Bullet Casting & Coating MegaThread

[240Geezer]

MP mold came in today. 5 days from Slovenia. Impressive.
It's very nice. I just had to see it work so I put it together with two round an two penta point inserts.
It worked fine. But I don't think I had it hot enough. Looks like they dropped small. Like .354 ish. I'll try again when I have more time, this was just a function test.

 

[Jay77]

MP mold came in today. 5 days from Slovenia. Impressive.
It's very nice. I just had to see it work so I put it together with two round an two penta point inserts.
It worked fine. But I don't think I had it hot enough. Looks like they dropped small. Like .354 ish. I'll try again when I have more time, this was just a function test.View attachment 875306

I had good luck seasoning my last two MP brass molds with heating and spraying with ammonia. The brass MP molds are the best in my opinion and I hope you enjoy. I have the Lyman #314299 replacement coming but I think that will also drop small. I beagled my MP BO mold and I’ve been messing with the high heat tape size and placement…. To thin and I get finning and two wide I get restricted air venting so they don’t fill out perfectly. Throw in ladle pouring…what a combo….

 

[Jay77]

Not as perfect.

 

[Jay77]

I think I can see a line from the high heat tape.

 

[Jay77]

Yes that was a tape line and I received my #314299 and it was inspected by the same person on the same day so it should drop the same undersized bullets. I’ll give it a test run later.

 

[pastera]

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Try an alloy with higher antimony content

 

[Jay77]

Would I be better off buying antimony directly and adding to the alloy or buying linotype to mix in?

 

[pastera]

Would I be better off buying antimony directly and adding to the alloy or buying linotype to mix in?

Linotype or Rotometals superhard

 

[240Geezer]

I had good luck seasoning my last two MP brass molds with heating and spraying with ammonia. The brass MP molds are the best in my opinion and I hope you enjoy. I have the Lyman #314299 replacement coming but I think that will also drop small. I beagled my MP BO mold and I’ve been messing with the high heat tape size and placement…. To thin and I get finning and two wide I get restricted air venting so they don’t fill out perfectly. Throw in ladle pouring…what a combo….

Could you describe your method for that process of hear cycling?
Time? Temp? # of heats?
Pretty please

 

[mac1911]

Would I be better off buying antimony directly and adding to the alloy or buying linotype to mix in?

Honestly if your going to buy alloy just buy 5lbs of Lyman #2
If it works then you can play around making up alloy.
Tin is expensive and 5% tin 5% Antimony is not easy to do if you dont know what you have.

 

[mac1911]

Honestly if your going to buy alloy just buy 5lbs of Lyman #2
If it works then you can play around making up alloy.
Tin is expensive and 5% tin 5% Antimony is not easy to do if you dont know what you have.

I will try to see if my lead alloy calculator still works on my old PC

NES member names escapes me at the moment but he tested alloy for me with the laser gun thingy
Only alloy I had that was what it was supposed to be was some hardball

The lyman # 2 I had was ony 2% tin. I bought 5 lbs of lyman #2 off midway way back . It was very good and all my lyman molds hit the mark , size and weight.

 

[240Geezer]

If you can find cheap solder like flea market or yard sale it's mostly tin these days.
I usually drop a couple of 1 lb rolls ( 63/37 Tin/ lead) in when I smelt a batch.Just to help flow out when casting.
Antimony is expensive.

 

[240Geezer]

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[mac1911]

Missouri Bullet Company

Missouri Bullet Company offers premium lead bullets at affordable prices. We make hardness optimized bullets for the velocity of the loads you shoot.

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No lyman is not any of those

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Missouri Bullet Company offers premium lead bullets at affordable prices. We make hardness optimized bullets for the velocity of the loads you shoot.

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there is so much wrong with that discription.
Lyman # 2 5% tin 5% Antimony 90% lead
Foundry type is 15 23 62

Hardball is 2 6 92

Magnum is lead shot and has no tin

So what do they really have?
Hardball , hardball does not fill out as well in my lyman molds as the certified lyman #2 I bought.

 

[mac1911]

Not sure if the pictures will show well enough. I mixed up a few different alloys with this calculator and they where very close when tested.

For the most part im running
Clip on wheel weight alloy and either pewter which is a crap shoot or the high tin solder

This is my go to alloy for 90% of my rifle casting
Pistols- I run range scrap…

My clip on wheel weight and 63 tin 37 lead solder mix 19 lbs clip on wheel weights 1 lb 63/37 solder came back as 3% Tin 2.8% Antimony 93.3% lead
To the best of my skills Brinell Hardness with the art pencil method 13

 

[240Geezer]

No lyman is not any of those


there is so much wrong with that discription.
Lyman # 2 5% tin 5% Antimony 90% lead
Foundry type is 15 23 62

Hardball is 2 6 92

Magnum is lead shot and has no tin

So what do they really have?
Hardball , hardball does not fill out as well in my lyman molds as the certified lyman #2 I bought.

Bought some of that hardball from them and dropped 5lbs in 50lbs of soft lead melt to stiffen it a bit but I really don't think it did much. I don't really think it's needed for plinking anyway.

 

[mac1911]

Bought some of that hardball from them and dropped 5lbs in 50lbs of soft lead melt to stiffen it a bit but I really don't think it did much. I don't really think it's needed for plinking anyway.

Just about anything is good for plinking.
The lyman casting manuals have several recipes in them for mixing X Y Z to get good alloy