Lee Loader

"The only way to learn to cast bullets, is to cast bullets".

Well said Sir!

Lotsa Guys way Overthink this Bullet Casting Stuff....

Sizing the Bullets to Fit Your Gun, is alot more important....IMHO

The old adage is true, Practice, Practice, practice.
You'll get dialed in pretty quick.

With nice weather out there today I set up and gave it another go. Set up everything the exact same way as the other day only to day I did not fill the pot as full. After getting up to temps and a good flux I set off to try again. Of course the first 10 pours were put right back into the pot and then I started keeping them.

Poured a good pile and when I got to the point of having to add an ingot I took the time to quickly sort thru what I had. There were a good deal of them that were wrinkled and I put those back into the pot also. Then when I resumed casting what was dropping all looked very good. I had sped up the tempo from the other day which must have warmed to mold properly but after a while I was starting to see some frosties so I slowed down a bit and things improved.

All-in-all I thought it was a good day and I learned a few things about the process, the alloy and the mold. Also learned more about tempo.

Sounds like you're getting there. I never worried about frost, they seem to shoot just as well as the bright and shinies. It's an indication of mold and/or alloy temp and when I see the first few I check alloy temp and as long as the bullets look good I press on. Just me, YMMV.

Make smoke,

Ohio3Wheels wrote:Sounds like you're getting there. I never worried about frost, they seem to shoot just as well as the bright and shinies. It's an indication of mold and/or alloy temp and when I see the first few I check alloy temp and as long as the bullets look good I press on. Just me, YMMV.

Make smoke,

Agree. A bit of frosting doesn't hurt and may even add more surface for a tumble lube. A lot of frosting seems to be associated with poor fill out especially in the grooves. Wrinkling I have found most often is due to a low temperature. It can also be exacerbated by an alloy low in tin. I add a 10 inch length of 95/5 plumbing solder (tin/antimony) to my pot just to help avoid this problem. I find about 700 degrees for the pot and around 400 for the molds works for me. I preheat my molds on a hotplate before I start casting and have a laser thermometer to check the preheated mold and also if I stop to let it cool. Not a necessity but reduces the number of bad pours. Check the accuracy rating if you decide to get one as the cheap variety tend to be less accurate.

Slightly frosted but well formed and developed. They all go added to the load group.

I could not care less what the actual temperature is as long as the bullets come out OK. Yes, I used to have a PID with digital temp probe I built but when I got rid of it all, casting became more fun and the bullets turned out better.

Something seems odd above as in my experience, slowing down a little makes the mold HOTTER for better fill and sometimes frosted bullets while speeding up cools it causing wrinkles.

GasGuzzler wrote:Something seems odd above as in my experience, slowing down a little makes the mold HOTTER for better fill and sometimes frosted bullets while speeding up cools it causing wrinkles.

Now on my last session I found just the opposite. With the small 100gr bullets faster heated up the mold to where I started getting frosting and slower seemed to cool the mold and the frosting disappeared.

View casting as pouring heat from a pot into the mould . The faster and more often it goes in the more heat is transferred from pot to mould .

The beauty of an aluminum mold is that the caster can regulate the heat as he desires rather quickly. I keep a damp washcloth folded on the bench. As bullets start to frost, I set the empty mold on the washcloth and a few seconds (three seconds at the most) will reduce the temperature to clear the frosted results. You will get into a rhythm of pouring X drops with X seconds on the towel. The cycle will become second nature as part of adjusting the melt temperature.

The opposite is the same as I get started. I use a propane torch on low heat to bring my mold up to temperature. Then, I begin with a single cavity until it drops a perfect bullet, adding another cavity as the previous cavity delivers. Honestly, anymore, most of my casting has an extremely low rate of culls because of these two steps.