Bullet Casting Woes

[Patrick Chadwick]

Patrick if you are still reading this mess, I noticed your heavy duty sprue plate. What's it's main purpose? A couple or three possibilities spring to mind.

It's a custom mould made by a friend. He just happens to have a stock of rather thick plate. It looks a bit rustic, but performs well. And I can tap the plate hard with a brass bar to cut the sprue without bending the plate!

---------- Post added at 07:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:23 PM ----------

Also, beginning to wonder if keeping the pot at 750°F is a little cool for good fill with softer bullets

I keep the thermostat pretty much at maximum, backing off a little as the level of the melt goes down. And I rest the mould on the top of the pot from time to time to warm up over the melt. With pure lead bullets I have never yet managed to cast any that were too hot in the mould, giving them the "frosted" look, but plenty that had poor filling from being too cold.

[jmoore]

Photos of .43 Spanish bullets that were just a little light, at most 2gr shy of the "good" bullets which are 370gr.

The small cavity is about 0.080" wide and deep. And it's the lighter bullet, so it likely has more voids concealed.

Oh, and here's today's new lead supply. (thumbnail on the left) About 25-30lbs of "once fired" bullets:

[Patrick Chadwick]

Interesting that the void in both cases in is the same groove. That looks as if it could be a spot of baked-on contamination in the mould. Take a close look, maybe go over it with a brass/bronze bore brush.

[villiers]

Looks like that mucky load of old bullets would cause a thick layer of scum to form and impurities would almost certainly be responsible for the cavities. On another subject, I´ve found a cheap, simple gadget to get the bullets out of the grease so that the grooves remain filled. It´s more or less just an old case with the primer hole drilled out and a spring loaded plunger to eject the bullet once it´s been stamped out of the layer of grease.

[jmoore]

Looks like that mucky load of old bullets would cause a thick layer of scum to form and impurities would almost certainly be responsible for the cavities.

Actually, after a brief run wet in the vibratory case cleaning machine and a good hosing off they cast melt and cast quite nicely. Did a run of "155gc" .357 mag bullets using that very same bucket load Saturday. about 90% of the bullets were in a max spread of 1.2 grains. Good fill out but had some oversize and overweight for the nominal diameter. As cast they were about 0.362" at 164.4gr average with 388 initial "keepers".

The .43 Spanish bullets were a mix of "pure" lead with some linotype added.

[villiers]

Good idea to clean the old lead in a tumbler before melting.
For some (as yet) unknown reason, my Werder´s reverted to inaccuracy again. A very similar Werder cav. carbine has just gone on the German eGun site for over 4000€ (although mine´s a LOT nicer)! So it´s now playing with its demise. Although I suspect it´s because I still haven´t got to the bottom of the re-loading process yet. The problem seems to be that most BP cases need a filler of some kind, whereas the 11.5 x 35R cases are too small to take the regulation 2.5 grammes of BP. And even with compressed powder, there´s no space left for the grease and paper wads. Don´t think it can be the barrel, as it´s got a mirror bore with strong rifling. And the barrel is firmly attached to the forestock fore and aft. So I´ll try again with a greatly reduced load (this was the most accurate setup).

[jmoore]

Appropriately, being this is a "Woes" thread, the tumbler self destructed during that run. the fan motor rubbed through the wiring, which was slowing the thing down anyway. Sounded downright pitiful when I came outside to do the final rinse. Could have been shocking as well! When doing a diagonostic run empty, it shook enough to snatch one wire connector away, thus shutting it down. Rather surprising, but it was dry at the time, etc.

Maybe the Werder is just a 100m carbine. That's what it seems to be "saying".

[villiers]

Yes, I agree. It´s trying to stop me on my way to the auction site (and it knows what happened to the Mauser `71). I´ll experiment a while with the ammunition `cos I do want to find out why it´s ok sometimes ... and then not.

[jmoore]

Remember that bucket of mud caked "used" bullets way back in Post #32? Here's what became of some of that mess:
Attachment 43526

388 nominal 0.357" GC bullets. Of which about 360 were kept and well over 300 fell within ±0.6 grains! (Some bullets in the weight tolerance were later culled for visual imperfections so I'm no longer sure of the exact numbers without returning to the loading area.)

Shot some of the lighter of that lot today out of a couple of .357 Mag revolvers with a stout charge of 2400. Generally good (but not spectacular) results at 25yds (targets all shot two handed standing at both distances). 50 yards was not as satisfying, but there was no leading in fifty rounds, so the test is considered a preliminary success.

The viabratory tumbler has also been re-rebuilt, this time with caulking sealing the two piece bowl and the wiring repaired, sealed, and moved away from the cooling fan in the base. Have yet to do more than a bench test before final reassembly, but "no smoke".

[villiers]

That target shows better than reasonable results! Were you expecting better?