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Wanting to get into casting ball

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Elkeater

45 Cal.
Joined
Nov 22, 2011
Messages
745
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Location
Palmer Divide, Colorado
I have soft lead and coleman stove. Would I be good with a Callahan bag mold and ladle? Maybe scrounge up a small pot?
Not looking for large production.
 
I started on a Coleman stove and did it for many years. I never heard of the bag mould you speak of. Don't get a aluminum pot. I prefer a cast iron pot but steel works too, Can find cheap at a thrift store or yard sale. You don't need a bunch of expensive equipment to get started.
 
CO Elkeater said:
I have soft lead and coleman stove. Would I be good with a Callahan bag mold and ladle? Maybe scrounge up a small pot?
Not looking for large production.

Depending upon the ball diameter you need there's some really good sources of molds. Look around and check 'em out.
 
CO Elkeater said:
I have soft lead and coleman stove. Would I be good with a Callahan bag mold and ladle? Maybe scrounge up a small pot?
Not looking for large production.

Larry Callahan makes a great mold. You will have wrap the handles to deal with heat transferred from the mold. A good ladle is necessary for making good ball. You might want to start with a Lee mold if you are casting a common size.

Get some heavy leather gloves, a wood hammer handle to occasionally tap the mold hinge to encourage the ball to drop out and an ingot mold to pour catch drippings as you pour.
 
Like Mooman76 says, do NOT use an aluminum pot to melt the lead in.

Although aluminum doesn't melt until it reaches about 1200°F, after it reaches the melting temperature of lead (600°-750°F) it has lost almost all of its strength.

More than a few people have seen the bottom of their aluminum pots or pans fail, dumping molten lead all over the place. :cursing:
 
I use a Few Callahan molds and a small iron ladel and can run three to seven ball at a time. You can run a hundred ball but it’s time consuming. It’s fun but sometimes we want to cast fast. So I have lee molds that I can run the same amount in 1/4 of the time.
 
I've used Lee molds for over 4 decades. The wooden handles allow endless casting without getting too hot to handle. The sprueplate cuts off leaving roundball that doesn't need further tampering with, once dropped out of the mold.
 
Only been casting a couple of years but that's what I use. Never tried a propane stove, a tank of naphtha outlasts me at the casting session. Bought one of those small dutch ovens at an outdoor store for a pot. Since I cast maybe 100 at a time and keep throwing my rejects back in, it's perfectly adequate for me.
 
I'm not sure what a bag mold is either although I have heard the term a hundred times in the past.
If your mold is aluminum it will heat up rapidly but it will also cool down just as rapidly. With this type of mold you must cast fairly rapidly so that the mold stays the same size for ball after ball. The aluminum expands as it heats up and shrinks a bit as it could down.

If you are using a steel mold it will be slow to heat up and expand to its full size, but it also will be a lot slower to cool down so once it;s hot you can cast at a less rapid pace.


If you weigh out your cast balls it is important to ensure that the screw holding the cut-off plates is not loosening as you cast as that will leave an increasingly greater sprue which will throw your weighing out off.

Some years ago a respected ML rifleman suggested that you pour lead to over flowing before cutting off. He claimed this eliminated air bubbles forming inside the ball itself.

If the mold you are using is a double mold it is considered wise to cast from only one of the two holes as there is a good chance that the two mold openings will cast slightly different balls.


If the phone rings while you are casting, place the mold in the lead if possible, it will float like a wood chip. This will prevent the mould from assuming room temperature while you answer the phone.

Dutch Schoultz
 
Dutch Schoultz said:
I'm not sure what a bag mold is either although I have heard the terma hindred timesin the past.
...
Dutch Schoultz

A bag mold is a relatively small mold intended to be carried in your travelling bag to cast a few ball from recovered lead while on a long hunt. These will be formed without insulating handles to save on space and you will have cast enough ball to use on the next days hunt before the handles get too hot.
 
I am a fan of the newer Lee molds, they are cheap and do a very consistent job of casting.

I use a Coleman gas stove hooked up to a 20# cylinder, a flea market cast iron pot($2) and lead recovered from a B/P shooting range. I also recommend the Lyman bottom pour lead casting ladle, it does a precise, clean job of filling your mold.

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Your setup looks like what I often use, Eric. I also have a Lyman electric pot and use it if I have cleaned the lead. I often use my stove and a steel pan to cast if I'm using recovered lead. I put the lead in the pan, skim the dross and start casting directly from the pan. I've also used a table spoon too for a ladle before I got a casting ladle. That worked okay, but not as well as the ladle. It probably wouldn't work well for larger balls or bullets.
 
I have used a set up like that quite a bit over the years. Currently I use a Lee bottom pour pot with the 'pour' feature sealed. Leaks, poor design. :td: Personally, I wouldn't go for the bag mould unless you are doing demonstrations at ronny events. The standard Lee moulds will work just fine and at reasonable cost.
 
Thank you. Now I dimly remember. These were usually made of brass and frequently were set up to cast two balls at a time

I had been warned that because of American tolerances even way back when, the two balls might not be exactly the same size..


On the Danial Boone segment of The Men Who Built America on the Jistory channel they showed the actor portraying Boone casting balls during the Batlle of Boonesboro. There was of course pictures of people getting ready by rattling a ram rod in a barrel. They never seem to show anyone seating a ball in the breech.

Otherwise a reasonably good program.



Dutch Schoultz
 
I saw the Daniel Boone segment and found it odd when the guy casting ball dipped the mold in water. ( DON'T do that!) At one point one of the frontiers men had a Sharps. I and the wife found the show best suited as entertainment but not instructional.
 
Here is another tip; If you buy eggs in the cardboard containers they make a mighty good holder to drop you hot balls right out of the mold into. No rolling around and you can easily tell how many your have cast.

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