Weird Change In My Cast Bullets

Hello to 99 Straight-Duane Mellenbruch-Glenn r. Latham & other readers,

First of all, this casting problem is not due to too cold alloy, cold molds or misaligned molds. I was casting with four different molds and all of the molds cast the same looking bullet. I know how to cast, I just don't know what made the bullets so slick, hard and shiny. The bullets were all perfectly formed: no folds or wrinkles, no feathers or whiskers at the parting line and none on the nose. No rounded edges on the driving bands, just one perfect bullet after another, time after time. I cast for several hours over two days, which included GC seating, powder coating and sizing. This sounds unreal but during all of that time I probably cast 98% of perfectly formed bullets from four different molds and the weights of the bullets were very uniform.

In my original post I explained my alloy mixture and the fact that it had been setting in the pot for about two years. One thing that I forgot to mention is, the pot was about 3/4 full and I took a bunch of powder coated bullets that were cast from the same alloy and threw them in and brought the pot up to the full level. Talk about a mess. That stuff doesn't completely melt, it just turns into a molten glob and floats. I kept fluxing and scooping until I got it all off the top and then fluxed and burned the vapors several times.To the best of my kowledge, there is no way that melting Eastwood gloss black powder coat, could add antimony.

Glen suggests that I had a mixture of Linotype in my pot. The only way that could have happened is, I DON'T KNOW. I bought a big box of government surplus wheel weights, and I mean Big WhEEL WEIGHTS, several years ago. You can drop one of these things from about shoulder high, on a concrete floor and it will ring like a bell. To keep from getting these mixed up, I take metal stamps and stamp, all of my ingots as to what they are. I don't see how these could have caused the problem because I didn't put them in my alloy, I guess I may have had Big Foot, or his brother sneak in the shop and do some mischief. Glenn, I agree with you, that some linotype found it's way into my pot, and how, how I don't know.

I added some straight WW;s to the mixture and that softened the bullets somewhat but not much, is there any other possibilities that could cause such hardness, Thanks to you guys who contributed to my post. Hey, I just got to thinking, some of those coated bullets, may not have been from the same alloy, but not many.

Mashburn