Trouble filling mold

ChiliDawg

ChiliDawg

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Niagara Region, Ontario
I have a Seaco mold 323 (.32 Wadcutter) that just doesn't want to fill out. At least 10% of my production is scrap. I have tried Wheel Weights to range lead. It's a little hard to see in the pic but the tops of the bullet have not formed properly.

Any ideas?

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how much tin in the mix? ideally us WW with 2% tin added.

failing that, whats your lead temperature at? what about mold temp?

i cast at 370C or 700F (pid controlled pot) with a near full pot i put the mold on top of the lead with the bottom of it sitting in the lead for about 5 minutes and it's usually casting good within 5-10 pours.


are your molds clean and oil free? (minus the sprue plate and various pins being lubed)
 
here is my totally newb comment, but are you dropping them when they are still too hot? I found if I didn't let my mold cool enough the lead would deform when hitting the rag I dropped them on.
 
- contaminated mold, clean it properly
- mold not hot enough
- lead not hot enough

After you have these things sorted you need to check your tin content.

Any time you want to get together, Ill show you my set up
 
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Check the little fine grooves in the mould faces and make sure these are clear. They allow entrapped air flow out smoothly.

Also, try fluxing your alloy a little more. I personally use Marvlux. it is a white powder, much like salt. Mix it real good and then remove the dross on top.

I also add some tin to the alloy. I add about 8 feet of 50/50 lead/tin solder per 18 pounds of alloy.

Tin seems to help in reducing the surface tension, and allows the alloy to fill in the mould better.
 
before i built a PID temp controller for my pot i used to cast at setting 7-8 on my lee pot and it worked pretty good. i actually got things to hot and had frosted bullets about 25% of the time. since using a PID controller i have never had a frosted bullet, knowing the temperature and keeping it consistent is very helpful.

for flux i just use candle wax or beeswax or sawdust, but for the most part i don't flux.
 
dthunter said:
Check the little fine grooves in the mould faces and make sure these are clear. They allow entrapped air flow out smoothly.
Click to expand...

You may have hit on the problem. I compared my Seaco mold with another one that I have and there are no grooves on one side of the mold. It looks like someone sanded the surface down, removing the grooves.

After looking up this mold on yahoo, it definetly should have grooves on both sides.
 
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Heat! Lots! If the bullets are frosted, they still shoot just fine, but I would jack the heat way up, work down until the troubles start, then add a bunch back in.

Oil or sooty smoke on the mold tends to leave a weird scabby look. Bubbles too. Poor fill is generally more a heat issue.

Too much heat is really only a big deal if you boil the metal in the pot. That makes lead vapors, not good breathing stuff.

Clean the mold. Run LOTS of heat. Easier to slow down than to raise the temperature. Go like hell to keep the mold at temperature. Dinkin around picking and poking at the product while the mold cools is a poor way to spend time. Steady rhythm. Adjust heat in pot to fit the speed at which YOU cast.

Worry about the vents if the other things don't fix your issues.

I had to run between 7 and 9 pours per minute to keep a single cav .22 cal mold hot enough, and that was with a dime size pool on the sprue plate to dump heat into the mold with. Opened the mold with a gloved hand, used same hand to remove bullet from mold (a poke with a chunk of soft wire wrapped around the pinkie) close the mold and sprue plate, and return the button to the pot (since it was about three times the lead that was in the bullet). That was dropping them and worrying about sorting after the fact. Any stoppage of work flow, and there was a cycle of several to many pours with the bullets being sent back in to the pot too, while the mold heated again.

Hotter metal gives hotter molds with slower work.

Try to change only one variable at a time, eh. That way you have a better idea of what the actual solution was.

Cheers
Trev
 
To all good points above I would add proper cleaning of lead in the pot.

Contaminated lead won't pour good boolits no matter what you do.Stirring lead in pot every 5-10 min or so helps too.
 
yomomma said:
Your #1 point proves your #4 point.
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That could be argued.

Argument 1) You can't get a consistent end without a consistent start. Consistency is accuracy.
Argument 2) Hold on ,there's no need for further argument. Oh other than a wise man once told me to learn from those who criticize there own intelligence and avoid those thinking and boasting they know, cause at the end of the day their crowing was a replacement for their lack of knowledge. Any truth to that? I mean are you stupid?..Meant in fun of course.

Hold on, I may end up taking that back. The above only applies to those using custom equip through out to turn out a limited quantity of long range high velocity accurate projectiles (Where this boolit junk came from). If You're the typical cast blaster using lee equip to produce low/med quality blasters range fodder is just geeerate.

PSS. How much of anything can you tell the guy to add or not add to his mixture when there's no way in he!! to tell what the initial mixture is....FRIKIN HACKS. It's bunk no knowledge garb like that that get the new comer off on the wrong foot
 
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rimfire458 said:
That could be argued.

Argument 1) You can't get a consistent end without a consistent start. Consistency is accuracy.
Argument 2) Hold on ,there's no need for further argument. Oh other than a wise man once told me to learn from those who criticize there own intelligence and avoid those thinking and boasting they know, cause at the end of the day their crowing was a replacement for their lack of knowledge. Any truth to that? I mean are you stupid?..Meant in fun of course
Click to expand...

you are correct as far as if you want the best consistency using lead of a known mixture is the way to go but for general plinking range scrap is plenty good enough.
 
Well with a hardness tester you can tell a lot.....even with wheel weight you only get a rough idea of what you have. Every manufacture uses a different alloy. Taking your advice one should only start with pure elemental metals and mix accordingly.

By eliminating cold molds and temp you are generally left with tin for fill out. Hardness in general is set by antimony.

So. If you flux well and get as much of the contaminates out as possible and adjust hardness with antimony rich alloy( or cut with pure) all what is left to do is adjust tin content for fill out.

One needs the proper tools and knowledge
 
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