Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Finally casting again!

I finally got my casting station set up last night and did the first casting I've done since about high school days. I was never big into it and hated lubing and sizing bullets so I didn't do it much. Powder coating renewed my interest.

When I moved about 3 years ago I melted down several buckets of wheel weights I had before the move. I did the turkey fryer burner with a Dutch oven on it and used thermometers to try to keep the heat around 600 and tried to scope any zinc ww's out before they melted in. I keep wondering if I melted some by accident so last night after getting set up I stayed up late and tried to cast some 310g 44 mag bullets with a new lee 2 cavity mold.

I feel like I'm learning from the start again. It took a while to get some wrinkle free bullets and when I did most were really frosted. I kept trying to get the alloy temp down but in the end I think it was a mold too hot that frosted them.

I also learned my new lee four 20 pot drips a lot no mater what I do. Then I learned that beeswax sucks for lubing the sprue plate and alignment pins. I also learned than setting a hot mold on an old lacquered wood desk will instantly corrode the bottom of the mold in a big way. I only managed a few hundred bullets in a few hours. The mold started having problems closing all the way and several bullets went right back in the pot.

I went and bought some synthetic 2 cycle oil today for mold lube but I'm worried it's too late for my 44 mold. It's just not working well and galled some on top after using old bees wax. I may try a different mold tonight with the synthetic oil.

I'd like to powder coat some soon so I'm looking for recommendations on what kind of oven, and where to get a few pounds of good powder and what colors work well.

I think my ww lead is going to work OK. I had to Flux it a few times to get more junk out but it seemed to flow well and filled out the mold once clean and hot. I'm not sure how much zinc if any it has in it. I also have several hundred pounds of mono type I bought from an old local print shop. I had it xray gunned and it's 73% lead and the rest is tin and antimony. It's really hard but I'm thinking about mixing maybe 10% in with my ww stuff. If just air cooled for now but wonder about water dropping them.

I'll try to keep my alloy around 600 tonight and not get the mold too hot and see if I can get less frosting on the bullets. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm basically trying to start at the start again.

Bb