Casting your own

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arcticap

Did you use calipers to measure the various outer diameters and consistency of the water cooled balls? Just curious if water had any effect...

No I just weighed them on a Lyman 500 scale. I will size them tomorow and let you know. :scrutiny: :scrutiny: :scrutiny:
Duncan
 
Hello everybody,
i had discovered this forum while searching about "paper cartridge", found valuable informations and a good place.

Duncan.
Watercooling isn't usefull, i second the use of old towel to catch the bullet.

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Upper right corner, my first lead round balls. Other are aloyed 45-200 and 459-325

You may use pure lead or certified foundry alloy (i do), there is always some dross to skim.

When you will cast alloyed lead it may come usefull as antimony or arsenic in the alloy permit heat treating cast bullet. Watercooled cast bullets will see there hardness jumping from 9~12 to 25~32 (roughly estimated).
 
Duncan, Chilled or not, the ball will have any voids in it whether allowed to cool naturally or dropped into water.

If there IS an air pocket, it will be there regardless. There are so called experts who have cast and cut apart balls and found voids. They are convinced you will not get rid of them unless you allow the full weight of the lead to force it into the mould. In fact, if you allow the pot to get too low, you will get less filling, more voids. That is one argument against using a ladle, no column of weight to "push" the lead into the mould.

The other argument is for those who insist on "pure lead". Air cooled pure lead will be softer than what you could call "chilled shot".

Overall, how long did it take you to make 67 balls?

Cheers,

George

I meant to say what the guy above me did but the site was down for me. I didn't know what the hardness increase was either, just was sure it would be harder. Only just a minute ago was able to submit my reply from last night.
 
Welcome to the fray Pascal, hope you enjoy the forum. Where in France are you? PM me if you don't want it posted up here.

George:

Chilled or not, the ball will have any voids in it whether allowed to cool naturally or dropped into water.

Just what I thought. It took about an hour to cast the 67 plus about 20 or so rejects. That was from starting with a cold pot to saying Bu**er this for a game of lead soldiers and coming in for a long, cool drink!
I am now going to shoot them, probably this Sunday, before doing any more. I still have to size them though and will post later about this.

Duncan
 
Duncan,

What do you mean "have to size them"?

Mike them, OK, you don't "size" round ball. You want the ball to be a swage fit in the chambers.

Cheers,

George
 
George

What do you mean "have to size them"?
Ahaa! Clever types us Englishmen.
I checked them with my digital calipers against the Speer and Hornady balls I have but I also checked them for 'roundness' by passing them through a round guage to see if there was any distortion on them - just to confirm that quenching had no effect on the outer shape.
So far this shows that:
1. They are all of a good weight tolerence.
2: They are all round.
3: They are all the same size.
4: They are VERY cheap!

Will have to see how they shoot. That will be the last report.
Duncan
 
ive water quenched .575 minies from my lee mould, they do distort. alternatly ive water quenched .454 round nose from a lee mould and they dont distort, i personally think its a function of the thin minie skirt and the larger internal mass of the 525 grain minie.
 
The Final Proof!

Well, as promised here is my final shoot on Sunday using the balls I cast.
Shot dualist at 25 mtrs ( 27 yards ) with a lot of sun and very little following wind.
All I need to do now is make a bigger handgrip so I can control the gun better.
Duncan
 

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Water quenching isn't going to result in any voids that aren't already there. There's either enough lead to fill the mold or there isn't. Rapidity of cooling won't change that. Any void is going to show up when you weigh or inspect anyway.
Casting hot, as is necessary with non-alloyed lead for BP use,coupled with slow cooling can result in bullets that sag out of round while cooling. I experienced this quite a bit with .452 bullets that became ovoid,even when they were sitting on a soft surface.
Regarding the danger of lead and water: obviously the water should be well below the table level that you're casting on. Water above the lead source is the problem,not water below the lead source. You have more to worry about from sweat or ceiling leaks when casting.
 
Yes but life is a dangerous place no matter what you are doing. I was a Health and Safety Manager before I came to live here in France.
Evaluate the Hazard(s)
Remove if you can.
If you can't then reduce to the minimum
Protect against the residual hazard.

And that gentlemen is the way it is done here!! :cool:

Thanks for all your input.
Duncan
 
I just started casting...I use Lee molds. Like George said, they work fine and cost less than the competition. I also bought a Production pot 4 and it speeds things up (at least I imagine it does since I never used a ladle before!) Dropping your balls into water to cool them is definitely a bad idea Duncan, besides the fact that it could create an explosion it doesn't make any sense. Just fold an old towel on your work surface and drop the balls on the towel. They will cool down in about five or ten minutes. If you want to inspect them for wrinkles just use a spoon to move them around, it works fine. I've also heard that you should pure your metal slightly off center and not too close to the mold, this will cause a swirling action and will reduce voids and imperfections (Got that tidbit of wisdom directly from the instructions that came with Mr.Lee's mold...Or did I get that from his book on modern reloading? Sheesh! I must be getting old!

It would be an art form if you took the time to engrave each any every bullet or ball with some beautiful little hunting scene, but beyond that it just takes a little practice! :D
 
PROGRESSING!

Thought I would raise this one again because I have just been to collect some FREE lead.
LEAD-WEB.jpg

Some of it has copper joined into it and some is painted or covered with Duck tape. It seems to me that the best way to use this is firstly to clean as much crap off as I can. Then to get rid of the non-lead bits. With the remaining lead I think it would be a good idea to melt and clean it and then make small ingots for use later when casting. This would mean much cleaner lead in the melting pot and less time removing dross when casting.
What does anyone think?
Duncan
 
Cast Boolit Forum/ Cast Bullet Association

I looked through the posts and didn't see anyone even mention http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ forum. It is THE place for everything cast bullets. TONS of info to be had over there. Or you can also become a member of the Cast Bullet Association. I just got into cap and ball pistols but got the Lee double cavity .454 mould. Also like already stated water is a concern around any melting pot but try kitty litter on top of the melt sometime. If there is a bead of sweat that drops in the pot it will evaporate before it reaches the melt. It is added saftey, your melt doesnt skim over, while you flux the dirty stuff sticks to the bottom of the kitty litter. Your sprues, just drop them right back into the melt as usual. Casting your own whether it be for round ball or a 285 Grainer Ranch Dog TLC432-285-RF for your Rossi 92 chambered in 44Mag it can be quite addictive.....Steve.

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Duncan, congrats on scoring all that lead pipe! I wouldn't bother cleaning it or even taking the tape off. I have an old cast iron skillet I use only for making bulk lead into ingots. I use it on my forge but a propane fish fryer or something like that would work as well, just as long as you are outside. The old dirty pipe just melts out of all that nastiness and leaves it floating on top, as will the copper fittings and the scum from the burned tape. I use an aluminum spoon with holes in it to skim all that stuff off and keep adding to the skillet until it's nearly full. Then I just use a dipper to fill my ingot molds. I have a cast iron one which leaves LYMAN on each ingot but an aluminum muffin tin would also work. You make a lot of nasty smoke burning old putty, tape and goodness only knows what else off of your lead but it works really, really fast.

Steve
 
I looked over the picture of your pipe pretty closely and didn't see any joints. Thats good. If you do happen to have any solder joints cut them off the pipe. The tin in the solder joints will alloy with that nice pure lead there and won't be quite as nice. Nice shots on the B-17. Did you shoot in Bordeaux this past summer?
 
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