Why do I keep getting shitty bullets? Today is my 3rd time casting and not one single fucking bullet was worth keeping. The grooves weren't defined and instead were rounded on one side of most of them and they were all way too light. I'm casting a 180 gr bullet and have a 5 gr. leeway from 175-180 but these were even lighter than that. What the fuck am I doing wrong. I use the lee 420, I flux often, I dip the mould corner in the pot for at least a minute to warm it up, I smoke the everloving fuck out of it. I don't understand man.
Reloading thread
Alexander Long
Josiah Young
>smoked mold
I wouldn’t waste time doing that. I have never smoked a mold. Post a really good shot of the inside of your molds
Brayden Gray
Oh and also, are you using melted lead wheel weights?
“Way too light” might mean zinc contamination
Brandon Perez
Here is my mould, the damn thing is falling apart too. one of the pins that holds it on the right side is falling out and I have to periodically put it back in.
I'm using wheel weight lead and I was extremely careful about not having zinc WW. I visually inspected each WW and cut each one with wire cutters. This batch of bullets have come out to about 172-175 its frustrating.
Benjamin Morales
pics of the reject bullets?
Nathaniel Phillips
It’s normal for there to be a variance between the weight spec’d on the mold and what you actually drop. Your pins are super important. Your mold might be fucked.
It looks like there are teeny boogers of lead on your mold. It has to be absolutely spotless. Get it super hot then used dry q-tips to wipe off all the little dabs of molten trash. Don’t flux so much since you have a bottom pour pot. Flux once when you start, and once your first round of dross is gone, sprinkle some sawdust on top and let it char over to slow down lead oxidization. Keep your pot full so you have a lot of lead making a lot of pressure to squirt the lead quickly into the mold. If it’s dribbling in, you will never make it. Get your mold so hot that the bullets you cast look frosty, then start slowing down until the frost just goes away and then keep that pace.
Anthony Stewart
All the "rejects" got put back into the pot already. I kept the ones that I thought were decent up until I weighed them. Here is one.
Logan Robinson
What model mold is it?
Lucas Rogers
Bentley Walker
lee-309-180