Did a little casting today

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David Bachelder

New member
New at this, but I had a pretty good day. I'm finally getting the hang of it. I was casting bullets between unpacking boxes from our recent move.
 

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Nice! I'm going to try to learn to cast in a week or two when I collect the rest of my stuff. I hope mine look that good. Those are neat!:)
 
Looking good, David. That was one of the first ones I cast with as well. Nice pretty boolits, nice sharp edges. What kind of alloy are you using?
 
I had a few that were wrinkled. I read that wrinkling meant your mold was too cold. So I placed the mold over the pot for a few minutes and tossed the wrinkles back into the pot. After that they were popping out looking almost perfect.

After a while I had trouble getting the mold (2 cavity LEE) to close properly. I put a little wax on the bars and in the slots, after that it started working perfectly. I also lubed between the sprue plate and top of the mold with graphite (carpenters pencil). I never smoked the mold or used any kind of release. The bullets were dropping off real well, ever once and a while I get a hanger, not often.

Things went pretty smooth as long as I kept the pot between 725 and 800 F.


Go figure.
 
Sounds great! I've found that a mould has a temp it prefers and there is an optimum temp for the alloy as well. Only problem is that these preferences vary from mould to mould. When I get wrinkled bullets I just cast faster until they smooth out; I'll preheat the moulds but once I get them close I let the alloy finish heating them up.
 
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