Ingots have dimples

[wheaty]

Buy yourself an Lyman ingot mold......they are not expensive.
Wheel weight lead can be very hit and miss as it is usually high in antimony and that makes the bullets very hard and brittle.
If you are going to drive them fast try and get some linotype metal and you will wonder how you lived without it.
Many scrap yards will sell it to you if they have it around and it is great stuff.

 

[jongun]

Don't see me really ever needing to replace the muffin tin I have,unless I were to start cast ingots daily then I might consider something more durable. I'm gonna do some testing and see how I like these ingots as is and go from there. Wheaty,no doubt I'll have plenty more questions as I'm just starting out and I'm sure you fellas will continue to be very helpful.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

Is your melting pot cast aluminum or steel?

If it's aluminum the general consensus at cast boolits is to ditch it for cast iron. They say it can let go at any time with the heat. It's obviously worked so far, bit just in case you didn't know.

 

[jongun]

Hmmm thought I replied before but yeah anyways my pot is solid steel.

 

[ted_dent]

Don't see me really ever needing to replace the muffin tin I have,unless I were to start cast ingots daily then I might consider something more durable. I'm gonna do some testing and see how I like these ingots as is and go from there. Wheaty,no doubt I'll have plenty more questions as I'm just starting out and I'm sure you fellas will continue to be very helpful.

Absolutely nothing wrong with the muffin pan. It will last for years. My only other comment is that I went with two mini-muffin pans instead of a full size muffin pan because they cast smaller ingots (about 1/2 pound each). My reasoning was that full size muffin ingots are quite a bit bigger and therefore take longer to melt in the casting pot. A bigger problem is that they drop the temperature of the casting alloy. One key to casting consistent bullets is to minimize temperature fluctuation in the molten alloy. In the 20 pound Lee casting pot I use, adding 1/2 pound ingots one or two at a time allows the temperature to remain relatively constant and minimizes bullet variation due to differing temperatures.

P.S. mine are Teflon coated and my ingots also come out dimpled.

 

[jongun]

Definitely something to consider as I too am using the 20lb Lee pot. I just picked it up yesterday along with a few other reloading supplies and accessories but sadly my slug mold is on backorder/special order. Figured might as well place the special order for the molds in 311(SKSs+Mosins)452(45Colt)and 309(Schmidt-Rubins) so I'll be able to start going ASAP.Was toying with the idea of getting a 160gr mold in 452 but opted for the heavier 230gr.Wonder does anyone use these really low weight bullets for 45Colt? Anyways with fairly moderate shooting all this extra equipment will pay for itself in a short while.

 

[ted_dent]

Definitely something to consider as I too am using the 20lb Lee pot. I just picked it up yesterday along with a few other reloading supplies and accessories but sadly my slug mold is on backorder/special order. Figured might as well place the special order for the molds in 311(SKSs+Mosins)452(45Colt)and 309(Schmidt-Rubins) so I'll be able to start going ASAP.Was toying with the idea of getting a 160gr mold in 452 but opted for the heavier 230gr.Wonder does anyone use these really low weight bullets for 45Colt? Anyways with fairly moderate shooting all this extra equipment will pay for itself in a short while.

I have just started experimenting with the 160 gr. 45 Colt bullet in my 45 auto over 4.3 gr. of Alliant Promo. Preliminary results are really good but I want to do some more testing before I start claiming it's a miracle bullet. Not sure how it would work in a 45 Colt case with a lot more space than a 45 ACP. One nice thing is that the recoil is negligible.

 

[jongun]

I'm shooting the 45Colts in an H&R 410/45Colt Survivor so recoil is pretty well non existent. As it is with the 250gr bullets I'm considering using polyester stuffing over the powder to insure a quick and even burn and I could imagine that it would be that much more of a worry if I were to try out the 160gr bullets.More than anything I would like to obtain the most amount of accuracy out to a max of about 40-50 yards for deer.

 

[ted_dent]

I'm shooting the 45Colts in an H&R 410/45Colt Survivor so recoil is pretty well non existent. As it is with the 250gr bullets I'm considering using polyester stuffing over the powder to insure a quick and even burn and I could imagine that it would be that much more of a worry if I were to try out the 160gr bullets.More than anything I would like to obtain the most amount of accuracy out to a max of about 40-50 yards for deer.

If you're using them to hunt deer you'll want to stoke them up reasonably hot to get decent expansion for clean kills. I'm using the 160s strictly for target work so I can get away with powder puff loads

 

[jongun]

Gonna have to do some research and see what experiences others have had shooting this cartridge with light bullets at sub +P pressures in a hunting situation.