Bullet casting help please.

[legs748]

Having had two previous attempts casting bullets I had decided to empty my lee pot, clean it and start again with fresh lead. After producing some well filled but frosty bullets I cooled the mould down a bit and tried again to be frustrated by some blowholes in the base cavities.

Bit frosty but well filled out.



Lovely outer surfaces



Blow holes.

Melter is a lee production pot set around 7, mould is a lee 575-500 500 grain minie bullet.

Any (useful) advice as to where I'm going wrong or what I need to do different would be thankfully received.

[dromia]

Your base plug isn't hot enough.

I prefer to ladle pour these larger bullets using a cast iron pot over a gas ring, i then get the mould and base plug up to temp by sitting it beside the pot.

Ladle pouring gives me better fill than bottom pouring for these large bullets and i get nigh on 100% success rates.

Minies should be cast using soft and as near to pure lead as you can get, if the bullet is frosted then you have antimony in your alloy and it will more than likely be too hard to work as Minie.

Here is the set up for casting Minies.



I managed to churn out this lot of Pritchetts before my hands packed in, not bady for a single cavity and ladle.



Bullet ready to drop from the mould.



A finished Pritchett waiting to rolled into its paper cartridge.



After a wee rest I went back to the pot for another round and put up some mini Minies and round balls, all ready to make smoke with.

[legs748]

Hi Adam, the bullet in pic 1 is the identical batch of very soft lead to the second pic cast within 20 mins of each other, the only thing different is I cooled the mould down slightly as the lee literature suggests the aluminium mould casts frosty when hot. The outside of the bullets with the blow holes are smooth and shiny. Thinking about it I did cool the mould by putting it on a damp cloth directly on the core pin plate which could have taken heat from the pin causing the lack of fill, thoughts?

[dromia]

Soft lead bullets won't frost.

You have antimony in the mix that is what causes the frosting at high temp not aluminium moulds.

Pure lead bullets don't frost, they do need to be cast hot to get the fill.

Frosty bullets aren't a problem, nothing wrong with them and they shoot well so long as they are evenly frosted all over.

However the alloy you have has antimony in it which will inhibit the Minies expanding and working like they should.

The Pritchets in my photos are cast from pipe lead at a very high temperature around 775 degrees and have no frosting which they would at that temperature if there was antimony in the alloy.

BTW burn the lee mould instructions and forget whatever you read.

[Swamphog]

A bit off topic - but what's the difference between a Minie and a Pritchett?

[dromia]

Minies have lube grooves and are designed to be stuffed down the bore bare, just lube. They were the staple of the American Civil War.

Prittchets were the bullet of the British army and designed as the ammunition for the Enfield rifled muskets, it does not have any lube groves so is smooth sided and is designed to be loaded with the lubed, slotted, choked paper part of the cartridge still intact thus being a paper patched bullet.

[Swamphog]

Thanks, Adam!

[legs748]

Think I have sorted my frosty casting problem. Using the same batch of lead from the frosty castings I cooked it up in a cast iron pan over gas and ladle cast lovely shiny frost free bullets quite easily. So with the same lead that leaves two possible causes, either my bottom pour pot is contaminated or something I have been using in the pot is contaminating my batch. My guess is an aliminium stirrer I made up to use during fluxing or the squirt of GT85 I have been using to stop the pot rusting. Both have now been banned and we shall see.

So I have now got bullets, powder, caps, and picked up a parker hale 2 band yesterday. Just need a lube recipe and some cleaning tackle and I'm away!

[dromia]

For lube beeswax to tallow say 6 to 4 proportions but depends on how stiff or soft you want it.

I use C2R and water for cleaning my BP guns, I swipe after every shot so when finished I wipe out with Aquoil patches at the range to get the rough out and the soak with a wet C2R patch before leaving. After a few hours I clean with patches wetted in water and repeat the C2R treatment if required. When clean it gets a liberal application of WD40 left on for a few hours and then removed and the cleaned rifle is then oiled with Youngs 303 and the lock gets oiled with Rangoon oil.

The trick is a good fitting rod and jag, plenty of good fitting patches (I like the Pro Shot BP rods and jags along with their patches) and a copious supply of cotton buds and pipe cleaners.

No boiling water and pouring down barrels or sucking up water through the bolster.

All my BP guns have water pump grease tween the metal and wood to stop water ingress.

[FredB]

When I first got into muzzle loading in the 1970s I read all I could find on the subject. Bill Curtis, in one of his articles, pointed out that the Victorians used a mixture of water and alcohol as a black powder solvent and that we have such a mixture readily available to us. We call it windscreen washer fluid. I have used this ever since with excellent results, finishing off with an oily aerosol such as WD40. I use one called "Pocket Rocket" which is slightly thinner than WD40 and does not leave a sticky residue when it dries. It is also much cheaper.
Each of my rifles has a plug with the same thread as the nipple, fitted with a leather sealing washer. With this in place, I pour some windscreen washer fluid into the barrel and agitate it with a bronze brush on the rod, then with a patch and jag. Tip out the fluid, remove the plug and then clean first with wet patches, then with the pocket rocket soaked patches. Water in the passage from the nipple threads to the barrel is dealt with by a squirt from the aerosol.
Fred