Bullet Casting Question

Decided I was going to pour myself some of the large lead balls to load shotgun shells like Danny C does..
So the other day I poured about 60 what the mold says should be 492.2 grain round balls. Just out of curiosity I decided to put them on scale. I loaded a lot of shot shells years ago and know the bar on loader don't throw same weight shot charge every single time. I wasn't to concerned about loading the ball if they were a bit light more so if to heavy.
Anyway once I scaled some them I found that all were lighter than the said 1 1/8 ounce or 492.2 grains. I'm not afraid to just load them with 1 1/8 shot recipe should be fine. Thing is for sake of constancy when shooting them. I know I need to at least load them grouped as close in weight as I can to figure out which shoot most consistent..
My real question for anyone who has poured a lot of bullets.

Does lead temp and mold temp play much into actual finished bullet weight??
Is it more about the lead mix it's self?

I would think with the lead and mold at the coolest temp it pours decent. The bullet or ball would be at it's greatest weight when cools?
I'm using a Lee production pot to melt my lead which at this time is lead sheeting.. I've poured lots of jigs and sinkers and balls for my black powder pistol. Doing all of those items I never really cared about finish weight just cranked on the heat and poured .. These large balls I plan to shoot a deer with. So I'd like to dial in the weight a bit closer maybe help tighten shot group.

Mac

If you are using lead sheeting, that is about as close to pure lead as you can get. If there was antimony and tin added to "harden" the lead your finished ball weight would be a grain or two less. As long as your ball weight is consistent from one to the next you should be able to have repeatable results all else being the same. Good luck hunting.

Chris

Mac,

You stated" the mold says should be 492.2 grain round balls.".
That 492.2 grains is for 100% pure lead.
Any other alloy mixed into your lead pot will change the weight.
Example: using wheel weights for your lead source may read 484,3 on your scale.
The alloy mixed into your lead will also affect the hardness of your shot poured.
You may also have an air pocket within the lead ball(s) that cause the weight to be off also.
The hidden air pocket with in the balls will definitely cause very erratic ball flight.

Regards,
Bill

Chris & Bill are spot on - it's all about the alloy. I've been casting with a rifle mold that's supposed to drop at 170gr, but my bullets typically come out at ~155-165gr. They're pretty hard too though, so the alloy is what's making them drop lighter than what the mold says.

different lead can change the weight

pure lead should be closer , but if you have tin in your mix it weighs less , it helps fill the mold better also

temp of mold , how much sprue you leave it all factors in

those weights are more of a suggestion of what it should drop with pure , your at 98.3% of expected plenty close enough

You're doing fine. I never have had a mold throw the exact weight advertised. Those guys make good points.

"Does lead temp and mold temp play much into actual finished bullet weight??
Is it more about the lead mix it's self?"

Everything matters.
Only you can decide how far down the rabbit hole of pinning variables you want to go for that consistency youre chasing. And there are more than enough to drive you mad. My advice would be to not change anything. Find youre average weight and cull anything outside of 5 grains off. Dont try to turn a roundball gun into a benchrest gun.

I got lucky with the lead deal.. First time ever have access to more nice lead than could use rest my life. Is all shielding from hospital labs, shower pans things like that. I poured maybe 250lbs of 3,5, 6lb dive weights and 8lb down rigger balls so far. Don't even look like I touched dang pile took lead off. May have bit off more than I can chew when said I would take it. Thinking now just going keep some of the best of it and sell rest for scrap.

What I used to pour this first batch of the balls was left over in my small pot. So was just a mix of what ever wheel weights, plumbing lead, old sinkers, I scrounged. I melt most anything when pouring jigs and dive weights don't care what alloy is long as sinks..
I'm pretty sure the heavier balls in this batch are the ones poured as added this new lead to pot. I got time to play with it so will get it figured out.. Like I said I'm more interested in getting close constant batch weight. Than worry that actual finished weight being right what mold says should be.

Mac

I only use the use heaviest balls. 5 grains less than whatever the heaviest one is and it goes back in the pot. There is variations cause of the sprue but at 5 grains I figure there is a good chance of a bubble or two and a chance it wont travel straight

How the heck can there be a "bubble" in a bullet? Lead is do dense, I'd imagine any air bubbles would IMMEDIATELY be pushed out the top of the sprue plate long before the lead starts to cool....? Maybe there's something special will ball molds vs bullet molds that can induce a pocket?

If you cast large lead or lead alloy round balls or bullets quickly at a temperature below 750 degrees F, you can wait for the product to cool, then cut some in half, through the sprue. You will see air pockets. They do not help accuracy.

If you cast about anything, you will see air pockets on the out side. Why won't they be on the inside?

Fellas, for what these are there will be little if any discernible difference when all is said and done. Cmon, this is not for 1000 + yards. Minute of meat is just fine for the intended uses of such balls. Far to often I think we muddy the water in these cases by overthinking what we are actually doing. JMHO. Go on and pile on!

If your constantly stirring and skimming your lead it will have a different density also. (Mass to volume ratio)

Interesting. When I've cast 9mm and .30 cal. rifle bullets, I've filed around 1/3 of the way through them, lengthwise, in order to test BHN with the Lee hardness tester. Haven't come across any bubbles yet. So are bubbles in the lead casts more of a round-ball thing?

I would guess it s more of a mold and lead temperature thing. Have you never seen a bullet you cast that was not 100% formed?

Sure have! I suppose I'm thinking about this a little differently. If you consider wrinkles in bullets as bubbles, I've definitely seen my share of that.

Sometimes, you may not know for sure what is in ballast, fishing sinkers, dive weights and some of that type stuff ,,,,,, and that goes double for ballast.

Rickey

I have no idea how close to pure lead this sheeting I have is. I know it's softer than the wheel weight stuff and I've dealt with a lot of that over years. It seems to be very similar to the lead cable shielding that got years ago from phone company.. I had a lot of that and it was nice to work with just because it was real clean. I've always been using the lead I got mostly for weights so no idea of the actual purity or hardness. I'm also aware there can be wrinkles and bubbles that change the weight of a cast item.

While I would like these round balls to be soft. I'm sure as they are, what every hardness that might be? They will punch a hole in and kill anything I intend to shoot with them. Like any thing we do you have to know what your working with and stay with those capabilities.
I killed the first deer I ever shot at with cedar arrow tipped with one the old bear broad heads. I was 12 years old first year I could legally hunt. Launched that arrow from 47 lb straight fiber glass bow point blank range. I also killed a deer with handgun at 20 yards, first year that was legal in our state. So like I said know what your working with.

I know enough about physics to know that the lighter material Slag and trash float. Also the hotter lead is at the top of the pot like warmer water in lake. There fore less dense. My pot pours from the bottom so that lead in theory should be more dense.. It would make sense to me that when you figure in lead temperature, mold temperature. Expansion and contraction of the lead and the mold, heating and cooling. To get the balls to pour in most constant weight no matter what that finish weight is. Would be to try keep the temperature of the lead and mold as constant as can. Even to the part where you keep the lead pot has full as you can. or pouring from a larger pot with just more material the same temperature.

Honestly I'm really not trying to over think all this. Just trying to pour the balls in way so can get a reasonable Idea of what weight I'm loading. If I was only going to use them close quarter say 20 yards or less. I'd just load every one and go. I'm thinking if I fiddle with this load I might be able reasonably sneak them out to 75 yards. I'm not one to spray and pray so that would have to prove it's self before I'd ever do it. Might happen I want to play around start hand scaling every load.

Mac

I always thought cast anything is porous?

Practically speaking lead sheeting is probably about as pure as you will find.

I think the old rule of thumb for muzzle loader projectiles is if you can easily put a significant scratch in the lead with your thumb nail, it is pure enough for your ML projectiles.

Here's a pic of 50cal balls I recovered from Whitetail I shot with a 30% wheel weight/lead mix.

Oddly, yesterday I was sifting through .62 caliber round balls in preparation for the early muzzleloader season here in PA, and look what rolled out of the pile. A 335-grain round ball with an air pocket clearly visible after the sprue was cut. While it’s probably true that an air pocket like this doesn’t have much influence over accuracy within fifty yards, it surely does not help accuracy. And when taking a muzzleloader poke at 100-125 yards, it for sure is hurting your chances of even making “minute-of-meat.”
Keeping lead hot (750-790 degrees F), stirred, fluxed, keeping the mold lubricated, and pouring from a ladle right from the pot will greatly diminish the possibility of getting air pockets. That said, this round ball was poured in a process that I believed met all those criteria. And then when I began sorting balls yesterday, I noticed a progression from heavily wrinkled balls to slightly wrinkled to perfect surface. Although I had thought all the clearly wrinkled / imperfect round balls had been put back into the pot during that pouring session, clearly a bunch got past me. It happens when I’m pushed for time.

That's for sure interesting and I have seen that same thing myself. Like said earlier post I pour mostly large dive weight's and sinker.. See holes like that by sprue more when running hotter than should be. The lead shrinks back into mold as mass cools.
I notice wrinkles in thing more when the mold isn't warm up enough. Then the crystal look as everything gets to hot. Dive weight's, sinker, jigs. That just not as important as something a guys trying to get consitant flight with. I guess need take little time take some pictures. Give everyone idea what kinda set up I'm using. I have a 54 cal muzzle loader both ball and conical mold for that. I have only ever shot sabots never used my own cast stuff yet. Really need to do that now too.

Mac

Mac, the bigger the lead object being poured into a mold, the greater the possibility of problems. Lead cools fast. As molten lead is poured into any mold, it begins to cool rapidly. The longer the pour, the greater the cooling and the greater the difference between what is already in the mold and what is being added. So big jigs, sinkers etc for sure. We frequently see air pockets right at the surface. Round balls for muzzleloaders can be better controlled. Some of the variation is due to the individual mold. Every mold I have responds differently to the same casting conditions. Some new molds in perfect condition nonetheless develop flashing quickly. Unless I want to fool with the hinge pin etc, which I normally don’t, I just keep cleaning the mold face and focusing on a tight alignment of the two halves. I also hunt with a .54 flintlock, and casting those balls is a much more consistently successful effort than for the .62. Anyhow, good chatting with you. Good luck and keep asking questions. Lot of really good people here, happy to help each other.

I have the same Lee production bottom flow pot. I let my son use it to make sinkers, he used whatever lead. He had left some in the pot when done. I caught on when I was about to load some self cast ingots in. Used welding gloves to tip the whole pot to drain unknown lead mix from the bottom, before casting my muzzy balls. I knew what I was melting but not what my son was melting.

I have some plumbers lead I use for muzzle loading. Been shooting wheel weight lead for shot gun balls. Have not shot any animals with them. I have killed deer with wheel weight 357 bullets. Both just dropped. I THINK those wheel weight balls will pass through a deer broadside at a range I would shoot. I think it will work just fine. Shot this 2X10 at about 20 yards.





The little hole is from a 22 at about 10 feet. Gave my grandaughter a 22 cricket. I wanted to make sure she knew it wasn’t a toy