Hello all I spent the last couple nights casting some 247gn NOE. I have a 4 bullet mold that does 4 different bullets, two flat nose, and two hollow point with one each with gas check and one each without.
I'm developing a load so I weighed my bullets after having sizing an lubing with a lyman lubersizer and added gas checks. For this load I decided to only use the flat nose with gas check. What I found was four distinct groups of weights, 234-136 grain, 240-241.8 grain, 242-243 grain, and 244-246 grain. I loaded up my 240-241.8 grain the vast majority of which were 241.6-141.8.
Having realized that a .30 cal cleaning patch weighed 10 grains I see it's not a huge discrepancy at leafs for shooting 300 blackout in an AR15 SBR. I do have a bolt gun in the works though.
How far off can my weight be before I should think about remelting the bullet?
Also, when casting the bullets seem to fill out the mold completely but the lube bands are round not sharp like most, they become sharp looking after sized is this normal for the mold? I've been casting at 750deg, with the mold at 350.
After lubing it seems like the lube is everywhere on the bullet, initially just the bands, but also some on the base, and eventually the stickiness with also seem to be all over the shank of the projectile. Having seems one pictures of very clean looking lubed pistol bullets with sharp edges right out of the mold, and the only evidence of lube being in the band I thought maybe I'm doing something wrong.
The bullets take on a dark grey oxidized color after lubing is that normal or should they remain shiny?
How soon after casting should I be able to lube/size? is doing it all in one night too fast?
I've read on here about age hardening should I wait for this or will it happen naturally even after sizing/lubing. Keeping in mind I've already shot some of these with satisfactory plinking results, I am going to be working on making a cast load as accurate as possible for longer ranges than 100 yards.
What should I be looking for as far as bore leading? there hasn't been anything noticeable on the lands and groves, I'm shooting through a stainless barrel at subsonic speeds sized to .308 but I also have a .309 I may try.
My hollow points... this run didn't come out as good as my first runs, there is some extra lead around the tip of the hollow point like there was some extra space where the pin goes in the mold, the material gets pushed out of existence by the top punch but should it be cause for concern and how do I make it go away?
I cleaned the molds in hot soapy boiling water, and used the NOE sprue plate lube, and smoked a couple cavities that were sticking and they fall out fine now. I'm debating cleaning them again to see what happens.
The reason for that is I've had sprues giving me issues they are becoming harder to drop after cutting, especially if the sprue puddle isn't large, I have to hit the handles pretty hard to make them drop and in some cases even use a punch to push them out.
I'll take some pictures next time I encounter the issues I understand they would probably help a bit more. I'm thinking about even getting a bottom pour to see if my ladle use has something to do with it, I get a lot of wrinkles, those get remelted if it's too bad most of it seems to come int he beginning when i'm getting the temps up.
The alloy is 50/50 lead and Lyman #2. When I ran out of #2 I started running 1-2% Tin with lead and a teaspoon of lead shot to add trace amounts of arsenic. Is it possible for the Tin and lead to separate? Sometimes the surface gets a gold tint which I assume is the tin I stir it back up, if I run too hot the surface gets purplish which I read is lead oxidizing due to being too hot.
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