) had to be run at 375-400 degrees with a melt of at least 715-740 F. (700-725 is my typical target for most molds.)

Now, I'm guessing due to continuing complaints from other customers, he simply eschews with, "I do not guarantee against warpage."