No one loves me cause I'm wrinkled...

Don’t ever say that. God loves you.

I know what you mean about the unmentioned forum. Especially when browsing on the phone. But they do have good helpful members there like here.

Now I'm fairly new to casting. But I think you would benefit with adding at least 1% tin to get a better fill out.

Obturation said:

Any tips tricks or insults you can hurl my way. . .

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That is the ugliest batch of scrap I have ever. . .

Looks exactly like mine if I don't squint juuust right.

Try running the mold a bit warmer to fix the fill out and wrinkles. You're doing really well for early in the learning curve.

Turn up the heat.

1. Turn up the heat (as mentioned above)
2. Thoroughly clean your moulds to remove all grease and oil.
3. Put the clean mould on the edge of the pot until it gets hot (your first pours should take several seconds to solidify.)

That should take care of the wrinkles.

I get wrinkling when my moulds are not hot enough. I normally soot my moulds with a candle and then start casting. I keep my casting alloy at 700f with a PID controller and my moulds at about 350f. I hope this helps. I find casting bullets very enjoyable. Just about everything I shoot, I cast. Best wishes

Getting those big bullets just right can be tough. I generally make mine out of a soft alloy like 1-40, and I run the mold and the lead pretty hot - around 800 to 850 degrees. I also prefer to use a dipper for them, rather than the bottom pour furnace which I use for most things. The Rowell bottom pour ladles are the best for this sort of work, in my experience. I'll bet, though, that just running everything hotter will solve your troubles. Make sure to post your results!

RS is fine but Sn if you really want. Set your mold on top of the pot when you turn it on (15-20 minutes should work), which by the way will likely work best somewhere between 725 - 750 for an aluminum mold. You can back the heat off after a few casts if the bullets start coming out frosted or you get lead smears on the sprue. If mold and alloy is up to temp and you're still getting wrinkles after 30 minutes from turning on the pot on you may want to smoke the cavities with a match. Some of my molds need it, some don't.

If you decide to come over...

Oil in a mold can cause wrinkles but yours look like the mold is still too cold. Hotter lead or a faster tempo will help warm up the mold.

Some additional tin might help with fill out. The lube grooves look pretty round where there should be straight lines. But I'd turn the heat up first to see if that fixes that issue also.

I cast the Lee 405 HB and had the same looking bullets when I first started casting. Turned the heat up hot and they come out perfect.

Find cheap hot plate to preheat your mold. I find that helps. Something I learned on that other site,I'm a member of it too.

If the OP is looking at accuracy testing, then I’d not be so concerned with wrinkles. However, the 405s with the uneven, part-square part-rounded bases will effect accuracy. Perhaps a lot, perhaps a little depending on velocity and range. They will go bang though….





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A little dawn dish soap will take care of any oil/grease issues in the mold.

You should be oiling the top plate where the pivot bolt is. Along with the alignment pins and cavities where the alignment pins go. I use synthetic 2-stroke motor oil and apply it with a q-tip. I also use the q-tip with a small amout of oil on the bottom of the sprue plate & oil the pivot part of the handles also.

I use a small hotplate to pre-heat the molds. I know when they are ready because the oil starts to smoke.

You can fill your alloy pot full and let it heat up and then stick a bottom corner of the mold into the melt. If the alloy solidifies and hardens to the mold that is telling you that the mold is still too cold. Leave the mold in until you can pull it out without any alloy sticking to it. Then put it back in for another minute or 2. Then take it out, turn it over and stick the edge of the sprue plate in the melt. When you can pull the sprue plate out with nothing hardening/sticking to it you'll be good to go. The mold is hot enough.

You can tell when your mold is hot enough by doing what I posted above. Might even be a little too hot which is a good thing. You can tell by how long it takes the the puddle of alloy on the sprue plate to solidify/harden. Typically when my alloy & mold are both up to temp it takes to the count of +/- 5 for the sprue puddle to harden.

If you get your mold up to temp and the sprues harden fast, that's telling you to bump the heat up on your alloy.

Typically small molds that cast huge bullets like the ones your casts heat up extremely fast when casting and then you have to count to 10/12/15 for the sprue puddle to solidify. When this happens set the mold down for a minute to let it cool.

I used to use thermometers when casting and switched over to a pid in 2017. I use the same pid to control the oven I use to pc my bullets. Best $20 I've spent on casts/coating bullets in a long time.

If you can heat'um up until they start to look frosted and then let the mold cool down a little.

Cast in several sessions to heat cycle the mould and just pour and reject your first 10 pours. This will clean the mould and burn out contamination. For big bullets pulling the pour spout to max open. It's a keep doing it until you get a good result kinda thing.

Almost looks like some contamination, possibly zinc ?

Mirror shiny and wrinkles is a definite indication of not enough heat.

Read this one. then more questions. https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?75455-Testing-hardness-with-pencils

It does work and I have the pencils!

Keep your mold hot and quench them mate, the good part is you do over. Just don’t put wet lead back in the pot....don’t ask how I know this from 10 years ago..

Thewelshm

Obturation said:

Hey all,
Hope everyone's doing well.

Alright, so I began my casting quest. Started accumulating pieces a few years ago and finally got my pot set up and all the needed tools.

I made a few hundred .454 round balls with pure lead scrap a week or so ago and that went pretty well. Today I started in on regular bullets. Neither of my .45 rifle molds are ideal but they're what I bought before I knew better- a 405 grain hollow base .457 mold and a 500 grain gas checked .459 mold, both lee.

The hollow base bullets came out reasonably well, most were remelted but I got about 20 fair ones for testing. The 500 grain mold turned out some wrinkley pretty poor bullets. I used range scrap lead hardened up a little with some type metal (cast printing press letters) I was told would harden up the alloy some which I figured would be desirable for rifle bullets. Didn't put a ton in, maybe 8 oz with about 5# of range scrap bullets that were already melted into ingots for me (thanks @kmw1954 ).

Here's a picture of the few I kept for sizing and checking for chamber fit ect.
View attachment 1005402

These were the best of them, the 500 grain mold seemed challenging to fill and I had the pour spout set to basically as fast as I could pour them. I know, they aren't pretty.

Is this an alloy issue or a technique problem?

Before you recommend going to the forum that says boolit a lot and all that I will mention that I did join over there but find the format difficult to use and search . I much prefer it here. If I need to take this over there I will.

Here's the 405 grain bullets that look decent enough to shoot in my opinion
View attachment 1005403
I know they aren't perfect but to test I think they'll be reasonable.


I will be using hi-tek coating (black) and gas checking the 500 grain bullets (probably) but that a discussion for when I screw that up too.



Any tips tricks or insults you can hurl my way that may help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

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Maybe I’m going blind but I don’t see a problem. They look like bullets.
I do think your casts might go a little better if you get a hot plate to warm your mold before you begin casting and between pot cycles. Also try thinking of your stew in terms of percentages of each metal, not just weights. 2-2-96 is 2% antimony, 2% tin and 96% lead- meaning pure lead. If you start with wheel weights or range recovery lead, you’ll need to figure out those starting percentages - somehow.
Best of luck and enjoy the journey.

Obturation said:

Before you recommend going to the forum that says boolit a lot and all that I will mention that I did join over there but find the format difficult to use and search . I much prefer it here. If I need to take this over there I will.

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That format is very frustrating. And it’s hard to post pics.