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Bullet Casting & Coating MegaThread

BFDX7 said:
View attachment 506982
Got some time in last night to pour some more 8mm and some .312’s. Regretted not throwing in some pewter and I had a few more rejects then normal.
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your gong to get wrinkles if the alloy and mold temp are not "right" , most of the "rejects" I see look more like dirty molds or a little grease/lube/oil found its way and or wrong temps
Im not the best at editing. I tried to marked some bullets as follows
RED- looks more like oil contamination ?
WHITE- looks like holes or pits this can happen when alloy and mold are 2 hot, most of your bullets look frosted so the temps are already a tad high.
GREEN - you can see the frosting starting. Frosting from what I have read is from the alloy taking to long to solidify and it gets that crystalized look or galvanized look.

Clean your molds with hot dish soapy water and a tooth brush, start over and dont let your alloy run to hot. 700' works really well for me.
Depending on your alloy and bullet size. for some small bullets I have 32 cal 80 grain rn I can run as low as the alloy will flow out of the lee pour spout. which is about 630'F

lead and lead tin alloys will melt at around 620"F- ish
1627699010516.png
 
mac1911 said:
your gong to get wrinkles if the alloy and mold temp are not "right" , most of the "rejects" I see look more like dirty molds or a little grease/lube/oil found its way and or wrong temps
Im not the best at editing. I tried to marked some bullets as follows
RED- looks more like oil contamination ?
WHITE- looks like holes or pits this can happen when alloy and mold are 2 hot, most of your bullets look frosted so the temps are already a tad high.
GREEN - you can see the frosting starting. Frosting from what I have read is from the alloy taking to long to solidify and it gets that crystalized look or galvanized look.

Clean your molds with hot dish soapy water and a tooth brush, start over and dont let your alloy run to hot. 700' works really well for me.
Depending on your alloy and bullet size. for some small bullets I have 32 cal 80 grain rn I can run as low as the alloy will flow out of the lee pour spout. which is about 630'F

lead and lead tin alloys will melt at around 620"F- ish
View attachment 507618
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Thanks for taking the time and providing me some tips it’s greatly appreciated. I tried to keep the allow temp slightly above 700 and I’ll try to drop it down to about 650. I’ll give the molds a good scrubbing and give it another pour. I was going to ask about the ones that have that galvanized appearance and what causes it. Here is a picture of the ones I poured the other night. Oh another quick question…. I’m loading the 8mm with 17-18.5 gr of 2400, are gas checks required or will lube only do the trick? I went through about 150 8mm yesterday at the range so I have to load up more.

-Jay

984F62F5-A7BF-4586-B07E-ADF72FC705A2.jpeg
 
BFDX7 said:
Thanks for taking the time and providing me some tips it’s greatly appreciated. I tried to keep the allow temp slightly above 700 and I’ll try to drop it down to about 650. I’ll give the molds a good scrubbing and give it another pour. I was going to ask about the ones that have that galvanized appearance and what causes it. Here is a picture of the ones I poured the other night. Oh another quick question…. I’m loading the 8mm with 17-18.5 gr of 2400, are gas checks required or will lube only do the trick? I went through about 150 8mm yesterday at the range so I have to load up more.

-Jay

View attachment 507681
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Your bullets look pretty good, frosting is not a big problem.
What are you using for a casting pot?
My lee pots are very unstable and each ones settings is very different.
Before I had thermometers and PID
I would set my pot at 10 until molten lead.
Then turn it down to 6 or so and start casting. If the spigot on the bottom poor froze up I would turn it up a notch
I always tried to keep it the temp as low as I could and still get nice flow from the bottom spout.
Now with the PID its 700’ F all is well
 
BFDX7 said:
I’m using the Lee 4-20 with a RCBS thermometer.
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My first casting experience was with my dad , on the tailgate of the truck.
No thermometer.
O!d single colman pump up stove and a small cast iron pot.
My dad would get the stove up and running and start melting what was left as we collected bulletsfrom the back stop. Once that pot was full my dad would turn the heat down and wait a few minutes.
Start casting with the gravy spoon. Usually with in a few minutes the lead would get a tad "slushy"
Then he would pump up the colman fuel tank give the knob a tweak wait for alloy to go liquid again and run the alloy down until we casted all that pot held. Fun days.

I do the same with my lee. Well before i got the PiD controller.
i fill the lee pot with alloy. Run it on 10 until everything is very liquid , flux it and turn it down to 6. My lee pots on 10 will get darn close to 950'
I wait about 20 min. If its still liquid on 6 (one pot will with #2 alloy) my other pot is a touch under the 8 . If your alloy gets slushy or your spout stops flowing turn it up some.
Then is just minor tweaks from there.
For example when i cast my 32cal 85 gn bullets i need to turn the alloy temp up some as the small bullets dont have the mass/heat to keep the mold warm at 700, my little bullets do better at 775.

Keep dropping they will get better.

Side note. Most of my 314299 and 8mm drop frosted because I let the mold get way to hot.
I cast until the pot is down to about 2" of alloy. Your mold will get hot after 15lbs
 
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Poured a 1/2 pot of lead and kept it between 625 and 675ish. Went slow with the two molds and I went a little to cold with the molds. 3 on my hot plate was to hot and 1 was to cold. Same alloy minus the extra tin.
 

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Cant remember who sent me these Lee 170s hiteck coated slugs.
Used them up today at CMP 1903 springfield match
Did well enough to grab a silver 276/300


Rifle 1903a3
Ammo
with gas check they weighed 177gns
COAL 3.020 - to the crimp groove
Random cases
Wolf LR
25.5 gn H4895 aprox 1500fps
Rear sight was up on 700 yard setting
 

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Artie said:
Picked up some pewter at Goodwill, The Wilton Co., RWP, $4 for both. At this point, I have more pewter than lead. Got to find some lead.
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I stopped by a local junk shop where I have made some good deals on pewter in the past.
I asked the nice lady, have any non collectable pewter today.
She grins and says yup. Touch over 3lbs in that box.
So I say how much
She pokes around on her phone.
Splurts out $18lb
I giggle and say “melt it down into 2oz ignots and I will give you $15
She said she will wait and see what scrap prices do.
 
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Three coats of Zombie green and they look pretty good. I wanted to try to load up some X39 but I have to check the diameter to see if they are bigger than the bore size of .313. And I have to dig around to see if I bought the Dillon conversion kit. Worse case I know these will make great 06 rounds. I could try to load up a few on a single stage I bought for sizing. It’s the cheap Lee model.
 
BFDX7 said:
View attachment 516280
Three coats of Zombie green and they look pretty good. I wanted to try to load up some X39 but I have to check the diameter to see if they are bigger than the bore size of .313. And I have to dig around to see if I bought the Dillon conversion kit. Worse case I know these will make great 06 rounds. I could try to load up a few on a single stage I bought for sizing. It’s the cheap Lee model.
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You’re an animal! Good work man!
 
BFDX7 said:
View attachment 516280
Three coats of Zombie green and they look pretty good. I wanted to try to load up some X39 but I have to check the diameter to see if they are bigger than the bore size of .313. And I have to dig around to see if I bought the Dillon conversion kit. Worse case I know these will make great 06 rounds. I could try to load up a few on a single stage I bought for sizing. It’s the cheap Lee model.
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You slugged your rifle? What model was .313”
My 3 sks and AK are all pretty snug right around .310-.311 ish
I worked up a load with as cast , 150gn .312” with gas check with H4895
Accuracy was eh,
 

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