care and feeding of steel bag mould

[dave payne]

are the methods of using aluminium ball mould (wich I have used) different from using a steel bag mould (rapine or rapine style)that i just purchased ?

 

[tg]

I can't think of anything I do differently, I smoke the cavity, heat the mold and pour, usually not keeping the first few if they are not to my liking, I think you will have to stop now and then as the aluminum mold will heat up to where it need to cool a bit if I recall, I have only used one aluminum mold several years ago, so I'm going on memory here, I like to lay a towel in a paint roller pan and let the ball fall onto the towel and roll down to the lower part of the pan this keeps the balls from getting banged up when hot, may not be a must do, but it seems to work ok.

 

[BrownBear]

I spent a lot of time working, casting and shooting with a serious caster when I was a kid, and as a result have retained the habit all these years. It was a wet climate and before modern rust preventatives, much less WD-40 were around. He always dismounted his blocks from the handles and wrapped the blocks in butcher paper oiled with 3-in-1 oil. Many of his moulds were well over 50 years old at the time and looked spanking new. Just swab the moulds with alcohol to remove the oil before heating.

Now I've got moulds of my own that I bought new more than 50 years ago, and they're still in fine shape after all these years. Like he did, I just write the caliber, model number, bullet style and weight on the paper (in pencil, not pen) before oiling the paper. Easy way to keep track of a whole drawer full of the things.