Just wondering how other people get ready to cast with a new mold.
Here's my way. I wipe the cavities out with some mineral spirits on a q-tip. Then I stick the front corner of the mold into the melt for about a 40 count. I usually get good bullets within 3 or 4 casts. I got a new mold today and from unboxing, wiping it out, installing the handles, and getting good bullets took about 15 minutes. How do others go about it?
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I wash with dawn and hot water with a tooth brush. Put on handles with a bit of copper neverseize on the handle screw pins. A light wipe of oil on the bottom of the sprue plate and a drop of oil on the screw for the sprue plate. Put a scrap of steel plate on a single burner hot plate, set mold on it, sprue plate down. In about ten minutes assuming the pot is ready I get started.
I just started with a new mold the other day, a Lyman two cavity that was made in 2005 but was brand new. My thought is to start with some rather hot lead in the pot, 760-775 F is about right. It took a few casts of wrinkled bullets. Maybe ten to 15 before I started getting good bullets.
I don’t dip a cold mold in a pot anymore, I find all that does is to stick lead to the corner of the mold.
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I use an acid brush to scrub the mold with MEK to remove all traces of oil from the surfaces. If aluminum or steel, I smoke the mold with matches. If brass, no smoking. I then place the mold across the top of the pot to preheat as much as possible. I do not dip the mold into the melt.
Once the melt is at the right temperature and the ladle is hot, I start casting. The mold usually produces good bullets on the second pour. Every now and again, it takes five or six fills to get all the temperatures synchronized. Once the mold is hot, I apply a small “tap” of bullet lube to the sprue plate screw to keep it from binding.
With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.
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Oh yea….let the MEK evaporate before you put a lit match near the mold to smoke it. 
With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.
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I clean with dish soap, then with brake cleaner, again with dish soap. Heat on hotplate to 300 (I drill molds for a temperature probe) then let cool. Repeat. Routinely preheat on the hotplate then smoke (mostly aluminum molds) and often get good bullets on the first drop.
John Carlson. CBA Director of Military Competition.
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I check for burrs, alignment and such, especially with the Lee molds. Then for new or troublesome molds I degrease and boil in a pot of water with a little dish soap. Preheat and use a little 2-cycle oil for the plate, screw and pins.
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I do a MINIMUM amount of cleaning.
THEN I apply tungsten dioxide powder (mixed with a little high temp grease) to the mould mating and top surfaces and under the sprue plate.. This precludes leading.
AND then, I heat it up. KEY point. NEVER any wrinkles if it is HOT enough.
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I just tried Pat's method on a new NOE .22 mold and it works great.
"if it was easy we'd let women do it" don't tell my wife I said that!
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