July 4th, First casting session

[Cowboy]

Good weather finally came to central Illinois. Clear skies and in the mid 70's. I learned alot even though my first attempt was far from successful. I had a lull rate of about 75%. The balls that I kept showed me alot of what I am doing wrong. 1. They all have wrinkles 2. I weighted 25 of them and found them to be to light. The average weight was 171 to 172 grains. Way to light! 3. The ladle I was using was one of those cheap ladles from Lee and wouldn't hold enough lead to fill my double cavity mold, and I found myself double dipping to fill both cavities. That double dipping threw my rythem. 4. My mold was not hot enough and the sprue solidified almost immediately when poured and Im sure that accounts for the wrinkles in the balls and also having them under weight. I've heard that the hotter the mold and lead you will get the extra weight in the balls back to the idea range of 177 grains. If the lead and mold is to hot you will get heavier frosted balls. 5. I had trouble pouring thr lead into the mold without making a big mess. I need to learn a controlled pour technique in filling my mold. Right now I'm all thumbs. After the session I found a hotplate in the back bedroom. Im going to set the mold and ladel on that to keep it at a constant hot tempature when I'm doing something else. My question is can you fill a double cavity mould with two dips? or do I need to think about using something else as a ladle that will hold enough lead to fill both cavities. Im still trying to find that consistant rythem. Any thoughts, comments. or advice would be appreciated. I'm casting again tomorrow. Respectfully, cowboys1062

 

[jamesthomas]

I use that Lee dipper, and yes it takes two dips to fill a double mold, sounds like your mold was not up to temp, did you stick a corner of it in the lead till it would not stick? Also it helps to keep the dipper the same way, stick it the lead also till no lead stays on it.

 

[Kansas Jake]

I agree with armakiller in that I used two dips to cast and fill a double cavity mold the last time I cast. I was casting 228 grain bullets for a C&B revolver. I was using a small steel gravy ladle instead of my casting ladle because I couldn't find it. I had lots of wrinkled bullets for the first 25 or so, then things smoothed out. I was using a Lee double cavity mold. It is important to start pouring and pour into the mold as a continuous stream until there is a good puddle on top of the sprue plate. Also, I cast over my pot so that any overpour simply dropped back into the pot. I wear safety glasses and used a pair of welding gloves when I was casting. That way I could hang onto the spoon without worrying about getting a burn. I've just used good leather lined winter gloves too in the past if you don't have welding gloves.

 

[mooman76]

I use the Lee ladle and have no problems filling double cavity moulds on one trip. How big are you guys casting? I even have a 510gr bullet mould that gets filled on one trip. One thing I did was to bend the Lee ladle slightly so it is level when filling. Maybe that would help. One trip is necessary because it throws your rhythm off and you can't fill quick enough to get and keep the mould up to temp. Other than that practice and you will get it. After awhile it will come so easy you won't know why you had so much trouble to begin with.

 

[jamesthomas]

I take two trips to fill a double cavity .490 Mold, One trip for my .395 double mold. I have no problem whatsoever keeping my mold up to temp. I can usually get 100 .490 round balls to within 1 to 1.5 grains at one sitting. you just have to make sure your lead is the right temp. and you start off with a hot mold and ladle.

 

[mooman76]

I fill a double .575 no problem, one trip. I actually filled my dipper and let it cool. it holds 1144 gr so you should e able to fill both cavities no problem with plenty for the sprue puddle.

 

[necchi]

Float the mold in the molten lead.
Yup, just close the mold and set it in the molten lead. It's hot enough when the lead that sticks to the outside of the mold drops off easy with a push from your stick.

 

[Skychief]

Have any of you mic'd balls thrown from your double cavity moulds? I wonder how many thousandths they vary between cavities, if they do vary.

Thanks, Skychief!

 

[mzloder]

I use an RCBS ladle and while it is plenty big enough to fill both cavities of a 2-cavity mold I only pour one cavity and then refill the ladle for the other cavity. I cast for a number of calibers, both rifles, pistols and shotguns (roundballs in the scattergun)and find that by using a full ladle it keeps even pressure on the cavities, cast to cast. Casting this way has reduced my cull rate. Also, I use a P.I.D. temperature controller to keep my pot at a consistent temperature (+/- 5 deg. Fahrenheit). More than anything else, the P.I.D. REALLY reduced my cull rate!! Happy casting!!

 

[necchi]

Have any of you mic'd balls thrown from your double cavity moulds?

Nope, but I weigh'm,, when they come out to the same weight I guess I just figured they'd be the same.(?)

 

[Rifleman1776]

Have any of you mic'd balls thrown from your double cavity moulds?

Nope, but I weigh'm,, when they come out to the same weight I guess I just figured they'd be the same.(?)

They CAN vary. Not enough for most people but your OCD bench shooters and such will only use single cavity moulds. Personally, I prefer single cavity because I can work faster and keep the mould at consistent temps. I doubt there is much difference in production between a single cavity and double in a given period of time. Fuggit those four and six cavity monsters. :td: They are useful only with professional size bottom pour pots for high volume production. And, so heavy they will sprain yer wrist.

 

[ZUG]

When I was doing a LOT of modern pistol competition shooting I used 6, 8, & 10 cavity Hensley & Gibbs molds -- you talk about heavy - had to rest one end on the far side of a 60 pound capacity pot for support - also used a lot of lead.

 

[jamesthomas]

Have any of you mic'd balls thrown from your double cavity moulds? I wonder how many thousandths they vary between cavities, if they do vary.

Thanks, Skychief!

Well, I just cast up some .490's using my Lee Double mold, here are my results, I weighed and measured 10 balls from the front and 10 balls from the rear mold. The Front mold cast a weight from 175.6 to 176.4 and mic'd within .30 most were around .490.15 to .48.85. The rear mold was between 176.6 to 177.4 and mic'd so close to the front mold it was unreal all within .15 to .20 difference. I would say not to bad for a $20.00 mold! :thumbsup: This was measuring as I rotated the balls in the micrometer to see if there might be a fat spot.

 

[Cowboy]

That does not surprise me at all. The balls you sent me most all weighted 176 lowest to 177 highest. I only hope I can cast like that when I get some time under my belt and more experience. Respectfully, cowboys1062.

 

[Cowboy]

Today was my 2nd attempt at casting roundball. It went much better than my first attempt. I ended up casting about 350 balls. I was able to keep about half of them. The ones that I kept looked pretty good for the most part. The only thing is that they were all under weight but were all consistant weights. About 95% of them were between 175 to 176 grain. My target weight was 177 to 178 grain. My lead was plenty hot enough at around 750 to 800 degrees. No wrinkles what so ever and they solidified at about 4 seconds per cast. I can't think of any thing else that I could do to increase their weight about a grain or two. I am happy with the results though. They were all consistant with each other in weight. I really enjoyed myself today! It was alot of fun and I started getting a good casting rythem going. I plan on casting again tomorrow if the weather holds out. Respectfully, cowboys1062.

 

[longcruise]

What size are they? The end weight May be correct for the size.

 

[Cowboy]

The mold is for a .490 ball. From what I,ve read a .490 should weigh 177 grain. My mold is a Lee double cavity mold. cowboys1062.

 

[longcruise]

took a minute to run some size/weight calcs through a spreadsheet and what I came up with is:


.4895 ball = 175.8244 grains
.4900 ball = 176.3637 grains
.4910 ball = 177.4457 grains
.4915 ball = 177.9883 grains
.4920 ball = 178.5321 grains

You see, if your lee mold is throwing pretty close to .490, your balls are right on target. :thumbsup:

Then there is still the question of what is the actual size as measured? One of my Lee RB molds throws a ball .003 larger than it's listed size. The tiny variations you are getting can be attributable to a number of things such as slight variations in lead temp as you cast or how tight you squeeze the handles. Aniother possible factor is just how exactly matched are the two cavities in your mold? If my Lee .530 can throw .533 balls, whats to say that a double cavity .490 might not throw a half .490 and half .491?

Just food for thought.

What were the weight ranges of the other 5% of the balls?

I know that there is a lot of opinion out there regarding the importance of getting your balls into a perfect weight range. Just my own opinion, but the concern can be taken to extremes! :shocked2: The 95% you kept is pretty much as good as it gets. Someone will jump in to disagree with that statement, and that is all well and good. It's just, once again, my opinion, that it can be taken to the point of being some sort of self torture.

I shoot mostly my own castings and mostly from Lee molds. I can find no difference in my accuracy between my cast balls and Hornady swaged balls. I shoot competition quite a lot and while I'm not a barn burner on the final score sheet, I hold my own pretty well. I have enough experience that I can call my shots without looking through a spotting scope (which I now need to see the holes at anything 50 yards or further :haha: ). So, when I look and see that I've thrown one way out, it is no surprise, I already knew it! I mention that because many shooters attribute their "fliers" to a bad ball when it was actually simply a bad shot.

In the past four years I've had only one shot in competition that stunned me in terms of where I called it and where it hit. Bad shot? Maybe. defective ball? Maybe.

I don't weigh any balls. I start with an absolutely clean and degreased mold, then smoke it. When the lead is up to temp I dip the bottom front edge of the tightly closed mold into the molten lead until the lead won't stick to the mold. Then I run 5 or 10 balls that are automatically thrown back into the pot. After that I check the next two. If they are good, it's Katy bar the door! I just keep on casting till I'm done. The one thing I watch for is for a pinhole to appear in the pool of lead on top of the sprue cutter. That indicates that as the lead cooled in the cavity and it drew molten lead from the pool on top of the sprue it was not able to draw enough lead to completely fill the cavity. When I drop that ball I check the sprue cut. If there is a pinhole it gets thrown back, otherwise it is a keeper.

Not very rigorous QC, but it seems to work.

 

[Cowboy]

The other 5% of the balls were 173 to 174 grains. Like I said before the other 95% were 175 to 176 grain with most of them being around 176 grain. I did make sure to have extra lead on the sprueplate so the balls could suck up the extra lead when they solidified. I don't think I can acheive any better results than what I have. I think that this specific mold puts out 176 grain balls. I don,t think I could do anything different to achieve 177 grains. I am happy with the results and will shoot the 176 grain balls.I,ve come a long way into learning how to cast and what to look for when I,m doing it. With all the questions that I have asked here and the endless Youtube videos I have watched and all the research I have done, it is all finally coming together for me. It all started when I asked on this forum if any one knew of a place that I could purchase cheaper .490 roundballs. So many of you suggested that I should cast my own. A generous member sent me some lead and I was able to purchase the equipment that I needed and then I was on my way. I remember that I didn,t even know what a sprueplate was! I sure am having alot of fun casting my own. I now know that I am able to cast shootable balls for my muzzleloaders. Today I finally got myself into a pretty good rhythm and was putting out some descent looking lead balls. Casting for me is as much fun as shooting them. Almost! Thanks to everyone for all the information, experiences shared, and most of all, the great advice given. Its just another step in my traditional muzzleloading journey. Respectfully,cowboys1062.

 

[mooman76]

I agree with Marmotslayer. Don't get too caught up in it and I think you are on target and doing fine. What are you using for lead? Even a slight alloy in your lead, even soft lead will change your weight and it is hard to get absolutely pure lead. I don't have it, I just have very soft lead. Consistency is the key so if your are consistently throwing 175/6 gr balls, you are good. I really don't weigh mine either. If they look good, I shoot them.