Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Advise needed

I just cast some .462 500gr slugs for a 45-90

The slugs came out at .465ish when I went to size them to .460 I just about broke my Star sizer.

They are close to pure lead and I did not quench them. I air cooled them and tried sizing them the same day.

My question is should I get another sizing die a little bit larger and size them twice or is there a better quicker way.

Any advice will be appreciated

You could try the Lee bullet sizing dies. They use the very powerful leverage of your reloading press, bullet lubrisizers don't have that kind of leverage. The Lee also has the advantage of nose first sizing which IMO leads to straighter sizing, especially going down in diameter so much. Once you get them sized then run them through your Star to apply the lube. You can also spread the unsized bullets out and spray them with a little Hornady one-shot or some such to ease their initial trip through the sizing die.

I use the Lee dies too, but in this case, I think it's more about the lack of taper in the star sizing die, than leverage.

A die that won't size pure lead from .465 to .460 is pretty much worthless in that condition, IMO. It needs to be tapered and polished at the opening, not too hard to do but it does require some time and elbow grease.

I just checked Wideners, Midway and Lee and they do not offer a .460 bullet die.

I may check with the guy that makes my dies for me and see if he can make a tapered die.

Lee will make special order size dies. Contact them directly.

I just measured my .460 dies they came out to .455 and made an .456 and .457 sized bullet.
The maker wants them back to see what he did.

I think my troubles mat be solved.

Thanks for all of the advise.

Glad your problem is going away.

The other thing to consider when sizing down a gross amount is by doing it nose first one may create fins around the base of the bullet that could well detract from accuracy. Were I to re-size by a lot, I would take it down in stages, do it base first, try not to make it lopsided, and hope I didn't squeeze the lube grooves half shut.

As always, the best bullets are those that pop out of the mold as close to ideal size as possible, obviating a need for sizing. As we know, in the real world that's rarely possible without going the custom mold route and then strictly adhering to the one alloy it was designed for (or getting lucky with an off the shelf mold).

Thanks gnoahhh

I ordered my mold to cast .462 pure lead and it casts .465

It is a gas check mold and I could hardly get it to the gas check

Gas check smashed , twisted and crumpled Something was wrong even for a beginner like me.

I'd send the mold back to the maker. I can tollerate 0.001" oversize for a mold I've speced the alloy for, but if it casts 0.003" over IMHO the mold maker goofed.

Ask your die maker to taper the die entrance. Even a .010" reduction in size shouldn't be a problem on a properly tapered and polished die, especially with pure lead.

You need a taper, to reduce sizing effort, which in turn reduces deformation of the bullet nose during the sizing operation.

The first bullets thru a new or cleaned sizing die are hard to push thru. Under those conditions, I rub a little Imperial wax on the first three or four bullets....

Funshooter, you mention your bullets are "close to pure lead". What is your alloy mix?

I ask for three reasons:


1) pretty much all alloys are "close" in composition, but the resultant can have wildly varying properties. A little bit of wheelweight or linotype skews affairs quickly.
2) You didn't quench. Lordy, I hope not. The .45-90 is not the place for hard bullets at all. Your alloy of choice should start around 30:1 Lead/Tin
3) Different alloys will shrink at specific ratios of dimension after cast. Pure lead shrinks the most, heavily alloyed (lino/WW) the least. If you have a bullet mould meant for soft lead and cast with alloy, the bullets will be oversized from the start.

If you haven't visited this site, do so, read and learn:
http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

I'd suspect also the cupped punch and forcing the other bullet out on the Star has a tendency to deform really soft alloys to the point of exacerbating the sizing process, especially when reducing the diameter a bit.

The day I was casting and sizing was a ruff day nothing was going well.
I found out that I had to get the lead up over 850 deg. before the heavy frosting of the bullets would go away. That took a while to figure out.

I did not quench them. I let them slow cool and burned my fingers several times thinking that they were cool enough to sort the good from the bad. (Big heavy slugs take some time to cool off)

I started heating up my lubber and pushed and pushed. Crushed some gas checks in the process.

When I did force some threw. The lube heater got so hot that the lube started burning my fingers. It was like water coming out of the machine.

Still trying to get something done I kept forcing the until I smunched a slug so bad between the heat of the lubber and my pressure against it I do not think that it would go threw a 60 caliber barrel .

At that point every thing stopped.

I need to re adjust my lube heater and I sent the dies back to have the manufacturer look at them and make the proper adjustments.

I do not know the actual alloy that I have but it is very soft for me to smash them like I did.

Time to take a step back and take a breath before the dies come back.

The guy who made the dies said that he uses straight Alox on a few bullets just to get things started right. This is the first time I have tried sizing large heavy bullets. I have a lot to learn.

Breathers are good now and again.

While not in a position to comment on the merits of your size dies I would suggest you make a point of starting to locate some pure lead and tin. Fellow I've dealt with in the past is John Walters of Moore, OK. (405)799-0376 or his email is: tinwadmancox.net He will ship flat rate and has the lowest cost lead I've found from a retail distributor. Also makes the famed Walters Wad for BPCR work. A perfect gentleman.

I do have experience casting Hindenburgs, they size pretty much like little bullets if all else is the same. The problems you're having suggest to me that you have a hard alloy. The highest melt temp required for casting bullets runs about 800* give or take, that for pure lead. Alloys work at lower temps, 700* or so, fudged a bit one way or the other. The frosting you refer to is an indicator of unnecessarily hot melt. It will not hurt anything to shoot frosted bullets...they work fine.

I cast up some 300 grainers at the same time and at 700 to 750 they were shinny. I may try some more 300s today to see how they come out.

I did find out that I had to leave the 500s in the mold longer than usual before I dumped them out of the mold so they could have a little more time to harden up a bit. That may be due to the 850 temp.

I am all ways learning from the school of hard knocks. This is no different.

DigitalDan

Thank you for the contact. I will check him out.

Well I broke down and ordered a Saeco hardness tester today so I can tell how hard this stuff is.

OK
I cast up some 500 gr and 300gr bullets today and my Saeco Hardness tester came in.

I tested the 500 gr with a hardness of 5(aprox. Brinell of 8) and the 300gr with a hardness of 7(aprox. brinell of 11?).

I cast them at the same time out of the same pot and air cooled.

My question is are these to hard to shoot out of a Turnbull 45-90.
and should I mix in some true pure lead to soften them up.

I am unfamiliar with the Saeco scale, but on assumption your read is correct, the Brinell 8 should work. That's roughly equivalent to 40:1 lead/tin alloy which is suitable for that class of cartridge and the pressures it works at with black powder. It is also about the same as CCI .22 RF bullets. BHN 11 is not far off wheel weight hardness which is generally set at 11-12 BHN depending on source.

If you are using smokeless I would steer the choice of alloy hardness based on your anticipated pressure, and expect the BHN 11 alloy to work ok-fine with that.

Absent specific knowledge of what your alloy mix is I would be inclined to take it easy and see how affairs develop. You can add some pure to the harder alloy and make it work most likely or may find that a dash of tin is your best friend. Tin lowers the surface tension of lead and provides both better fill out in mould but increased toughness as well. I don't cast bullets without it save for the pure lead slug gun variety.

Just thinking out loud here- I wonder if maybe the different cooling rates of those two big bullets of vastly different weight would have had an effect on the final hardness? Makes sense to me, but I could be wrong.