I should have taken pictures...

[Mike / Tx]

I just got done with supper, and for the most part of today I have been pouring, sorting, lubing and sizing.

I guarantee I poured up over 50# worth of boolits today, one batch alone was over 20#. Then I sized and lubed close to two hundred each of two different types of 45 cal, and will be loading those tomorrow morning.

After that, comes smelting time. I have to blend up two more big batches of alloy to replace what I have used up. Just from some basic calculations, looks like I'll end up somewhere in the neighborhood of around 200 or so plus pounds.

I might be glad to get back to work on Monday so I can rest up. The upside is, that sure will cast a LOT of boolits....

 

[Beagle333]

Pictures, or it didn't happen.

 

[Mike / Tx]

Ok here we go,,

All boxed up for the closet, or ready to load...

Stacked up on my scale,

What the total was, even more than I thought....

Those aren't very good but they will have to do. I already put the boxes up and I ain't draggin em all back out. I still haven't gotten the hang of that new camera. Some shots come out crystal clear, some well not so much. Hopefully by huntin season I will have it all worked out.

Oh and after all that I forgot to add in the 357's and 41's I lubed up. But I didn't pour those yesterday so I guess that's all right. The one box showing them all standing at attention was poured up week before last so I guess those 100 don't count either. Still right at 70# worth of poured yesterday.

 

[Old 454]

Nice run my friend.

I too have to get to doing some smelting and alloying. I am down to about 60 LBS of Lyman #2. Just got 5 LBS of Tin from Roto metals, and have about 100 LBS of lead to smelt and flux and alloy.

 

[Mike / Tx]

Well I figured I had everything set up and the molds sitting there in the ready, so why not give it a work out. The nice thing about having a PID on the pot is I get a chance to walk off and get a drink, cool off a minute, and even grab a sammich if I hurry. (Luckily the sweetie comes around and checks on me every once in a while.) Yep I would pour till the pot was empty on one mold, then load her back up with new ingots, catch a few minutes to stretch while it was coming up to temp, then hit it with something else. I was getting down to the bottom on one box of ingots and decided to go ahead and finish it off. Well then I thought whats in that other box there, I think it was COWW's, but I didn't mark them or the box, not like me. So I poured up a goodly amount of some Accurate 454280's and figured what ever it was it would work for them.

I just now finished pouring up around 70# of one alloy, and have a fan on the ingots cooling them off. I doubt I will get the other today. Melting those large ISO cores is a REAL pain even if you do already have half a pot of molten lead to start with.

I gotta find a quicker way to do them and then I can get on with business. I have some hickory up at the farm I could use, but due to the burn ban I doubt they would appreciate much other than the contribution to the county after all was said and done. Maybe I will take one of my half propane tanks and add a spigot and pipe to the bottom and when they lift the ban, me and the grandson can just set up the pot over a pile of coals and let them do the work while we swap out the ingot molds at the end of the drain pipe.

I set the one in about 2" of molten 680'ish degree pure lead, and it sucked all the heat right out of it then it took both the fish cooker and me with a Mapp Gas torch 45 minutes to get it all back up to temp. I guess I COULD have really cranked up the cooker, but I didn't want to over do my tin. I try and keep it under 700 so as to not oxidize any more than necessary. I know I lost some, but I had already figured I might loose about half an ounce so I added that back in with the big chunk I added for my alloy. So far the readings I took off the last batch I blended and what I got from this are right on par. We'll see how it does over the course of the next couple of weeks. It should end up right around a 9'ish after two weeks and 10.5 or 11 after a month or so.

I have everything weighed up for the other batch but we have somewhere to be here shortly and I want to cool off and catch a rain locker before we go.

 

[Beagle333]

Now that is definitely a lot of bullets! You should be blasting hogs and deer for a while with those!


Run some of them hogs over this a'way if'n you don't mind. I need some bacon-on-the-hoof running through my yard.

 

[LAH]

Now that is definitely a lot of bullets!

+1. A bunch.

 

[Mike / Tx]

Yeppers it was a casting day for sure. I had the back window unit running with a fan somewhat going on me to keep a from sweating like, well too much anyway. I had several molds set up and alloy I wanted to try and some I wanted to use up to make room for some other. I would just fill the pot and keep dumping the cut offs back in until it was empty. When I thought I had plenty of one, or my pan got full, I would switch molds. I really didn't think i poured that many until I was done. Then I was like Oh crap what a sorting job. Some pans had one type only in them some had up to three types. It was a mess for sure.

Run some of them hogs over this a'way if'n you don't mind. I need some bacon-on-the-hoof running through my yard.

Man there ain't no way I would do that to ya....you think fire ants or armadillo's are bad news, those things are like walking wrecking crews.

At my friends place I have seen perfectly good roads turned into what looked like an artillery range in a matter of hours. I'm talking holes 2' deep and 3' wide, just in the time we were out hunting. Not to mention an acre or more of hay pasture turned over like you tilled it. Then there are the holes you DON'T see until your mowing and wreck the front end of the tractor or the mower.

Naa you don't want them there bud. But the way they are moving, just hang on, they will be there soon if they aren't already.

 

[LAH]

Mike I've been casting some soft range lead so I'm water quenching using room temperature water so they won't be too hard. Seems the norm as quenched is 10-12 BHN with hardening to 13-14 before I ship them. To make best use of my time I mostly cast with more than one mould which are sometimes different bullets & they all go in the same bucket. I feel you pain when it comes to sorting. HEE HEE