This mold likes to be HOT. Here it is preheating on the edge of the pot.
The gray bottle to the left is anti-seize to lubricate the sprue cutter and alignment pins. The baggie to the right of the pot has remnants from one of my wifes scented candles (citrus pine) that I use for fluxing.



Here is the mold with a fresh pour cooling. With this particular mold, allowing the iron to cool too much causes wrinkly bullets.



Fresh cast bullets. These were dropped straight from the mold into a five gallon bucket of water. I had to be careful to not let the water touch the molds as it would have cooled them too much as well as many other potential issues.
Excuse the blurry pictures, this particular camera does not have a macro setting.



Size reference. As you can see these are tiny (imagine that) and difficult to work with.



Here are a few sized, lubed and gas checked. Final average weight is right at 62 grains (55 advertised) with straight wheel weight alloy. Note the lack of lubrication on the top lube grooves. This particular bullet is designed as a 'silhouette bullet and lubrication is supposed to be applied by hand before entering the chamber. Again, these are tiny and applying the gas check is tedious work.



Here you can see the OAL when seated to the first lube grooves. I also applied a fairly firm crimp at this point to help prevent set back.


For some reason the pictures I took at the range were data corrupted.
I loaded 10 rounds ranging from 18.0 grains of H335 to 24.0 in 0.5 grain increments. I chose H335 because I have over 20#'s on hand and will be the easiest for me to go with.  My goal for this session was to look for leading and determine the maximum pressure before issues arose.
I shot them out of my 16" Barreled AR as this will be the gun to see these the most for training and general plinking.
The 18.0 grain charge cycled the bolt just fine and accuracy was around 2" @ 50 yards.
No signs of leading were found after the 10 shot string. All rounds fed and cycled flawlessly.
This story remained the same until 22.5 grains of H335. At this point the group spread to about 4" @ 50 and slight leading was evident. I continued on to 23.0 grains of H335 just to see (after cleaning the barrel of course) and found that none of the first three shots were on paper.
One of the old timers of the range came over to see what I was doing at this point and we discussed the possibility of the bullets exploding due to too much spin. I do not know if this is what actually happend, but you could see a little grey cloud about 10' in fron of the muzzle after each shot. Very interesting.

I settled on the 20.0 grains of H335 to begin further testing from as these had the better accuracy of the groups fired. I intend to load up about 100 and go for an extended range visit to see how much leading may build up over time.

As a side note, no signs of lead were found in the gas tube upon cleaning and inspection. I do not feel this will be a major issue but I have been wrong before!


ETA: Pics fixed?

Arrrgh!!! Need to see the pictures!

BTW, who makes the mold?

- AG

ETA, I can see the first pic, rest are red x's...  is it a lee custom mold?  Couldn't be... you said it was cast iron...

Lyman 225646 If I recall correctly.

I can see all the pics now...

- AG

I am interested in casting for .223 but had heard that it was not worth it....

something about casting bullets that have such high velocity...

Please set me strait!!

Have you been casting .223 for a long time?  Ever had and problems?

Is it worth it financially or is it more of a hobby without cost benefits?  

Hows accuracy compared to factory bullets?

Any info you can provide may help influence me to start or stay away from casting 223

thanks and sweet looking bullets!!!

What are the specs on the AR you were shooting these out of?

Right, but if you notice, he's using a gas check, which is a copper base for the bullet. That makes life a great deal easier, since you don't have hot gases in direct contact with the lead...

Pretty basic. DPMS w/ a 16" 1:9 barrel. Eotech sight.
I imagine that 'exploding' bullets will happen at a lower velocity with a faster (1:7) twist.
I also would have better accuracy y if I were testing with a magnified optic.

Ill see if I can find a picture of it and post it.

Thanks for the heads up....any reason to hide from the women is good for me...so a few hours a day and some lies told to myself may be right up my alley!!!  

Where in the world are you getting free lead?

Thankfully I have a good source!

Interesting project . Your coment that it is something you enjoy doing is the key here. Enjoy!


Something that I have come across over many years of messing about with lead bullets––-
When giving lead a try it is quite importaint to start with a very clean barrel. By very clean I mean
soaking with a good agressive copper solvent to get every trace of jacket copper out.
My experience shows that in many cases of leading of a barrel is due only to this trace amount of copper in the barrel
and with a truly clean barrel leading is a non issue.

I may have missed this info but is the gun you are useing chrome lined or straight steel?

Very interesting. I shoot a lot of cast, I even shoot cast in an AR15 but it is chambered in 300 whisper. I have thought about trying cast in a .223 but I figured the velocity would be so low it wouldn't be worth the effort.
It seems you are doing fine with higher velocities. Can you chrony your loads? What kind of lube are you using?
I think I might have to get a set of .223 molds now.

OK how hard are you bullets? You may want to add some tin,adamony,linotype ... if you alloy it correctly you can achieve a 26 bnh with out it getting brittle ......and actual will find little to no leading and ad achieve a good deal of FPS with no worries ..... The way I cast is in a much larger pot and one drop of water would be BAD...SO I AM JUST SAYNG BE VERY CAREFUL !

Also this does happen even with regular JHP bullets.......

Friiguy, Now that you're having fun casting and shooting bullets wait til you try different lubes and eventually discover heat treating your cast bullets not to mention half jackets and swaging.

Straight steel. I also did clean exceptionally well to help elimante the jacketed bullet fouling based on recommendations I read elsewhere.
I also scrubbed the barrel out before shooting jacketed bullets.

I am water dropping wheel weights and they ar pretty hard, but I do intendt to play with the alloys at some point.

Bump.

Bet this will look more appealing now since bullet costs are so high.

Edit:

My cost to shoot 150 rounds this last weekend, $1.485

Primer: $0.02
Brass: $0
Powder: $0.054
Gas Check: $0.025 (Going to start making my own to be even cheaper!)
Lead: $0
Total per round: $0.099

Great job!  Yeah, them little bullets are a PITA to cast, size, lube and seat gas checks.

Good post Friiguy I enjoyed reading it.

Can't wait for warmer weather to start casting again.

very nice!

Not that it matters that much, but apparently your calculator "lies" to you also.

$0.099 x 150 = $14.85, not $1.485

No, I just cant type...

Richard Lee's Modern Reloading, Second Edition, covers cast bullet alloy and leading relationship.  He found that as long as the peak pressure is kept under the ultimate stress of the alloy selected, leading will not be an issue.  This was contrary to the old wisdom of using light charges of fast propellents to keep velocity down.  Well, fast powders CAN generate pressure fast enough to exceed the pressure limitation of the bullet, causing leading.



But a normal powder, charged at reasonable levels, can be under the critical pressure and still have plenty port pressure to cycle the AR action.  Now you probably won't get but 2600 FPS from a 20" barrel but they will still make it to 200 rards or more, easily.  And because the peak pressure is lower, the barrel will last much longer.  Less powder will be used.  More ammo, less money.  And that is a great thing.

Tag

Ahhh, a man after my own devices.

Thanks for the photo's.  Very interesting.

I have a pair of mold handles that look like the kind you are using?  I got them for a buck at a GS>  Which dies (Brand and cavity) do they fit?

skink

I got into casting because I firmly believe that the c***suckers in office will at some point make factory ammo unaffordable to the general public to recreationally shoot ,  I've got  9mm ,7.62 covered just got to pickup the .223 stuff .

Done and thanks!



 

What does Mr. Knitter mean?

 

Are you claiming that, with a gas-check, it is possible to get to 2600 FPS with a lead bullet?

Because, if that velocity is possible, there should be great interest in a cast-lead GC copy of the 77 grn SMK intended for magazine-length loading.  Even jacketed SMKs are not much over 2600 FPS, if at all.

Can you tell me what type of mold handles those are in the first pic?

thanks,
skink

Honestly I have no idea! I had thought they were Lyman mold handles but when I went to a couple sites to confirm this they do not match at all.

The only marking on the cast portion of the handles is 'LB-19B'.



They appear similar to Lee handles with the compressed metal collar but the steel portion is far heavier duty than standard Lee construction.



Perhaps is is a combination of Lee wooden Handles and Lyman?



Sorry for the lack of help here.



 

What kind of dies are are those for the .223?

skink

Lyman 225646BV



 

I cast bullets in the tens of thousands, but i have never tried them with a gas operated weapon. please give us more info when on the gas tube and port after you have sent more rounds down range. In my experience you should be able to get near 3000 FPS with the right alloy, but more importantly sized to the correct diameter. You must slug the barrel. The gas check can only do so much to prevent gas cutting, proper fit will be the most important factor. There are many people that claim a gas check is there to prevent the base from melting, if that were the case why doesent the base of an FMJ melt, its exposed lead right? BTW good job casting maybe you will get more people casting.

    From what I read on most cast bullet forums is a lot of cast bullet problems result from undersized bullets .  With hot gasses passing buy the sides of the bullet and melting / eroding the lead .  .002" oversize seems to be a good starting point .

    Course , my cast bullet shooting , so far , has been from .30 caliber to .45-70  .  So velocities have generally less than .223 .  I realize I will not get 3000 fps with cast .223 .  Probably the low 2000's .

God bless
Wyr

Thanks.





The issue with velocity appears to be the bullet actually spinning itself apart. Most lead shooters use a much slower twist barrel, 1:12, than the  1:9 I used.


There are 0 signs of lead entering the gas port and 0 signs of leading - therefor I feel my bullets are sized properly and have enough lubrication.






ETA: I dont feel that pushing the velocity envelope is prudent nor worth the time. As long as I can get these out to 300 yards with some form of accuracy and cycle the action, I am happy.



Last range visit with these we were shooting steel out to 400, just an elevation adjustment (several feet
) compared to a standard FMJ load.
 

Very interesting.  I am currently getting into casting for my revolvers, but have never considered loading for my AR.  It seems very time consuming, especially considering the relative cheapness of bulk .223 bullets.  Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking your project, as I find it very informative.  Just a little too tedious for me...

    Last order for FMJ's were about $ 80 / 1000  .  My guess is the lead may cost around $ .01each to cast them . not much lead in a .22 bullet .

     Do not know about gas checks ?  $ .03  ?

    That is half price .

    I will be borrowing the mold , only cost there will be postage .  I already have all the other equipment .

God bless
Wyr

Not to mention having the knowledge and equipment if SHTF at some point.





 

Yes, the price is cheap, but how long does it take to cast 1k projectiles?



I am with you on the knowledge aspect. However, in a SHTF scenario, what are the chances primers and powder will be available, but projectiles will not??

You cant make those?



Sucks to be you!



Like I said in another post -



Quoted:


My final cost per bullet including the lube, gas check and
electricity/propane is probably less than .05 per bullet. I enjoy doing
something after work outside for at least an hour or two just to
unwind, so this hobby helps me with that. If I were to count time
needed to smelt wheelweights, convert to bullets, lube and size and
then reload I doubt I would find it worth it. So I lie to myself and in the end look at all the bullets I made and pretend I just ordered it in for pennies on the dollar.



If you cant handle the time and satisfaction of doing it yourself its ok.



And yes, it is a PITA!





 

Its more like male knitting and you really cant understand it untill you cast your own and send them downrange.

Trust me, Friiguy knows a few things about knitting.  With yarn and with lead.  (Inside joke on the NMHTF)

Sorry, 'bout dat, Mr. Knitter.

Unbelievable!