Dropping Bullets From Mold

[Cheesehead]

I have always dropped bullets into water from the mold. I understand this makes them harder. I do not want to drop them into water and am wondering what to drop them on.

Cheese

[Land_Owner]

They tell me a piece of terry-cloth towel.  some say dampened, others say not.  Will be an interesting read since I have not done this myself.  The bullets are HOT when dropped from the mould and a dry cloth towel is sure to singe (I think).  Dry "tempered" boolets are about HALF the hardness of water tempered boolets (according to my reading anyway).

[Cheesehead]

Yes, that is my goal, not as hard.

[bilmac]

I used to staple some heavy cloth around 3 edges of a wooden box with some drape in the middle. I would drop the bullets kind of on the sloping sides of the cloth and they would roll down and collect in the low center. When they started to collect I would tip the box and the bullets would roll down to the fourth side that I hadn't stapled and fall into a container.

I drop everything in water nowdays.

[D Crockett]

what I did was get a 5gal bucket cut it to where you have a tray out of the bottom part about 4 or 5 inches deep then take a piece of cloth put over that with a small slit in it so you bullets can go into it then take a smaller piece of cloth to cover the slit so your spews won't go in and zip tie the cloth to the tray you made this way your bullets will be hitting something soft and not get dinged up hitting something hard i usually drop 10 or 20 bullets on the top then take a spoon and into the slot they go hope this helps D Crockett

[Lloyd Smale]

i just drop them in a container on top of the other bullets. Unless your casting extreamly hot they dont get damaged.

[gray-wolf]

Just drop them on a folded towel,
and push them asside when they start to stack up.

[Anduril]

Yup, a piece of an old bath towel folded a time or two. I try not to drop from the mould directly on top of previous bullets but it doesn't seem to make much difference as far as dings & dents go.
..

ps; They do stay hot longer than water quenched, so watch your fingers 
..

[45-70.gov]

i don't like to have hot bullets contacting each other or anything  hard


so i  had 5 servants  lined up  in rotation each with a pillow
to catch  my bullets from a single cavity  mold

that  didn't work out so well
so  now  i just  add  more  of  my 500 pounds  of pure lead to the mix for softer bullets
and  use multi cavity molds

and drop it into  water...
just dropping them into a 5 gallon bucket  works to well to do anything else

[bilmac]

I float a few cheap sponges in the bucket and the water doesn't splash so much.

[Cheesehead]

I tried this today, took an old worn out pair of blue jeans, folded them twice and dropped the bullets on that. I dropped them in various placed so as not to hit other bullets. This worked well.

Cheese

[Land_Owner]

Do you have a hardness tester?  What is the difference in hardness between the two ways [BHN speaking]?

I am going to have a heck of a time with hardness (I think) since the pedigree of the base alloy is unknown.  After remelting the former ingots with the latter to generate greater consistency throughout, I hope I will end up with about 75% lead and 25% WW's.  Then I want to check the water dropped boolets against air cooled at day 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, etc., through day 49 (7 weeks) as others have done to see what, if any, change occurs with time.

My two boys [19 & 15] are "working me" so we can smelt lead together.  They are as hooked as am I.  So far we've "cooked up" about 66 ingots in the 2.5 to 3 pound range.  What a interesting hobby and we have not started to cast boolets yet, or shoot any (still waiting on an exchange for the 110V [60 Hz] of the 240V EUR [50 Hz] RCBS Pro-Melt 22# furnace I received for Christmas), and the purchase of a few additional moulds (357 x 180 gr, 45 LC x 300gr., 30-30 x 170 gr.).

[bilmac]

Owner  You are a lucky guy to have your kids have the same interests as you. I have a great boy, but he isn't that interested.

You know there is a way to compare hardness. You put two bullets base to base with a steel ball between in a vise and squeeze them. Not too much or the shape of the sphere becomes wrong. By comparing the indent you can compare hardness between the bullets. I think that if you measure the indents and use a known pure lead bullet, you can go through some complicated math and actually figure out a hardness number. I suppose I saw this in an old American Rifleman or Handloader magazine.

[Nobade]

I use a piece of fiberglass cloth, heavy E-glass. It won't scorch like a bath towel. I keep it in a wooden box so the bullets don't roll off onto the floor. Keeps the small scraps contained as well.

[jlchucker]

They tell me a piece of terry-cloth towel.  some say dampened, others say not.  Will be an interesting read since I have not done this myself.  The bullets are HOT when dropped from the mould and a dry cloth towel is sure to singe (I think).  Dry "tempered" boolets are about HALF the hardness of water tempered boolets (according to my reading anyway).

From my own experience "they" tell you right.  I've been dropping my cast bullets (boolets) on a folded-up old towel ever since I started casting in the early 1970's.  I never did drop them in water.  When I first started casting I never read anything about this practice so I didn't try it. I'd just push my new (hot) bullets over to one side of the towel to let them cool while I casted.  Since then I've read a lot about water-dropping but my own bullets always seemed to work fine on targets and critters so I never bothered to experiment with this practice.  I cast for everything I shoot except .380 auto, and always have.

[Tom W.]

I drop them on folded up towels that my wife deemed "unsuitable". Tho only problem I ever had was when I got my RD mold too hot and dropped the bullets too fast, and some of them bent...

[Cheesehead]

Do you have a hardness tester?  What is the difference in hardness between the two ways [BHN speaking]?

I am going to have a heck of a time with hardness (I think) since the pedigree of the base alloy is unknown.  After remelting the former ingots with the latter to generate greater consistency throughout, I hope I will end up with about 75% lead and 25% WW's.  Then I want to check the water dropped boolets against air cooled at day 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, etc., through day 49 (7 weeks) as others have done to see what, if any, change occurs with time.

My two boys [19 & 15] are "working me" so we can smelt lead together.  They are as hooked as am I.  So far we've "cooked up" about 66 ingots in the 2.5 to 3 pound range.  What a interesting hobby and we have not started to cast boolets yet, or shoot any (still waiting on an exchange for the 110V [60 Hz] of the 240V EUR [50 Hz] RCBS Pro-Melt 22# furnace I received for Christmas), and the purchase of a few additional moulds (357 x 180 gr, 45 LC x 300gr., 30-30 x 170 gr.).

I do not have a hardness tester but will look into that.

Cheese

[Land_Owner]

I cast for everything I shoot except .380 auto, and always have.

Any reason not to cast for 380 Auto?  That is one of several calibers I had thought to investigate.

Cheese...I bet a wooden cigar box with a piece of towel or fiberglass insert would be quite sufficient...or a few similar boxes for continuous casting while boolets cool.  Maybe try one of the boxes that come with cigar leaves already lining the box.  I bet that would smell terrific!

I was researching BHN units.  "Calibration" was footnoted (under a statistical test population performed through different units) and sort of quashed with the understanding that continuous use of any BHN unit by you, in a consistent manner, was sufficient to enjoy shooting and accuracy in YOUR guns, regardless of the BHN repeatability by someone else using their tester.  I hope that makes sense.  

The results of testing show that the BHN can vary greatly. Note that the as cast BHN has a lower SD. While the same variances in casting technique can affect bullets not quenched, the bullets that are allowed to air cool are in effect being annealed and the variances in casting technique are minimalized. When the bullets are water quenched, and variances in casting are literally frozen in time.

Here is a link for further reading...http://www.lasc.us/Brennan_4-5_HeatTreat.htm

[Anduril]

for a nice 380 tumble lube mould look at the one Ranch Dog offers.
http://www.ranchdogoutdoors.com/
..

[mechanic]

Old folded towels work well....a small box of old or stale cornmeal works too.  Also smells mighty nice when the hot bullets land......

Ben

[Land_Owner]

RD's offerings in 380 caliber look interesting.  Their boolets for lever guns are all gas checks, and while they probably shoot well, I am loath to pay MORE for stupid, do little, bent copper cup Gas Checks than the more sophisticated, more important, more critical and less expensive PRIMERS to ignite the powder in the cartridge.

I am really bent HARD OVER against the exorbitant cost of Gas Checks.

[Richard P]

IF --- you are going to drop hot bullets---the hotter the better---into water; place the water bucket about two feet below the furnace. You do not want any droplets finding their errant way into a pot of metal.  Some splashes may land on a mould---give then a couple of seconds and they will evaporate off.  If you close the mould it will ''spit'' at you. 
  To get really hard bullets you need Arsenic in the mix, usually from adding chilled shot.  It needs to be hot and quenched quickly to get the hardest bullets.  You can, of course, heat treat in an oven. 
  If you just want bullets about BHN 13 or so you can just use (now not so common) wheelweights and air cool them.

[res45]

For water quenched bullets I plan to shoot in magnum pistol loads and HV rifle loads I take my old 5 gal. bucket and stretch and old towel or cloth over the top of the bucket,I cut a 2" to 3 " slit in the cloth and press it down into the bucket to form a V trap.  Affix the cover to the bucket so it doesn't fall down into the water.I use the old bucket lid with the center cut out.  When you drop the bullets from the mold onto the sides of the cloth cover they gently roll down and through the slit and keep the water from splashing back out.

[jhalcott]

  A long time ago when I shot silly wets, I ran out of my favorite boolet. I set up the pot and since I was in a hurry put a 5 gallon bucket of water behind me to drop the boolets into. I ran the pot hot and rushed thru the casting. I decided to cool the mold as it got VERY hot casting this way(fast). I'd set the sprue plate on a damp towel for about 5 seconds ,then dump the boolets into the water. I seated the gas checks and lubed the bullets, then took them to work. I loaded 100 rounds of 30-30 with my usual load. The next day I shot in the match. My score was much lower than normal. The sound of the boolets ringing off the steel targets was NOT the usual thump I'd heard in the past! Accuracy also suffered with these boolets. I cast up another batch as I normally did and tried these for practice. They shot better than the water dropped loads!

[Land_Owner]

I cast up another batch as I normally did...

But you didn't tell us what you normally did?  Air cool? 

[mdi]

Just drop them on a folded towel,
and push them asside when they start to stack up.

Same way I do it. Water dropping "heat treats" the bullets making them hard, depending on alloy 20+ BHN.

[coyotejoe]

I am really bent HARD OVER against the exorbitant cost of Gas Checks.

Gas checks do add to the cost of bullets and, depending on your sizing set up, can add some time to the process but they also have advantages. Plain base bullets can be pretty finicky as to powder charge for best accuracy, gas checks are much more forgiving and tend to shoot reasonably well with about any load. There is no question that gas checks can be loaded up to higher velocity without loss of accuracy or bore leading. Spend some time scrubbing lead out of a rifle bore and you may decide gas checks are worth the cost.