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thanks merk will deff look at links mac
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bullet casting
- Thread starter irishwoodsman
- Start date
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- Joined
- Nov 19, 2011
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- 966
well guys i have alot of things comming i mail, i found out i could use factory crimp dies to crimp my gas checks on which is a plus have 4 of them comming, i have 4 bullet molds comming and a ladel and dipper comming, i have a book comming but been reading the links you guys recomended which is great, i think i'm going to use the rcbs lubesizer dies they are the cheapest plus they will screw in my single stage pacific press, one question i do have is the bullet lube, does that make the bullet easier to shoot down the barrel, the links really dont say what its for, but thanks for all the info, i find myself on this puter 3oclock in the morning reading the great links lol. mac)
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- Joined
- Nov 19, 2011
- Messages
- 966
mistake its the lee sizing dies i will be useingwell guys i have alot of things comming i mail, i found out i could use factory crimp dies to crimp my gas checks on which is a plus have 4 of them comming, i have 4 bullet molds comming and a ladel and dipper comming, i have a book comming but been reading the links you guys recomended which is great, i think i'm going to use the rcbs lubesizer dies they are the cheapest plus they will screw in my single stage pacific press, one question i do have is the bullet lube, does that make the bullet easier to shoot down the barrel, the links really dont say what its for, but thanks for all the info, i find myself on this puter 3oclock in the morning reading the great links lol. mac
)) mac
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- Nov 19, 2011
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- 966
ty elmo
)- Joined
- Feb 21, 2013
- Messages
- 9
Hey,
Okay, gas checks are essential with higher velocity cast bullets. Finding gas checks commercially can be a tough road to hoe right now. There are several guys making their own and selling extras to offset the cost of the punch sets to make these. Check out some of the on-line auction sites. There are usually lots for sale on there.
Seating these can be done with any lube/sizer made by the reloading supply companies. I use a simple Lee .309 push through sizer to seat mine and I have had no trouble. What I do is give the bullets a light coating of the 45/45/10 recipe lube (see cast boolits forum for the exact recipe). Let them dry. Then put the gas check on the bullet and run them through the Lee sizer. This will seat the gas check and size the bullet. To make sure that I do not have to worry about leading, I usually re-lube the bullets. I have never had any problems with leading while shooting 170gr flat nose in my 30-30 or 30-06.
Also, there are some that are 'paper patching' cast bullets to shoot in 30-30. The Marlin 30-30 usually likes a little bigger bullet. Something about the micro-groove rifling. I have read about 'paper patching'. Some people are actually using teflon plumbers pipe tape. They are wrapping about two to three wraps of tape around the 'lube grooves', sizing them, and then loading them.
Okay, gas checks are essential with higher velocity cast bullets. Finding gas checks commercially can be a tough road to hoe right now. There are several guys making their own and selling extras to offset the cost of the punch sets to make these. Check out some of the on-line auction sites. There are usually lots for sale on there.
Seating these can be done with any lube/sizer made by the reloading supply companies. I use a simple Lee .309 push through sizer to seat mine and I have had no trouble. What I do is give the bullets a light coating of the 45/45/10 recipe lube (see cast boolits forum for the exact recipe). Let them dry. Then put the gas check on the bullet and run them through the Lee sizer. This will seat the gas check and size the bullet. To make sure that I do not have to worry about leading, I usually re-lube the bullets. I have never had any problems with leading while shooting 170gr flat nose in my 30-30 or 30-06.
Also, there are some that are 'paper patching' cast bullets to shoot in 30-30. The Marlin 30-30 usually likes a little bigger bullet. Something about the micro-groove rifling. I have read about 'paper patching'. Some people are actually using teflon plumbers pipe tape. They are wrapping about two to three wraps of tape around the 'lube grooves', sizing them, and then loading them.
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2011
- Messages
- 966
thank you broomstraw, i got the rest of my stuff about a hr ago, the powder house prob loves me today, i'm useing the lee sizernlube dies and the lee bullet molds, which are the 308 for my 308 and 309 for my 3006 and the 311 for my 303 british this one i might change to the 312 depending on the pattern of the 303, i did get the powder narrowed down to 2 which is fine i can live with that the guys really spent some time with me at graffs, the 3030 i got is a savage bolt action 3030 it has a clip and is a sweet rifle it is scoped in at a hundred and i can hit 20gage hulls laying down with only the brass end showing woot woot a 100.00 yard sale find, not bragging just a nice rifle, just one question though, is it ok to use soot for the bullet mold to keep the bullet from sticking i seen this on a youtube vid my dies are a aluminum ot is there something better out there. ty mac
)- Joined
- Jan 21, 2011
- Messages
- 234
Mac, I have used candle soot on a new mould, but don't normally after that. Dip the corner of the mould into the lead for a little bit and it will help to pre-heat it. Run bullets, returning the mal-formed ones to the pot, until they look good. Once the mould is at the right temp the bullets don't stick. Use a wood stick (old hammer handle) to knock the sprue cutter open and after opening the mould, a tap on the hinge pin of the mould to drop the bullet.
Bobby
Bobby
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- Nov 19, 2011
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ty bobby thats what i needed to know
) mac
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2013
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- 18
I also use Lee molds. They are cheap enough to experiment with and they give me good results. I always clean my molds before use, brake cleaner works well. I then get all inner surfaces covered with a good coat of soot from a candle, a drop of oil on the sprue plate hinge and then set the entire bottom surface (with the mold closed) in the lead pot touching the molten lead. When the molten lead no longer cools and sticks to the mold, I know it is hot enough.
My first 2 or 3 casts usually go back into the pot (mold too cool makes a wrinkled bullet) and then its good to go. I also keep an old terry cloth towel on the bench about 24 inches away from the pot. I keep this towel soaked with cold water. Not damp, SOAKED. As I cast, the mold gets hotter, when the bullets start to get frosty, I will set the bottom of the closed and empty mold down on the towel for a second or two. This cools the mold a bit and then I cast some more. Keeping the molten lead and mold at the perfect temperature is key to casting bullets. You can turn the pot up to max temperature to speed the melt, but dial it back to about half way once the lead is melted. This is the time that I prep the mold (clean and soot), this gives the melt some time to cool.
Mold temperature too high = frosty bullet but easy to knock out of the mold
Mold temperature too cool = wrinkled bullet that is difficult to knock out of the mold
A frosty looking bullet will work fine and shoot straight but a wrinkled bullet will be under weight and not a good shooter. I always drop my bullets straight from the mold into a bucket of cold water. This quenching will harden the bullet but only if the lead is alloyed with a bit of antimony (quenching and hardness discussions are as heated as 9mm vs .45ACP discussions). My reason for quenching is simply to cool the bullets while providing a place to keep them. I used to drop them onto a dry soft towel but I would always run out of room for them, pick some up to transfer to a box and burn myself on the one hot rascal in the bunch.
Keep in mind that with water around while you are casting, you will be visited by the tinsel fairy so wear long sleeves and protect your eyes. Better yet, be very careful to never get water in the pot of molten lead.
I always knock the sprue into a separate metal pan while I'm casting. Don't toss them back into the pot until your pot is close to empty and needs re-filling. This is the time to dump them in to avoid splashing and contamination. After the sprue, add lead to the pot, let it melt and then flux.
Flux is the sorcery and voodoo part of bullet casting. If there are 500 bullet casters in a given area, there will be 5000 different flux formulas tried, discarded and then tried again. Keep it simple. The goal of flux is to remove impurities and in some cases, de-oxidize some alloying metals to return them to the melt. I use a long handled stainless steel spoon to stir and also to scrape the pot walls (the scraped off crud will float to the surface of the melt and can be skimmed off with the spoon). For flux, I toss a pea sized ball of candle wax into the pot. This will instantly melt and flow out over the surface of the lead. Stir it in/push it down and it will carburize and float to the surface. I also use a long wooden dowel to stir, this dowel turns to charcoal in the molten lead and brings impurities to the surface while grabbing the oxygen off of the oxidized alloying metals (if present) . Once the melt has been fluxed and skimmed, I do it once more with the little wax ball, this time I don't skim the crud off but allow the slag/dross to entirely cover the surface of the molten lead. This acts as a barrier, reducing oxidization of the melt.
I am likely doing it all wrong and would be called any manner of nastiness by some, but after thousands of bullets cast and sent down range with excellent results, I'll accept the name calling.
My first 2 or 3 casts usually go back into the pot (mold too cool makes a wrinkled bullet) and then its good to go. I also keep an old terry cloth towel on the bench about 24 inches away from the pot. I keep this towel soaked with cold water. Not damp, SOAKED. As I cast, the mold gets hotter, when the bullets start to get frosty, I will set the bottom of the closed and empty mold down on the towel for a second or two. This cools the mold a bit and then I cast some more. Keeping the molten lead and mold at the perfect temperature is key to casting bullets. You can turn the pot up to max temperature to speed the melt, but dial it back to about half way once the lead is melted. This is the time that I prep the mold (clean and soot), this gives the melt some time to cool.
Mold temperature too high = frosty bullet but easy to knock out of the mold
Mold temperature too cool = wrinkled bullet that is difficult to knock out of the mold
A frosty looking bullet will work fine and shoot straight but a wrinkled bullet will be under weight and not a good shooter. I always drop my bullets straight from the mold into a bucket of cold water. This quenching will harden the bullet but only if the lead is alloyed with a bit of antimony (quenching and hardness discussions are as heated as 9mm vs .45ACP discussions). My reason for quenching is simply to cool the bullets while providing a place to keep them. I used to drop them onto a dry soft towel but I would always run out of room for them, pick some up to transfer to a box and burn myself on the one hot rascal in the bunch.
Keep in mind that with water around while you are casting, you will be visited by the tinsel fairy so wear long sleeves and protect your eyes. Better yet, be very careful to never get water in the pot of molten lead.
I always knock the sprue into a separate metal pan while I'm casting. Don't toss them back into the pot until your pot is close to empty and needs re-filling. This is the time to dump them in to avoid splashing and contamination. After the sprue, add lead to the pot, let it melt and then flux.
Flux is the sorcery and voodoo part of bullet casting. If there are 500 bullet casters in a given area, there will be 5000 different flux formulas tried, discarded and then tried again. Keep it simple. The goal of flux is to remove impurities and in some cases, de-oxidize some alloying metals to return them to the melt. I use a long handled stainless steel spoon to stir and also to scrape the pot walls (the scraped off crud will float to the surface of the melt and can be skimmed off with the spoon). For flux, I toss a pea sized ball of candle wax into the pot. This will instantly melt and flow out over the surface of the lead. Stir it in/push it down and it will carburize and float to the surface. I also use a long wooden dowel to stir, this dowel turns to charcoal in the molten lead and brings impurities to the surface while grabbing the oxygen off of the oxidized alloying metals (if present) . Once the melt has been fluxed and skimmed, I do it once more with the little wax ball, this time I don't skim the crud off but allow the slag/dross to entirely cover the surface of the molten lead. This acts as a barrier, reducing oxidization of the melt.
I am likely doing it all wrong and would be called any manner of nastiness by some, but after thousands of bullets cast and sent down range with excellent results, I'll accept the name calling.
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