Casting Round Balls..............

[ETipp]

I will preface this by stating that I've casted many Maxi Balls and unmentionables. I found those to be fairly up front to work with. Just the usual steps in ascertaining things are correct.

Yesterday I received a .311 Lee two cavity mold. Even though I know the proper procedures I still followed the directions. Cleaned the cavities with carburetor cleaner, smoked the cavities, lubed as directed. Same as with my other Lee molds.

Next was the actually casting. Despite the temperature of the lead and mold being sufficient, I kept getting wrinkles in the balls. The rear cavity was worse than the front cavity. I smoked the cavities more but to no avail. So, I stopped the process and investigated. Now since I have never casted RB, I do not know if this was correct, but I noticed the sprue plate holes were not completely centered over the holes in the mold block. There was a small but noticeable ring around the left side of the mold block that the lead had to try to go around when pouring through the sprue plate.

After some study on this I decided what the heck. So I went back, cleaned the mold cavities again but this time I used some OOO steel wool with the carb cleaner. Then I opened the top of the sprue holes just a tad. That's all it needed. Reheated the pot and mold then tried it again. After the first few, the wrinkles are gone and the balls look good. I weighed many balls and they are very close in deviation. On average, there's about a .3 grains spread. They are suppose to weigh 45 grains but these are averaging 44.7 grains.

So this brings me to some questions.

1. Are the holes in the sprue plate suppose to be off center of the holes in the mold block?

2. I have never had to deal with sprues on a RB. Some are a little bigger than others but most are very close. Not a competition shooter, just a hunter. Will this make a difference in accuracy on such small dia RB?

3. I don't like the idea of a sprue to begin with on a RB, so is there an easy way to get rid of them?

 

[jdw276]

3. Tumble em for about 45 min to an hour......

 

[sdilts]

To get rid of the sprues, just roll the balls between two glass plates.

 

[Uncle Miltie]

Lee molds usually work well but sometimes don't.

I suggest you stop cleaning and sooting your mold. Once your lead is up to temperature dip a corner of the mold in the lead for around a minute to pre-heat it then cast.

Pour quickly, and swing the sprue plate after the puddle on top hardens with a gloved hand: don't strike it with anything.

If the balls don't fall from the mold lightly tap the handles at the bolt where they come together and they will fall out.

Don't worry about the sprue (flat spot) on the ball.

 

[ETipp]

Lee molds usually work well but sometimes don't.

I suggest you stop cleaning and sooting your mold. Once your lead is up to temperature dip a corner of the mold in the lead for around a minute to pre-heat it then cast.

Pour quickly, and swing the sprue plate after the puddle on top hardens with a gloved hand: don't strike it with anything.

If the balls don't fall from the mold lightly tap the handles at the bolt where they come together and they will fall out.

Don't worry about the sprue (flat spot) on the ball.

Thanks, UM.

The cleaning of the cavities is before beginning with a new mold. Smoking the cavities is for new and/or break in, according to the directions. Its supposed to help until the mold is broken in.

Indeed, as with all my molds, I always preheat them by laying them on top of the furnace.

I use a glove only to swing the mold plate.

When the balls stick, I only gently tap on the main bolt, as directed. It works good.

Now, in terms of pouring quickly. It was my thinking that due to the holes being off center, the hot lead took longer to fill the cavities as it worked its way around the offset. It no doubt did not flow into the cavities smoothly. Its to my thinking that's why I was getting wrinkles. But I may be wrong.

Now that I got that cleared up, whatever the reason was for the wrinkles in the RB, my focus is on the sprues. So as long as they are facing upwards when seating, can slightly different size sprues create an accuracy issue on such a small diameter RB?

This is scrap range lead I'm using.

Of course I will be testing these to see. However, if I can save some powder, caps, patches, frustration and time before hand, I'd like to address it now.

 

[ETipp]

3. Tumble em for about 45 min to an hour......

I no longer have a tumbler.

 

[pacanis]

I've seen the suggestions for removing the sprue before, but can anyone explain how it "removes" the sprue and doesn't merely redistribute the lead elsewhere?

 

[ronaldrothb49]

I have several Lee molds and have never had the problem you described. Being primarily a competition shooter I don't like multi cavity molds or commercially made balls because they are made with multi cavity molds. too much variation with multi cavity molds and the more cavities the more variation you have. I don't want to be weighing and measuring the balls so everything I shoot are made in single cavity molds. that way I just visually inspect the balls if they are wrinkled or have a hole in the sprue they go back in the pot. Never had a problem with the sprue especially on lee molds which leave very little compared to some other molds I have and I have shot more thousands of balls than I would even estimate. If you are primarily a hunter I wouldn't worry about the variation in the balls, yes it can affect the accuracy some but it isn't like match shooting where you want your groups as tight as possible because you could be looking at a string measure to decide the winner.

 

[Rifleman1776]

You pretty much answered your own question. Ideally the sprue holes should be exactly over the mold holes, but if not it ain't fatal. A few times I had to enlarge the sprue plate holes. Since you seem to have done a lot of casting for no-no guns, I'm wondering if you were using pure soft lead or hardened. Either was, keep your temps up.

 

[ETipp]

You pretty much answered your own question. Ideally the sprue holes should be exactly over the mold holes, but if not it ain't fatal. A few times I had to enlarge the sprue plate holes. Since you seem to have done a lot of casting for no-no guns, I'm wondering if you were using pure soft lead or hardened. Either was, keep your temps up.

I would think that with a larger bore ball/bullet, it wouldn't matter near as much if the sprue hole was not centered as long as the lead is not being restricted when being poured into the mold block. IMO, what I experienced was a restriction on one side, causing a slower and uneven rate of the lead getting down into the cavities. Its to my belief that is why I was experiencing wrinkles.

Whatever the case, it is over now and its producing nice RB. I haven't checked for out of roundness as of yet.

Most of the lead I have used in the past was hardened. I do not have a BH tester so I'm hoping range lead is soft enough. I discarded any cast bullets I found due to not knowing if they were hard cast or not.

 

[ETipp]

I have several Lee molds and have never had the problem you described. Being primarily a competition shooter I don't like multi cavity molds or commercially made balls because they are made with multi cavity molds. too much variation with multi cavity molds and the more cavities the more variation you have. I don't want to be weighing and measuring the balls so everything I shoot are made in single cavity molds. that way I just visually inspect the balls if they are wrinkled or have a hole in the sprue they go back in the pot. Never had a problem with the sprue especially on lee molds which leave very little compared to some other molds I have and I have shot more thousands of balls than I would even estimate. If you are primarily a hunter I wouldn't worry about the variation in the balls, yes it can affect the accuracy some but it isn't like match shooting where you want your groups as tight as possible because you could be looking at a string measure to decide the winner.

I've never had an issue with any of my other Lee molds either. I'm finding there's little room for error on a .311 RB mold.

I use my .32 Crockett rifle to squirrel hunt with. Not like competition or a money shoot, but a squirrels head is a tiny target way up in the tops of trees. It is important to me that my loads are accurate.

I don't like missing especially after waiting and watching for up to 45 minutes on one critter to get the shot.

But that's just me.

 

[centershot]

Looking at your photo it seems like that's a lot of sprue for a Lee mould. Any Lee RB mould I've ever used cut the sprue off flat, almost a perfect tangential cut. Along with the off-center sprue plate I'd contact Lee and request a return and replacement for this mould. Also, my experience has been that Lee's like to be run hot, 750-800* F, using pure lead. Your range scrap is a different animal, consider selling it or trading it to someone for pure lead. Pure lead is an all around better choice for ML's!

 

[ETipp]

Looking at your photo it seems like that's a lot of sprue for a Lee mould. Any Lee RB mould I've ever used cut the sprue off flat, almost a perfect tangential cut. Along with the off-center sprue plate I'd contact Lee and request a return and replacement for this mould. Also, my experience has been that Lee's like to be run hot, 750-800* F, using pure lead. Your range scrap is a different animal, consider selling it or trading it to someone for pure lead. Pure lead is an all around better choice for ML's!

Have you ever poured any .311 RB with a Lee Mold?

Not all of the RB have the same size sprue. Some are shorter, some taller. I do not know for sure why that is. All I know for sure at this time is I have weighed out a few that are identical in weight. The rest are very close in weight. I plan on testing those RB tomorrow. Hopefully the range lead will work out okay. If not, then I doubt I will order any pure lead as it will most likely be too spendy after shipping. About the only time I shoot, other than testing, is when hunting.

 

[Nazgul58]

I have found Lee molds to work well. You have cleaned it well and heated it so it should work. Sometimes I noticed you have to use the mold awhile before it gets easy to drop good bullets. Like it needs to cycle hot/cold a few times then it behaves.

For round balls hotter is better in my opinion.

Don

 

[ETipp]

I have found Lee molds to work well. You have cleaned it well and heated it so it should work. Sometimes I noticed you have to use the mold awhile before it gets easy to drop good bullets. Like it needs to cycle hot/cold a few times then it behaves.

For round balls hotter is better in my opinion.

Don

Indeed. The last batch turned out well once I got the sprue issue rectified. I run it hot.

 

[IanH]

Carb and choke cleaner has lubricating oil in it, not the best for cleaning moulds. That said, the oil will be burned out quickly and if you're still having wrinkles it's because the mould is too cold and the lead is freezing in mid-splash as it fills, leaving voids on the sides. Lining up the holes better only served to band-aid the issue because it allows the mould to fill faster. .32s are tiny and you have to cast very fast and furious with a corner-dip preheat to keep the blocks hot enough to yield good balls.

Those sprues are a bit high, higher than my Lee .311, and will not tumble away so don't do that with these particular ones. It's no problem if you just load them sprue up and fuggitaboutit.

A hot mould is a happy mould and you get a hot mould by casting fast and pouring a generous sprue puddle. Skip the soot in the cavities, all it does is plug up vent lines and make undersized balls, so clean all that stuff off and use the faintest dab of synthetic two-stroke engine oil on a Q-tip to keep the underside of the sprue plate and pivot screw lubricated, reapply every 10-20 pours. Also, if you cut the sprues with a gloved thumb, pressing down as well as away to keep the plate from riding up over the bumps as it cuts, you will have the shortest possible sprue.

 

[The Crisco Kid]

Since you seem to have the problem solved try a test. Load the balls very carefully getting that tangential sprue centered straight up and fire a few shots from a rest. Then load a few shots not paying a bit of attention to where the sprue is. The results might surprise you.
Also, Lee molds seem to like to run hot and fast. I keep a wet folded up paper towel on my casting bench to cool the sprue if it starts pulling lead. A China marker rubbed on the top and bottom of the sprue plate and smeared around with a bit of paper towel on the end of a match helps keep lead from sticking on the sprue. Especially on the bottom which leads to the gouge on the top of the mold blocks. I never could see whacking a good bullet mold with a stick to cut the sprue so I use a gloved hand like has been mentioned.

 

[Jim K]

My Lee molds cut the sprue so short, I don’t even look where they are when I load. .311&.350. Now I try to when loading my ball block for hunting but at the range I just push em down and don’t even know where they are. They shoot fine. I have seen roundballs with pretty tall sprues. That’s a different story. My .02

 

[#blackpowderbill]

I open the sprew holes up & cast RB the same way as I cast suppository projectiles

 

[longcruise]

Since a Lee sprue (flat spot) is apparently the same size on a 311 as on a 611 it's relative size on the 311 seems disconcerting. Probably a non issue.

I get those same differences in the "sprue" sticking up differently from ball to ball with 535 and 575 balls. I think it happens because the ball turns ever so slightly in the mold when the sprue cutter is struck. I see the same thing with a Lyman 50 cal mold except the Lyman leaves a pretty good knob to boot.

There are those who would be horrified by your .3 grain differential but that's probably not enough to make a gnats a$$ difference.

I've put my Lee balls in a vibrating case cleaner without media and only covering the bottom and no stacking. Those come out showing no sign of the sprue. Makes loading easier cause you don't bother lining the sprue up.