Mauser Rat
New member
I was casting some more RN using the Lee TL358-158-2R two holer for my 357 Mag last night. Was getting nice stuff air dropping on several layers of shop rags when I decided to fill a 5 gal bucket and try some water quenched just for the fun of it after reading some of your discussions. My well water runs about 42 degrees F out of the tap and it did not change temp during the test.
Using exactly the same mix that I had just cast the air dropped with, I cast 50 more water quenched. The time from fill to drop varied a little as I was still finding a "method" for the new movements. Used the towel trick several of you have mentioned: hole in the wet towel and let them roll down into the water with no splashing.
I now had two kinds of boolits cast from exactly the same mix. 1) Air dropped on shop rags and 2) water quenched. I decided to weigh and measure all of them.
The water quenched were MUCH more consistent in both weight and diameter than the air dropped. Weight on the water quenched did not vary by more than .4 grains up or down while the air dropped varied more like a grain up or down. The diameters were absolutely the same for all of the water quenched as opposed to some minor variation in diameter and roundness in the air dropped. The water quenched averaged 152 grs and the air dropped averaged 154 grs.
I guess that none of this is new to most of you who have been casting for awhile but I like that reduced weight variation a lot if it holds true in general.
Have you all found the same thing to be true? Was this a one time thing or generally true?
Using exactly the same mix that I had just cast the air dropped with, I cast 50 more water quenched. The time from fill to drop varied a little as I was still finding a "method" for the new movements. Used the towel trick several of you have mentioned: hole in the wet towel and let them roll down into the water with no splashing.
I now had two kinds of boolits cast from exactly the same mix. 1) Air dropped on shop rags and 2) water quenched. I decided to weigh and measure all of them.
The water quenched were MUCH more consistent in both weight and diameter than the air dropped. Weight on the water quenched did not vary by more than .4 grains up or down while the air dropped varied more like a grain up or down. The diameters were absolutely the same for all of the water quenched as opposed to some minor variation in diameter and roundness in the air dropped. The water quenched averaged 152 grs and the air dropped averaged 154 grs.
I guess that none of this is new to most of you who have been casting for awhile but I like that reduced weight variation a lot if it holds true in general.
Have you all found the same thing to be true? Was this a one time thing or generally true?