Casting Mini's

[eaglesnester]

I got rid of my bottom pour and use a dip method. The bottom pour doesn't seem fast enough on large volume pours. For pure lead on large volume I have the heat set to max.

I cast 12 and 20 gauge slugs and round balls for 50 and 45.

The above post is correct. the bottom pour does not work for me even when trying to cast 50 cal balls, they come out wrinkled every time. Switched to a ladle pour and wrinkles went away. It gets even worse when the volume of the pour increases. I am fighting that problem currently with pouring 450gr Lymen great Plains Hunter bullets.

 

[Papaclaude]

The saga continues. Today I melted a pot of pure lead,about 10 pounds, and proceded to start casting 50 cal maxi's in the lyman mould. This time I was using the dipper ladel with a spout in the bottom. 180 perfect bullets. Great, so I bring out the Lee 54 cal mould and heat it up. Wrinkle city again, so more heat and so on till I finaly start getting passable bullets.
It seems that the Lee mould needs more heat and it also looses the heat faster.
Tomorow I will give it another run with the Lee 54 mini and see how it goes.I wish I had a Lyman 54 maxi mould.

The aluminum moulds definitely heat up and cool off faster than steel. I've been using both for over 25 years. What I found with the Lee is that it usually takes me several bullets for the mould to heat up to the proper temperature, so I just pour the first 5 or so in the sprue pile. Then, it becomes important to use the proper tempo. Too slow, the mould will cool down too much, too fast, it will overheat. Also, I have never had any luck with alloys and Minnies. Mind you, I either use pure lead or Wheel weight. If the alloy is hard, I find it will work OK for maxi's and round ball, but the skirt tends to crack on Minnies.

 

[10x]

Wrinkling can also mean the mould is not warm enough. Pre-heat the mould by letting it sit on the top of the pot or hold the lower forward edge in the molten lead for a minute or so before you start a casting session. Controlling the mould temperature is just as important or maybe more important than the pot temperature. Cast faster to raise temperature and slow down to lower the mould temp. I heat my mould until the sprue plate lube starts to smoke, and then I start casting fast as I can to warm up the mould. First few casts will be wrinkly, but once you get the mould to the right temp the bullets start dropping out like magic. No smoking the mould is required on most every mould I've used as long as you run it warm enough.

Pete, you may have several issues
1) add just a hint of tin to the alloy.
2) bottom pour pot - make sure the pot is clean and the pour spout is not clogged (Make sure the pot is clean and do not use your casting pot to melt scrap and clean it)
3) Clean the mold using brake kleen, then acetone
4) Do not use oil or wax base flame to "smoke" the mold.
5) be very careful in lubing the sprue bolt and alignment pins in the mold - do this sparingly with "kroil" synthetic motor oil on Q tip.
6) get a 7" rotary sawblade and electric hotplate to place the mold on to pre heat it.
7) get a lead thermometer to check the temperature of your alloy.

When I went to the hotplate / saw blade pre heat the number of cold cast rejects (from a 5 cavity NOE alluminium mold) dropped to ten.

You may want to make sure your alloy is clean. Pine shavings ( available from a pet store as bedding) make an excellent flux - just do this outside...

I have been casting bullets for almost 50 years and my biggest problem is finding lead or suitable lead alloy.