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!