Advice needed with ingot mold

[paulsnapp]

Yesterday was my first attempt at bullet casting. I have watched many videos and read a great deal on this forum as well as others. I am glad to say most everything went well. All of my equipment (pot, ingot molds, bullet mold) is RCBS. The alloy I am using is RotoMetals #2 Lyman. I am also using an Auber PID controller to control my pot temperature. The only real problem I have is getting ingots to drop out of the RCBS ingot molds. The first ingots were from a pot temp of 675F and the second ingots were from a pot temp of 725F. Both began with cleaned ingots that had been sitting on a 900watt hot plate with the setting on high. I did not know how long to wait after pouring into the ingots before I tried to drop them. The very first ones did not drop at 10 minutes so I tried every 10 minutes to see if cooling would help. It didn't. I finally had to pry them out with a screwdriver. After that I would let them cool for about 5 minutes and then turned the molds upside down and banged them really hard on the damp towel I had on the table. It took a lot of hard banging to get them to drop out. Maybe this is normal, but if not, I would appreciate some advice.

I also tried to mold a few bullets from my RCBS .44-40 cowboy mold. This went pretty well. I began at 675F but had wrinkled bullets. I walked this temperature up 10F at a time until the wrinkles went away at 725F and bullets are shiny. Just wondering if this is a normal temperature for the RotoMetals Lyman #2 alloy?

 

[Mr. Farknocker]

I've never heard of pre-heating the ingot molds. You just pour them in at room temperature and wait a few minutes before dumping them upside down on a hard clean surface like a cookie sheet. If anything,I would guess that preheated molds increase the amount of time you must wait before dumping the ingots out. I use cupcake baking pans and dump them out a few minutes after the surface of the lead has solidified. I dump them out rather hard by slamming the cupcake pan to the ground. If I let the ingots get too cool, they fuse to the tray and cannot be removed. Perhaps you are letting the molds get to cool before dumping them out.

 

[blarby]

Turn the mould upside down and hit it with a hard wooden dowel.

You could preheat the mould by setting it in your oven, or ontop of your furnace. It wouldn't hurt one bit.

 

[rsrocket1]

Why are you wasting electricity on heating an ingot mold. Afraid of "wrinkled ingots"? :0

You preheat bullet molds to prevent wrinkled bullets, but who cares about perfect fillout or wrinkles on ingots.

Just pour, flip and give it a light tap it on the concrete patio. They ought to gently pop out. If you are not on a hard surface, just give it a light tap on the back with a piece of wood or something else that is firm, but won't dent the mold.

Secondly, if you bought the lead, are you mixing in something else? You can simply put the Rotometals ingots directly into your pot and start casting bullets without making ingots.

 

[highlander 5]

Pour molten lead into cold mold let cool turn mold over and rap the base with a wooden mallet. I've sprayed mine with Midway mold release and it makes life a little easier. To empty my pot of No2 alloy I purchased a couple of cast iron pans that are round and divied up like a pie either 6 or 8 "wedges" I can't remember which but each wedge weighs 2 lbs approx. and will fit back in the pot no problem.

 

[GLOOB]

Check your mold for burrs. Also, try sooting it. As heavy as an ingot is, it shouldn't take any effort to get it to drop out!

 

[rodinal220]

I have never heard myself the pre-heating of an ingot mold. Normally you want them cool so the alloy has time to solidify and can be dumped out. When the ingot mold gets too hot,you have to wait for the alloy to set up before removing the ingot. That is why when you are smelting large quantities of lead you have lots of ingot molds.

Anything in the mold itself that is preventing a clean release?? Some kind of ridge or defect for the alloy to grab hold of??

 

[dragon813gt]

Use a cold mold for ingots. I'm confused as to why you were even making them with a known alloy. Unless you wanted smaller ones for making your own alloy later.

As for the wrinkled bullets. It had more to do w/ the mold being cold then the alloy temp. If you would have casted at a steady pace at 675 the mold would have heated up and the wrinkles would have disappeared. Set a pot temp and cast fast until the mold is up to temp. Don't waste a lot of time looking at the bullets. This allows the mold to cool down. That being said I cast at 700 for all but hollow point molds. It's just a temp I decided on for a few reasons.


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[flipajig]

Also when casting small Boolits you need to cast fairly fast large Boolits you should cast at a slower pace. Use your hot plate to warm your molds not your inget molds.
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