First and second

[onesonek]

casting sessions,,,,
Learned the hard way what happens when your pouring tempo is alil fast for the mold's likes
Frosty bullets once I got the mold up to temp and past on good fillout

Asked around, and was told to slow down abit
and these look like I'm about as fast as the mold likes


Dave

[870TC]

A little frost is ok, it will go away when you size.

[Pat Cannon]

I've bought bullets that didn't look that good. In fact, most of the bullets I've bought didn't look that good!

[onesonek]

A little frost is ok, it will go away when you size.

I agree with that, but the exception is,,,, the frosty ones also shrunk more. So much that the they were very near or under my slug diameter. Whereas the shiney ones and with alloy od 93-5-2 were running .001 thru .0012" over slug,,,,from what I been hearing/reading that or a tad more over dia. is what is desired

[onesonek]

I've bought bullets that didn't look that good. In fact, most of the bullets I've bought didn't look that good!

All in all I'm very happy with the Accurate Mold, and once I figured out the toaster oven does a great job of preheating (or keeping it hot if I have a interuption) the mold to 425+ degrees,,,, my cull rate dropped sustantially. And again, getting the tempo down.

[selurcspi]

I've bought bullets that didn't look that good. In fact, most of the bullets I've bought didn't look that good!

All in all I'm very happy with the Accurate Mold, and once I figured out the toaster oven does a great job of preheating (or keeping it hot if I have a interuption) the mold to 425+ degrees,,,, my cull rate dropped sustantially. And again, getting the tempo down.

Dip the corner of the mold into the lead, that keeps it hot too!

[mmcnx2]

I don't cast any more but whe I did I rested the mold on a hot plate. I just adjusted the temp on the hot plate to get the temp I needed based on the mold.

[Seismic Sam]

Best thing to do is cast with two molds (maybe the same caliber, maybe not) so you can go as fast as you can alternating molds to keep producing good bullets. The other trick is to heave another 1 pound ingot of bullet lead into the pot, and it will act like an ice cube in a drink and cool down the molten lead so it won't frost up as much in a mold that's gotten up to temperature.

[onesonek]

Best thing to do is cast with two molds (maybe the same caliber, maybe not) so you can go as fast as you can alternating molds to keep producing good bullets. The other trick is to heave another 1 pound ingot of bullet lead into the pot, and it will act like an ice cube in a drink and cool down the molten lead so it won't frost up as much in a mold that's gotten up to temperature.

Yeah Sam, I plan on getting at least one more mold in a 465 gr. and do the switch routine.
As to the second part, I did that too, more as a way to use up a 1/2 dozen sprues and or 3-4 culls at the later half of the session. Didn't think it would matter much.
Now I can't say for sure what was happening,,, this is all new to me. But when I went to testing bhn of a 10 boolit lot at 48hrs after casting, I had 2 points of variation in hardness, and one that was so soft it was off the scale on the Lee tester. My own thoughts at this point are, the the cool alloy addition acted like a magnet or sponge of sorts, attacting the surrounding antimony. You think that is possible?
In my mind, that much variation has to raise cain with accuracy.
BTW, the alloy I was using there was a 1-1-1 lino, isotope, and co-ww's somewhere like a 93-5-2 with the bulk of the boolits testing about 14.5-15 bhn

[Seismic Sam]

I must confess that you have asked a question I can't answer about the cold lead acting like a sponge. Based on scientific principles, it would be hard for me to believe that a local temperature variation could do that much to change the makeup of the bullet lead. the entropy forces to keep things mixed are quite strong, and I simply can't imagine from the statistical thermodynamics courses I took a long time ago that this is even remotely likely.

On the other hand, rapid cooling of the bullets IS a known factor in bullet hardness, so if you had a bullet that was cast with hot lead in a hot mold but still came out alright, it might be significantly softer because the lead wasn't quenched enough by the coldness of the mold. If you read the fine print in the Lee Hardness tester, they also tell you that you should not test the base of cast bullets or ingots becuase those are both air cooled and not mold cooled, and as such your hardness readings will be significantly lower.

[onesonek]

Yeah well it has me sorta scratch'n my head and wondering.
No I didnt read that part on the Lee tester, and I did measure both the base and flat nose. And as you and they say there is a difference in the readings. But pretty much common sense dictates, to go with the number that contacts the animal first, so in this case the boolits were all tested on the flat of the meplat.

On another note I / we did get the new cast boolits for both the .454 and .45-70 shot today.
it was a quick informal affair, not what I would call an extensive or even good range test. But,,,, While my son Matt and his father in law were checking out their main rifles, I just start plinking at what looked like a broken grade stake on the lower bank of the gravel pit,,,mostly just to foul the bore. The first 2 shots were low by a foot,,,range was laser'd at 160yds. I gave the third round alil elevation, (the front bead covered the orange on the stake as it was) and let it go. The stake disappeared Beca, matt's wife said she saw splinters flying. I was shooting from my home made X-stix. Now they were done with the target which was at 140 yds for PBR high distance of 3.5" on Rons gun. I aimed at the top center of the target, and hit 1" right and 6" low. Moved the ramp on the rear up 1 notch and the second was center 2.5" low... Matty took over and put 5 rounds off the stix into a 2" group, then walked up half way and shot 3 more offhand standing into a 2.5"group centered 2.75" high. Unfortunately, i didnt have the chrono along so I don't knw what the speed was, But later next time when more time is available.
Then we started playing with .454,,again we just plinked 8 out to foul the bore. With the new Ultra Dot LT in place for the first time. I gave it 10 moa elevation from the last plinker. Matty took over at 50yds from the target, and offhanded 3 touching centered 1.5" high. I left it alone with that setting. I haven't ran the program on that yet, but suspect it will back on around 70-80, and he won't have to adjust even though he likely won't be shooting much if any over 25-30 yds in the timber.
He decided to take the Encore .454-320's along with his 7mag next week to CO for Elk. He really liked the Marlin, but figured the pistol might be easier when in close while hunting inside the timber.
It will be fun to really spend more time with these 2, and see really what they doing, But all in all, I was very happy with what I had seen so far, and 25 grs. H-110 behind the 320 gr in the .454 and 52 grs. of Benchmark behind the 405 in the .45-70 were really quite pleasant to shoot I thought. Matt thought the .45-70 was stout, but then hes never shot such a rig or load before. I can only take a guess at the velocities, next time I will chrono them, but suspect 13-1400 out of the .454 and 16-1700 in the Marlin.