Are you man (or woman) enough to confess your casting sins???

I didn't allow the mold to come up to temp long enough and wanted to hurry up and start dropping bullets... Rush it and this is what you get...



Yes, those are all the good ones that I made as soon as I bit my lip, sat down, and leaned back in the chair for a while longer...

So is anyone else ready, able, or willing to share their flubs...?

i get a few like that when i am getting the mold hot. i just drop them back into the pot.

Zoombie bullets, that's cousins of Zomby.

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S&WHF 366

it is the time for casting up bullets since it is cooler, i always turn on my pot and sit two different molds on top to heat up. then i go reload some or do something else than i can let go when the pot of lead is melted. this pre-heating of the iron molds works great, only takes a couple of pours to get the unwrinkled bullets. the lee molds can be pre heated by dipping the corner into the melted lead,but don't try this with iron blocks.

OOps, aa why can't you do it with iron moulds.?

i have read that the iron molds will warp if you dip them.

Don"t know about warping. Just set them on top of the lead as it melts and that works fine for me. Bout 20 mins. I can size and prime a lot of brass waiting for the lead to melt.

Then just cast a couple for the look-see and your ready.

If I want to start on a different mold, I just cant the ladle in the pot and lay the mold on top of the ladle shaft and let it come up to temp.

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Slim, U.S. Army, Ret.

One of our old members who is now deceased, Chunkum, suggested using a hot plate to preheat molds. So, that's what I do, with iron or aluminum. Most of the time the first cast will be good bullets.

I made some crooked bullets one time, just applied too much pressure in the check seating process and warped them out of shape.

I heat mine on top of the furnace. I keep looking for a decent single burner hot plate but they seem to be pretty rare these days. I can find all sorts of the large electric skillets but don't want something that big.

And yes, the bad stuff goes right back into the pot. I was just curious if anyone else would show their errors that have popped from molds.

I find that I'm loving everything about brass molds with the exception of the weight. My HP molds are brass and my aluminum molds make everything else. I tried a Lyman two cavity mold and while it made very good bullets, the iron was just too heavy when an aluminum six cavity doesn't even feel as heavy. Just my opinion. I doubt I'm the only one though.

could be worse .... some designs are harder to cast than others. and some of those hard to cast designs are too worthy to just replace with something kinder to the operator.
I have one such mold and ive pretty much accepted its blooper rate and deal with it in post run inspection

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it just needs more voltage

I bought my hot plate from Wallie World Walmart.com: GE Single Burner Hot Plate: Appliances and it gets up to 500+ degrees. That's plenty to preheat molds, but not hot enough to melt pewter.

I'll confess to having dropped hundreds of wrinkled, frosted, and poorly filled out bullets, but can't show any since they all went directly back into the pot. All just part of the learning process.

Larry

The art of casting...on my recent casting secession, I was experiencing problems with mold fill out with the single cavity HP mould (iron). What I found was my Lyman furnace nozzle was not pouring enough metal fast enough, nozzle was partly clogged.

The cure was pouring all the metal out of the pot while it was hot and running into ingots. Then after it was empty, I disassembled the nozzel parts and cleaned the spout stem of all build up and cleaned out the spout hole with paper clip wire all while the pot was still powered up and running wide open. Putting it all back together refilling the pot and getting the metal back up to temp the pot poured perfectly good bullets again with the hollow points being filled out too!
It filled so well that I actually saw metal start to flow into the vent lines on some pours...

If you want to cast bad boolits in a hurry, run a brass mould too cold! hahaha

Go 'head, ask me how I know!

And to Venom: "Ain't that the truth!" I have a round nose mould problem. Well, a round nose Lee Aluminum 6 cavity mould problem to be exact. I have to have that puppy really hot, super clean, every time or I get wrinkles till who tied um, or whotiteum or how every you say that!

I seldom take pictures of my mistakes but, hey, maybe Bob will set a new trend!

You know what they say, confession is good for the soul!

my pet source of frustration is that Lyman 525 grain 12 Ga slug. brilliant projectile, dont get me wrong. When its good its great but you have to earn it.
problem one is the fill out at the base of the skirt.
being kinda thin here its hard to keep heat there for a proper fill out. Problem two is right at the tip of the base pin where a void loves to form.
Poor skirt fill and it cants in the wad, often times enough to cause it to tumble.
the void has only a slight effect on accuracy but if its a business load, its a weak joint between head and skirt where it fragments ...
the cull rate out of this one is right around 20%

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it just needs more voltage

I went from dipping a corner to a hot plate and I like it.
I bought an RCBS 32/98 swc mold used that was in great shape and the caster said it worked well for him. I could never get a good base. I added vent lines, dipped, pressure cast and bottom poured. I finally got great results by letting a small stream of the melt go over the sprue for a long ten count before stopping it. I now have a couple of scratched vent lines that do not effect the base of the bullet but remind me to try EVERYTHING before I modify something.

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Front sight and squeeze

No such thing as flubs or mistakes when yo ucast. You return all the bad ones back to the pot, all evidence is melted away.

Yes, cold mold. I do have 1 Lyman mold (357 SWC-1 cav) that if the lead is to temp, will always cast the first bullet as a keeper, every time. Most other Lyman molds I have MUST be pre-heated, like the other have said, lay it on the edge of the pot for 10 min or so. DON"T let the mold fall in though! It makes a huge mess. Not that it has happened to me....lately.

I didn’t buy a thermometer for my furnace for the longest time. I just kind of figured I would know if the lead was at the right temp by seeing if the bullets looked right when they came out. Then I broke down and bought one to see if it really would help me out any. I can’t say that it did or didn’t. What it did show me was the wild temperature swings that I would get simply by adding a single piece of the sprue or dropping in another ingot to fill her back up again. Worse, the thermostat is just about pointless. It allows the lead to get way too cool only to heat it back up again way too much. So then I started reading up on adding a PID controller to a furnace. Some of the Castboolits guys go back and forth on what parts work best, where the parts should go, but one thing is for sure… Keeping the lead at a steady temperature seems to be VERY worthwhile. So adding a PID controller seems like a very worthy effort to go through despite the levels of effort and cost that will be involved. For anyone not sure what I’m talking about, here is a link that explains it almost too well:
Dual PID lead melting pot temperature controller and mold temperature

hhmm nope never had any look like that, mine all come out good the first time! NOT! hey its just part of it some of my molds throw good bullets pretty fast, some not so fast? one thing i have started doing when i finish casting is to leave my mould full, i dont knock off the spruce plate just put it up like that, way i see it not as easy for stuff to get in there that way, whats your thoughts on this? mike

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WILL WORK FOR AMMO!

On my last pour I will leave the bullets in the mold but I do knock off the sprue. Same reason, to try to keep the cavities clean.

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Non illegitimae carborundum

I leave bullets in, sprue intact and hose that puppy down with WD-40. Yes, it gets on the inside BUT, I scrub my moulds with super hot water and Dawn dishwashing soap before a casting session. I do this while the melt is getting hot so I am preoccupied! Then, I heat them on the kitchen stove, for just a bit to make the dry, not hot, but dry, then to the top of the pot until the melt is finished coming to temp.

Aluminum moulds get a corner into the melt for a few minutes. They dissipate heat more so the need to be hotter to start with. If they get too hot while casting, I have a folded work towel in a plastic coffee can lid (turned upside down so there is a slight "bowl" affect) saturated with water that I touch the mould to to dissipate more heat.

The mould has to be up to temp first and full when you do it though OR you can get water in the cavities. That combined with molten metal is not a good thing!

As far as dipping iron molds in hot lead, just be sure you fill the mold first and leave the sprue on top. Then you can dip them if you like and you shouldn't have any trouble. The best way is just fill it, leave the sprue on and set the molds on top of the pot for a little while till they are hot. Then before you start to cast take about 3 kitchen wooden matches, put them together and light them. Then use them to smoke, "blacken" the interior of your molds. You will be surprised at how easy and perfect the bullets will come out of the molds. Make sure you get both interiors of the molds a nice dark smoked black. Do that on the top of the sprue plate also. Don't do it on the bottom of the sprue plate or on top of the mold where the sprue plate slides back and forth.......ONE THING YOU "NEVER" WANT TO DO IS TAKE A FULL MOLD WITH THE SPRUE ON TOP AND "DIP IT IN A BUCKET OF WATER" TO COOL IT OFF. I CAN ASSURE YOU, YOU WILL BE BUYING NEW MOLDS...I would like to say I heard of someone doing this, but I had first hand experience. I had an "oldtimer" tell me they used to do this all the time and never have any trouble, well let me tell you, YOU WILL WARP YOUR $150.00 MOLDS IF YOU TRY THIS METHOD. I hope that little hint will make your casting much easier.........CookE

Here's another tip for you..............make sure the mold is actually closed before you fill it.