A small question about casting bullets (wrinkled / missing bits)

762mm

762mm

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Today I decided to give my newly acquired equipment a go and cast some bullets using my Lee production pot and two of my aluminum Lee molds (.452 200gr and .459 500gr)... and I've got a few skin burns to prove it, lol! (due to a few stupid beginner's mistakes) :D

So, I melted a full pot of wheel-weights (turned out great), did the flux procedure and skimmed all the junk off the top, then ended up with a pot full of clean lead. I preheated the first mold and began casting, soon reaching a point where all bullets came out perfect. I made approx 60-70 bullets that way with no quality issues and nothing going back to the pot.

But then... I melted some more wheel weights, fluxed & removed the impurities once again and started re-casting again (I temporarily cranked up the temp to melt, then brought it back down like it was before). The molds were still hot, as the procedure only lasted a few short minutes. All my bullets that followed were wrinkled as heck and pretty much 80% of them had to go back to the pot to re-melt. I played with the temperature dial and eventually it started casting a little better, but still not like it used to on the first try (after the first melting). Why is that?

Personally, I think it's something stupid like maybe figuring out some sweet spot on my melter's temp gauge... but I couldn't figure it out today and it was very frustrating to say the least, as I could've easily made 300+ perfect bullets today, but ended up with 100-something, as the rest was wrinkled or had little bits missing on them and had to go back in. Thanks in advance for any insight you may have...

:confused:


P.S. I know that some wheel weights are made of something different than lead and that they don't melt as fast (and should be removed from the pot ASAP before they do melt & contaminate the alloy). I had only one of those weights that didn't melt and I removed it promptly... so I assume the rest were pure lead.

.
 
Sounds to me, like the moulds didn't come back up to temperature on the second go-around.
Also, I like to re-smoke the moulds every time I start casting. Maybe it's a waste; but I personally believe I get better bullets, earlier in the casting "cycle" then I do when I don't smoke the blocks.
(Yes, this means that I'm sometimes smoking moulds that are quite hot).
 
broncoo said:
mold not hot enough or your pouring too slow
Click to expand...

Ok... come to think of it, I think the nozzle did pour a lot slower after melting more weights (the second time)... maybe the nozzle got clogged with impurities? It would make sense I guess, as wheel weights aren't the cleanest stuff around.

To tell the truth, I didn't inspect it after the melting session, as I left some lead in the melter to prevent corrosion forming in the spout (as suggested by Lee's owner's manual). Next time I cast, I will empty the whole thing into and ingot mold and clean the nozzle before starting a new session. Thanks for the info!

:)
 
Splatter said:
Sounds to me, like the moulds didn't come back up to temperature on the second go-around.
Also, I like to re-smoke the moulds every time I start casting. Maybe it's a waste; but I personally believe I get better bullets, earlier in the casting "cycle" then I do when I don't smoke the blocks.
(Yes, this means that I'm sometimes smoking moulds that are quite hot).
Click to expand...

Is that necessary with aluminum molds too? I didn't smoke mine (even though I did have a candle/lighter right next to me), as I read that aluminum molds don't require it. After giving it a go the first time and obtaining 70 good bullets with no smoking, I think it's confirmed... but I may try that anyway next time around to see if it helps, as you suggest. Thanks!
 
762mm said:
Ok... come to think of it, I think the nozzle did pour a lot slower after melting more weights (the second time)... maybe the nozzle got clogged with impurities? It would make sense I guess, as wheel weights aren't the cleanest stuff around.

To tell the truth, I didn't inspect it after the melting session, as I left some lead in the melter to prevent corrosion forming in the spout (as suggested by Lee's owner's manual). Next time I cast, I will empty the whole thing into and ingot mold and clean the nozzle before starting a new session. Thanks for the info!

:)
Click to expand...

i leave my bottom pour pot full, sometimes you have to fiddle with the screw to adjust flow after each session
 
Using WWs right in the pot will clog the spout eventualy. What I do is take a paper clip and bend the big loop straight then make an L out of it and insert the long straight part into the bottom of the spout to clear the clog while holding the small loop, WEAR GOOD GLOVES. This works for me to get the pot pouring fast again. Repeat as necessary.

As the poster above mentioned, smoke your mold before each session it really helps the bullets come out

Cactus
 
I cast with my Lee pot at 7 usually. I use Wheel Weights too, but remember wheel weights are not pure lead. Usually something like, 95% lead and the other 5% some tin and antimony. The antimony is what makes it harder than pure lead. The ones you are watching out for are Zinc. Steel weights are harmless and just float to the top.

When I get a new Lee mold I degrease it with brake parts cleaner, smoke the cavities and faces with a couple wooden matches, then lube it with a little NRA bullet lube. Sometimes I warm it up a bit on top of the pot, but usually just start casting and reject the first 5-10 castings to warm the mold up. If I stop for a while and don't like the way the new bullets are coming out of the cooled mold, I do the same routine of casting a bunch that go right back into the pot just to heat the mold again. Many people say that larger molds (400gr +) fill out better casting with a ladle instead of bottom pour. I have yet to try this with these sizes.

If the bottom pour nozzle isnt working well, twist the top of the plug pin with a screwdriver to seat it better, and if that doesnt do it, stick a paperclip into the bottom of the spout to clean it out. You should have an ingot mold underneath to catch the molten lead. Also the layer of crap on top of the pot will prevent more lead oxidation while in use, so you don't need to keep the top of the lead melt spotless, unless you are scooping out of the top with a ladel to ladel pour. Your pot will be cleaner if you don't melt dirty scrap lead in it, but right now that is likely the only thing you have to melt it in. Leave you pot full of lead when you are done so it is easier to warm up and go next time.

I used to melt my wheelweights in the pot but found it takes forever to keep it fed and clean while trying to cast so I started melting my weights or scrap lead seperately in a BBQ tank cut in half on top of a turkey fryer burner. I use a stainless soup ladel and a muffin tray to make ingots that I feed into my Lee pot when casting. When the ingots are cool I mark them WW or Pure etc with a marker for later reference. There is a sticky at the top of this forum with much more detail on this.
 
Wrinkles usually mean that the melt or the mold is not hot enough, frosting means one or the other is too hot. Wheelweight metal does not flow as well as some other alloys, adding tin does wonders for the melt and your bullets. Wheelweight metal alone is not much harder then pure lead and quite likely to fracture when it impacts bone or other things like caked mud on large game hides. For extra hardness, add Linotype and extra Tin, the tin is added if you are experiencing poor flow or poor bullet fillout. Plain wheelweight metal is prolly best for lower vel. CAS loads and handgun bullets.
 
I had the same problem.It turned out that i was filling molds too slowly.Being new to this i was too careful and took my time...I was suggested to try castng like i'm in a hurry and that's when everything came into place and i got really nice results.
Now i'm re-learning the same lesson with sizing /lubing my lead.
If you find proper sequence of operations when casting/sizing stick to it and speed up.It's all about repeatability of movements.
 
One thing that took me a while to learn was that just because the lead is molten does not mean it's hot enough. I used to start casting as soon as the lead was liquid and end up with about 3/4's of the batch being wrinkled... only after reading some advice about waiting about 45 minutes and getting the mold up to temp do I have perfect bullets. If the lead stays liquid in the mold then it's too hot... if it hardens right away too cold.
Good luck. You'll get it.
 
The nozzle on the LEE pots seem to plug up more frequently than others. Check to make sure it is clear. Get yourself a quality lead thermometer to determine that you're at proper casting temperature. Returning rejects to the pot during the same casing session will cause your melt temp to drop as well. Factor in that, along with a partially blocked nozzle and a slow pour and your getting a high rejection rate. Aluminum is a really good conductor of heat, so even if the first 5-10 pours you did were rejects, by that time the moulds should've been adequately heated up and dropping properly filled out bullets; assuming, of course, the metal was at the correct temperature to start with.

Check you nozzle, pour faster, crank up the temp a little and stop returning rejects tot he pot and see if things fix themselves. If not, you might have a bum thermostat on the LEE pot, etc... Incidentally, are you plugging the pot directly into a wall outlet or using an extension cord? If the latter, the cord may be too light of a gauge and the pot is simply not getting enough juice. Hope thing work out for you.
 
Sometimes my Lee pot clogs up at the pouring nozzle.
I keep a propane torch handy to re-heat the nozzle and thereby increase flow rate.
For some reason, the pouring nozzle seems to cool after adding fresh lead to the pot.

Wrinkles are either slow pour or too cold.
 
Get any kind of oil in your mold cavity, and you will have no end of misery trying to get the mold to drop decent bullets. Oil for storage, clean for use. I had no end of the wrinkles until I started cleaning the mold with solvent, no matter how hot I went on the pot.

My experiences with wheel weights are that casting bullets and processing weights into ingots, are best done in separate operations.
Melt all your weights, make clean ingots, empty the pot out and clean it, and then make bullets.
No point in going to all the work, if you are going to insist on dumping filth into your mixture at every refill of the pot. Can't get a good reliable mix ratio that way, either, if you are adding tin. With ingots or pucks, at least you can weigh each one as you add it to the pot, and add an appropriate amount of solder or whatever you are using.

I got good fill out by raising the temperature a bit hotter than I thought it would take.

I have been casting .22 cal bullets in a single cavity mold. Not shot any of them yet. Still working on the gun they are for. Have several thousand stuck aside, that I thought fit to keep.

Cheers
Trev
 
Thanks guys for all your replies, it's exactly the kind of pointers I was looking for... after reading, I've learned that temperature is definitely an issue, as I was trying to cast the bullets at the lowest possible temperature (the Lee owner's manual said to lower the temperature after the initial melt to the lowest temperature that can still cast... and I figured it meant the lowest temperature where lead still flows freely).

Anyway, my melter was not plugged into an extension cord (as X-man has asked), but on the other hand I was putting all the failed bullets and other scraps of lead back into the pot after accumulating a small pile of them on the casting bench. I guess that was my main mistake. I will retry casting some more this coming week if time allows, except that this time I'll use all the new info I have from you gentlemen. I've also learned that although the Lee melter seems like a good machine, their user's manual is crap, lol! Thank goodness for CGN! :D

Thanks again everyone! By the way... when some of you mentioned tin, is it tin foil or a piece of tin can that should be added to the pot to make the alloy a bit harder? Also, when the mold and lead are at the right temperature, how long should it take for the bullets to set in the mold? (mine seemed to set solid in about 5-7 seconds or so... is that too short?) :confused:

Thanks in advance for your help..
:cheers:

trevj said:
Melt all your weights, make clean ingots, empty the pot out and clean it, and then make bullets.
No point in going to all the work, if you are going to insist on dumping filth into your mixture at every refill of the pot. Can't get a good reliable mix ratio that way, either, if you are adding tin. With ingots or pucks, at least you can weigh each one as you add it to the pot, and add an appropriate amount of solder or whatever you are using.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have been thinking about that too... plus it would help me to get rid of that huge bucket of wheel weights in my garage, lol! The metal clips and other junk + air space between the individual wheel weights probably account for 80% of the total volume. If I melt it all in a single (long) session and make ingots, I can get rid of the scrap metal and store everything neatly in my ammo cabinet. I think that's the proper way to go... thanks!
 
If you plan on melting all your weights at once, you will want to consider a seperate, likely propane fired melting pot to handle this. It can take a while even this way to do 100lbs + of wheel weights and make ingots. The molds will get so hot that it takes a while for them to cool enough to dump out so you can pour more. I like a turkey fryer with a 20lb propane tank cut in half on top and then ladle pour into molds. There are Dutch ovens and other cast containers that you can easily melt larger amounts in too. I used to do it all in the 10lb Lee production pot, but after getting a seperate larger pot to melt scrap I'll never go back.

Be careful when you add solid lead to molten lead, if there is any water inside it you will have a steam explosion that will throw molten lead all over. Even putting old wheel weights into a hot LEE pot can cause this if they have water under the clip.
 
Never add unprocessed wheel weights to a bottom pour pot, in no time you will get crude jammed into the spout. Always melt and flux and process the wheel weights into a mold of about 1 Lb ingot/muffin tin/ etc. or what ever you want so that all your bottom pour pot see's is clean fluxed and ready to go lead. I make my Lyman #2 mix, high antimony mix, and 50/50 (WW/pure lead) and pour them in 1 lb ingots and keep them separate. My ingot molds have different reverse letters in the bottom so when I pour the lead into them they can be clearly see as to what it is.

While my lead is melting and coming up to temperature I set my mold on a hot plate to warm up, this greatly reduces the reject rate when you start.

Once I made a PID controller for my lead pots, it really opened my eyes to how much heat is lost by adding more lead to the pot.
I set my controller to 800 deg F because I need it that high for hollow point bullets. I pour about what you said you did or about 2/3 of the pot and then I added 4 pounds of lead. Well the temperature of the lead in the pot dropped to 600 deg F in a matter of seconds and took about 5 minutes to recover. The recovery rate was slightly quicker in my RCBS pot but not by much.

You said you started pouring again and it was only 4 minutes or so, well your lead has lost about 1/3 of its temperature and your aluminum mold has cooled off by about 150 deg. F so the combination of the two has given you a double whammy of wrinkled bullets.

Metal molds will hold there heat the best and then comes brass and then aluminum in my observations.

So some simple cures for the newbie.

Process all your lead separately so you don't get crap in the spout. If you do have a propane torch at hand and a small bent nail just in case. Push the nail up the spout and that should clear it, if not you might have to heat the spout up with a torch to help free any unmelted lead stuck in there.

If you are working with the Lee 10 lb pot and an aluminum mold here is how you keep your down time to a minimum.

As you pour watch the lead level in the pot, when it gets down 3/4 inch add a pound of clean WW or what ever lead you need to the pot and keep pouring with a slight difference.

You pour the lead to make the bullet and instead of opening the mold and dropping the bullets you keep the lead in there. Add the 1 lb of lead and dip the corner of the mold in the lead to keep it warm and count to 30. Open the mold and drop the bullets.

Do this again, hold the bullets dip in the lead, and count to 30. Once all the lead that you have put in the pot has melted then do the 30 count once more and away you go.

The lead temp will only drop 75 deg F and then recover very quickly and your mold has stayed nice and hot at the same time.

Now you can go ahead and make another 50 bullets or so until you get the level down to where it was before. And repeat.

You will be amazed at how little down time you have doing this method, especially when you get going with a 6 cavity mold.

Hope that made sense.
 
Also, when the mold and lead are at the right temperature, how long should it take for the bullets to set in the mold? (mine seemed to set solid in about 5-7 seconds or so... is that too short?)
Click to expand...

As soon as the lead solidifies on top of your spure cutter, cut off the sprues and open the mould. I find the sooner you and get the bullets out of the mould, the less they stick even with a well smoked mould. I've never actually timed it, but I would guess that from the time I stop pouring until the lead solidifies would be about 3 seconds...then cut...then dump the bullets into cold water. If you are getting lead smearing on top of the mould blocks under the sprue cutter, let it cool a little bit more. Also, put a little...and I emphasis little....lube on top of the blocks where the spure cutter slides as well as the centering dowels. Make sure you don't get any down in the mould cavities or you'll have more wrinkles than you can shake a stick at.
 
If the sprue cut on the base of the bullet is clean, your timing is good, if it is ripped or torn, you cut it too soon, if you get lead on top of the blocks from cutting the sprue too early, it will build and cause probs. until you remove it.
 
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