burninghXcsoul
New member
So I built a .300 AAC Blackout pistol and decided to try my hand at casting boolits. I've been reloading for about a year now and reload mainly cast rounds for my different pistols so this kind of seemed like the next step.
I did a lot of research before buying anything and this is basically what I've done so far.
This is my casting table I put into my garage, I put it on Caster wheels so I can wheel it over to the garage door and vent it with the Box Fan. I bought the Lee 4-20 Pro pot and I lapped the seat of the valve thing and so far no leaks. I use a Lyman casting thermometer and so far didn't really have to chase any temps at all. At first I started out at #7 and it melted fairly quick and was at around 800-750 degrees, I then turned it down to a 4 and added 2 more 1lb ingots and the temp dropped to right around 700 which seemed to work out nicely.
20140502_190359 by burninghxcsoul, on Flickr
This is the lead pot stuffed full of ingots for the first time. I got ahold of some wheel weights and snip sorted them and then smelted them all down. I got maybe like 7-8 lbs of zinc and FE ones that I set aside, and then another 7-8 lbs of SOWW,s and ended up with around 80lbs or so of COWW which melted down nice. I used a harbor freight dutch oven to smelt in over a $40 walmart turkey fryer. I made all of my ingots out of the lee mold. Half my smelting time was waiting for the ingots to cool down in the mold enough to dump them. Might have to buy a muffin pan or 2 to speed up the process.
20140502_190405(0) by burninghxcsoul, on Flickr
This is a shot of all the ingots I got out of the batch of wheel weights.
20140502_190412 by burninghxcsoul, on Flickr
And this is the end result! I made a bunch out of the two molds that I currently own, the 230 gr Lee 300 Blackout mold and their 312 160 gr 7.62 mold. I have an sks so I might try to make some rounds for it also. I mainly just plink in my backyard alot so some of the boolits were a bit frosted but it doesn't bother me. There seems to be a fine line of just right hot and too hot with the lee molds. I would switch between the 2 every 10 pours or so otherwise the bullets came out really frosty. I would then set it aside and start with the new one which by the time I had done a couple they weren't wrinkled anymore. I'm still not getting that consistent shiny pure lead look but I'll keep messing with the lead temp and mold temp and see what I can't do...
I tried my hand at powder coating but the toaster oven a co-worker gave me must run hot because a lot of the rounds came out slightly bent. granted I did the idiot move and didn't wait till they were cool before I dumped them so that is partially my fault. I also had made a wire basket to hold them in and didn't use the pan so it also might have been to much indirect heat. I'll post more pics of that endeavor here soon but I was just happy to start casting boolits. Now I just need some handgun molds....
This is becoming an addictive hobby...
20140502_212935 by burninghxcsoul, on Flickr
I did a lot of research before buying anything and this is basically what I've done so far.
This is my casting table I put into my garage, I put it on Caster wheels so I can wheel it over to the garage door and vent it with the Box Fan. I bought the Lee 4-20 Pro pot and I lapped the seat of the valve thing and so far no leaks. I use a Lyman casting thermometer and so far didn't really have to chase any temps at all. At first I started out at #7 and it melted fairly quick and was at around 800-750 degrees, I then turned it down to a 4 and added 2 more 1lb ingots and the temp dropped to right around 700 which seemed to work out nicely.
20140502_190359 by burninghxcsoul, on Flickr
This is the lead pot stuffed full of ingots for the first time. I got ahold of some wheel weights and snip sorted them and then smelted them all down. I got maybe like 7-8 lbs of zinc and FE ones that I set aside, and then another 7-8 lbs of SOWW,s and ended up with around 80lbs or so of COWW which melted down nice. I used a harbor freight dutch oven to smelt in over a $40 walmart turkey fryer. I made all of my ingots out of the lee mold. Half my smelting time was waiting for the ingots to cool down in the mold enough to dump them. Might have to buy a muffin pan or 2 to speed up the process.
20140502_190405(0) by burninghxcsoul, on Flickr
This is a shot of all the ingots I got out of the batch of wheel weights.
20140502_190412 by burninghxcsoul, on Flickr
And this is the end result! I made a bunch out of the two molds that I currently own, the 230 gr Lee 300 Blackout mold and their 312 160 gr 7.62 mold. I have an sks so I might try to make some rounds for it also. I mainly just plink in my backyard alot so some of the boolits were a bit frosted but it doesn't bother me. There seems to be a fine line of just right hot and too hot with the lee molds. I would switch between the 2 every 10 pours or so otherwise the bullets came out really frosty. I would then set it aside and start with the new one which by the time I had done a couple they weren't wrinkled anymore. I'm still not getting that consistent shiny pure lead look but I'll keep messing with the lead temp and mold temp and see what I can't do...
I tried my hand at powder coating but the toaster oven a co-worker gave me must run hot because a lot of the rounds came out slightly bent. granted I did the idiot move and didn't wait till they were cool before I dumped them so that is partially my fault. I also had made a wire basket to hold them in and didn't use the pan so it also might have been to much indirect heat. I'll post more pics of that endeavor here soon but I was just happy to start casting boolits. Now I just need some handgun molds....
This is becoming an addictive hobby...
20140502_212935 by burninghxcsoul, on Flickr