First go at casting Balls and Bullets, thoughts and questions

[amcmullen]

Background.
Going through several posts I noticed that a lot of you cull the balls that are underweight. Never paying attention to that I decided to weight my swagged production balls and was surprised to see they varied by up to 3 grains(96 balls total). More alarming was that out of the 96 round balls with an top weight of 179.8 grains 55 were under 178 grains, my determined cull point The 15 Maxiballs that I weighed varied by 30 grains and were all across the weight range!!!
Very excited to start casting my own consistent Round Balls and Bullets, I purchased a Lee mold the .490 ball and 320 REAL Combo. I also got a New pot with the bottom pour and purchased lead sheeting from the salvage yard. Did some homework on mold prep and lead prep and got going.
First observation
Lead and mold needs to be hot!..no kiding Einstein!

After things heated up I came to my second observation, pour S L O W...

Third observation.
Aluminum is really soft, even though I though I was careful I still ended up puting a tiny nick in the Bullet mold at the vary end, probably from taping with the wood to release the bullet

After a few pours I was getting good consistant pours and the resulting round balls were all within a grain and the bullets within two.

Now for the question for you seasoned pourers.
1. I noticed that on the REAL bullets the top (actually the bottom flat part of the bullet) on many bullets have little pot marks, any clue what are causing these? I thought that maybe I got a little beeswax on the sprue cutter plate.
2. After a little bit the poured lead and resulting balls/ bullets have a blueish purple hue. Is this normal or is the lead trying to tell me something.

 

[amcmullen]

Just saw my nasty gram that said I should have posted this in the Craftsmen section, my apologies. I am far from a "craftsman", though...

 

[Rifleman1776]

Interesting questions.
First, never hit the mould to release your balls. Hit on the hinge pin. And, of course, use only wood.
The blue/purplish on the cast balls is a bit of a puzzlement. :hmm: Your flashing lead may not be pure. And/or you are not fluxing enough or properly.
Do make sure your lead is hot enough then periodically stir the pot and skim off whatever floats to the top.
Some use a thermometer to get desired temps. My method is to crank the heat to where the cast ball just begin to get frosty. A lot of frost on the balls indicates temp is too high. Good luck with the Lee bottom pour. They can be probelmatic. DAMHIK :shocked2:

 

[mooman76]

Pure lead will get a blueish tint to it. Especially when it gets real hot. You could turn the heat down some but really it doesn't hurt a thing. Not sure about pock marks, a picture would be helpful. It could be the lead tearing. If you cut the sprue a little too quickly, the lead is still soft from the heat and it will tear the lead. This could also explain being farther off grain wise. Try cleaning the sprue plate and don't cut with the sprue so quickly. l

 

[amcmullen]

The Blue tint

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The pockmarks. Also, this was a bullet that was culled because of the edges. However, some full bullets also showed these pockmarks that are on top.

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[mooman76]

The blue hue is from pure lead. I also got it from some roof flashing. Won't hurt a thing. I've never seen pock makes like that when casting. Try cleaning the sprue and maybe adjust the heat down but not really sure. I don't bottom pour, I ladle cast but I wouldn't think that would have anything to do with that. Keep slugging away and you should get better results.

 

[Idaho Ron]

Moonman is SPOT ON!!!
The blue is from over heated pure lead. The Pock marks are also from over heated pure lead. I little tin will help. I bet you had a lot of the Blue, green, yellow dross on top. When it got way over heated it probably turned black.
Make sure that the inside of the mould is free of oils or any other contaminate. To be honest I like a Ladle better for large bullets but the REAL is not that big. BTW how much did those REAL's weigh.

 

[Idaho Ron]

Also if you have micrometers could you get a measure on the rings on those and post them. I would be interested in what you get.

 

[amcmullen]

I can but it will take a few days. I'm going to Nashville for a few days and will be back Wednesday.

I made another batch, the hotter it got the more blue it became. Interestingly, the hotter it got the better "heavier" they became until it got to a point and the balls came out kinda rough. Turned the heat down and they became good again. I have been placing them in rows so I could tell them apart after cooling.

 

[mooman76]

I was trying to get Lee minies to come out good a few years back. They were coming out too big and I noticed after the mould heated up good they would come out slightly bigger. Only the first ones would come out close to the size I was wanting. My educated guess was the mould was heating up and expanding slightly making them a few thousandths larger.

Ron, I have a Lee REAL mould in 50 and I could measure the bands if that's what you are wanting.

 

[amcmullen]

Sorry, I should have clarified "heavier". The hotter it was the closer to the advertised grains they became 178/ 320

 

[amcmullen]

I am interested now to see how they measure. a difference in size will absolutely affect weight. Either way I still want them the same weight and size.

 

[mooman76]

Mine are not from pure lead. Very soft but not pure.

My first one just happened to weight 320.1 Luck of the draw because I'm not that picky. A couple weighed like 321 and some just under 320.

Anyway starting from top band is .518,.508,.502, .495
They are designed to be tapered so they start easy and straight.

 

[Idaho Ron]

I was trying to get Lee minies to come out good a few years back. They were coming out too big and I noticed after the mould heated up good they would come out slightly bigger. Only the first ones would come out close to the size I was wanting. My educated guess was the mould was heating up and expanding slightly making them a few thousandths larger.

Ron, I have a Lee REAL mould in 50 and I could measure the bands if that's what you are wanting.

I was curious what SEPAflint's bullets measured out at. I am thinking that as hot as he got them I was betting that he was at or over .517 on that top band.
I added 1000 grains of chilled lead shot to 10 pounds of pure lead. Doing this will add tin and antimony to the lead. It will not be hardened to any degree. The blue bullets should be reduced unless he still gets it way too hot.
My 320 mould throws at 324 grains. Top band comes out at .517

 

[hawkeye2]

The pockmarks could also be caused by contaminants on the sprue plate and top of the mold. These could be oil or lube and they can run there from the plate pivot screw if you lube that. I don't use anything except mold release on my molds (usually Rapine molds) and I also take the sprue plate off Lee molds and lay it on a hard flat stone to clean it up and give a closer fit. It also seems to do a better job of cutting off the sprue after this.

 

[Cowboy]

Background.
Going through several posts I noticed that a lot of you cull the balls that are underweight. Never paying attention to that I decided to weight my swagged production balls and was surprised to see they varied by up to 3 grains(96 balls total). More alarming was that out of the 96 round balls with an top weight of 179.8 grains 55 were under 178 grains, my determined cull point The 15 Maxiballs that I weighed varied by 30 grains and were all across the weight range!!!
Very excited to start casting my own consistent Round Balls and Bullets, I purchased a Lee mold the .490 ball and 320 REAL Combo. I also got a New pot with the bottom pour and purchased lead sheeting from the salvage yard. Did some homework on mold prep and lead prep and got going.
First observation
Lead and mold needs to be hot!..no kiding Einstein!

After things heated up I came to my second observation, pour S L O W...

Third observation.
Aluminum is really soft, even though I though I was careful I still ended up puting a tiny nick in the Bullet mold at the vary end, probably from taping with the wood to release the bullet



Now for the question for you seasoned pourers.
1. I noticed that on the REAL bullets the top (actually the bottom flat part of the bullet) on many bullets have little pot marks, any clue what are causing these? I thought that maybe I got a little beeswax on the sprue cutter plate.
2. After a little bit the poured lead and resulting balls/ bullets have a blueish purple hue. Is this normal or is the lead trying to tell me something.

These are just some of my observations.

1. Yes! Factory balls will vary in weight. I ended up melting down all I had and recasting them.

2. If your balls stick in the mold there are several things that people do. With new Lee Molds, First you can take the end of a popsickle stick and push it over the cavitys of your mold face to remove any little burs left from the machining process. Sometimes these little burs can cause your balls to stick in the mold.

You can also lightly smoke your mold cavity's. I have found that with new molds this will help release the balls. After I have done this the first time, I have found it unnecessary to ever need to do it again. Some will say that they have never smoked their molds.

Like what has already been mentioned, If you use a wooden dowel or stick, tap only on the top of the mold handle bolt to release your balls. NEVER tap on the mold head itself.

As far as the temperature. Some use a lead thermometer and some don't. When I first started I didn't have one. I was advised to keep my temp dial on my melter at between 7 and 8. That method worked OK but when you use up the lead in your pot the lead will get hotter and when you add lead the temp will drop quite a bit until it can come back up to temp again. If you are after consistency in mold fill out, I have found that a thermometer is very nice to have. Like you said, the hotter your lead is, the better the mold fill out will be and you will get heavier balls. I cast at a steady 800 degrees. I have found that to be the best temp. for me. Some even like it hotter! I have never seen pure lead frost as a sign of being to hot! What I have seen was that when you do get it to hot it will produce more dross that you will constantly have to skim to the side when using a top ladle melter. You don't have to worry about that using a bottom pour melter. With a bottom pour melter you can leave the layer of dross on top of the lead. It will insulate the lead from open air which is also responsible for creating dross.

I have only used 99.9 pure lead. The Blue hue in color is a good indicator that you are working with pure lead. Other lead that has other alloys in it you will not see the blue color as much as you see when using pure lead. Idaho Ron also mentioned that a rainbow of colors will be seen when your temp. is to hot. That is for the most part true but one color that I see the most that is an indicator for me is a dominate yellow. I see the yellow then I take a lead temp. and find that I am running hotter than my usual 800 degrees. I then turn down my temp dial. BTW if you plan on casting more at that point and depending how low your lead supply is getting, it is a good time to add more lead to your melter, this will in turn bring your temp down rather rapidly. Just another way to achieve a constant casting temp.

The last thing I will add is that I record every weight that a particular mold is putting out. Been doing this from day one. I have several Lee molds that I used for each ball diameter. As an example I have two .490 molds That I number #1 and #2. The LEE .490 molds state that they are 176gr. molds. Both molds will put out different ball weights. I can see this because all my weights are consistant with each other for that specific mold, and the other mold like wise. That is why I keep a running record on what I am doing. If you are doing your part and are getting consistent ball weights with a specific mold, that tells you are doing everything right and your equipment will only put out what it is capable of putting out.

Some will say that doing this extra work of weighing and recording everything you do is not necessary. I will only say that this is the way I do things and I really enjoy the whole process. There is no unknowns for me when I am casting.

A good resource besides our MLF, is castboolits.com. About any question that you can think of has already been covered there.

The best education of course is experience of doing it alot. Knowledge is great to have but will only go so far. Nothing better than hands on experience!
Respectfully, Cowboy :thumbsup:

 

[Rifleman1776]

Moonman is SPOT ON!!!
The blue is from over heated pure lead. The Pock marks are also from over heated pure lead. I little tin will help. I bet you had a lot of the Blue, green, yellow dross on top. When it got way over heated it probably turned black.
Make sure that the inside of the mould is free of oils or any other contaminate. To be honest I like a Ladle better for large bullets but the REAL is not that big. BTW how much did those REAL's weigh.

Guess I have never tried casting too hot. Never saw that kind of blueing before. My technique of adjusting the heat until I get a little frosting works for me.

 

[amcmullen]

I definitely noticed that the "hot" casts were heavier. The balls were 178 grains in a 176 grn mold. The REALs averaged 318-320 hot. Maybe mold expansion. When I get home I'll measure the difference since I didn't re-melt the last batch of culls.

 

[BrownBear]

...my second observation, pour S L O W...

Third observation.
Aluminum is really soft, even though I though I was careful I still ended up puting a tiny nick in the Bullet mold at the vary end, probably from taping with the wood to release the bullet

Back to front, I hope you're not saying you were knocking on the aluminum mold block with wood or anything else. Best is to rap on the hinge.

As for pouring slow, there's a refinement you can try since you're using a bottom pour with its fine lead stream. Takes a little coordination, but if you'll keep the stream to one side of center through the sprue hole, it will cause the lead to swirl a little in the mold rather than splash. I do that for all my bigger balls, but it's probably worthwhile on 50 cal balls, too.

I've reached the point in my pouring that I almost never weigh balls any more. I'm a hunter and not a range rat, but decent accuracy still matters. I've found that by tossing the first 20 balls I cast, making sure to have a decent puddle on top of the sprue plate with each pour, and inspecting to make sure any dimple that forms isn't too deep, I can get remarkably consistent balls. That dimple is my focus after each pour, and if I suspect it's too deep at all, back into the pot the ball goes.

 

[amcmullen]

Back to front, I hope you're not saying you were knocking on the aluminum mold block with wood or anything else. Best is to rap on the hinge.

...yeah...not too bad but I folded the top of the mold. I was able to form it back with a soft nail but we'll see if it holds.