help please!

[tree rat]

I am trying to make 12oz snaging sinkers and cannot get them to fill the area where you tie the line, I am using a lee bottom pour, I have tryed running the pot all the way up and the mold hotter with little help. I feel that  I am not getting the volume and speed with the bottom pour to push the lead that far before it cools. I am considering buying a new pot to use the dip meathod, will this solve my problem?   my second question is can humidity be a factor in the quality of cast bullets, some days I cast about 10 bullets to warm up the mold then every bullet after is perfect. then another day only about 25% are even useable. whats up? and I tryed to cast some pure lead for brothers muzzleloader and cannot make a decent bullet to save my life with that stuff, I can make them perfect with straight wheel weights, but my brother doesn't like to have to start them in his smokepole with a rubber mallet, the shoot good though.

[John Traveler]

How do, Tree Rat!

That 12 oz sinker you are making is a BIG one, and that may be part of the problem.  3/4 lb of lead is a lot to cast at once.

What is your mold material?  aluminum or steel?  I would bet that your mold is not hot enough.  If the mold is not hot enough, pouring in your melt will allow it to cool too fast and cause the wrinkles you described.  Try pre-heating your mold by laying it on top of the lead pot for 15 or 20 minutes first.

Adding a bit of tin to your melt will give soft, yet easier-to-pour lead bullets.  The BPCR shooters know this, and do it routinely.  Try melting in a few inches of 50/50 tin/lead solder, either in wire form or bars.  Flux well, and do your casting.  Bet you will see an immediate improvement!

[Leftoverdj]

12 ounce sinkers???

The stuff we get into.

I'm going to agree with John that the mould needs to be preheated.

This job cries out for a big ladle. You just are not going to get a bottom pour pot to fill that mould fast enough to do a good job. Were I doing it, I would just use my smelting rig, a cast iron dutch oven over a cajun cooker w/ a cast iton ladle that holds a couple of pounds of lead.

You need to get that lead into the mould fast and you need enough molten lead to make a few culls while the mould gets up to temp. You don't need enough detail to need to add tin. I'd dump a bucket of WW into the pot and make as many sinkers as I wanted while making ingots out of the rest.

This is a job you really can't do on a small scale.