The cupcake proces & bulletcasting

[woodland]

I found this great instruction on Youtube;....very helpfull.
Bullet casting with Cowboy T  gives a good impressing what to get and what to do;

The pictures give you an idea how to produce your lead cupcakes with home materials as mentioned in the video’s.

Smoke the cupcake holder on the fire before using.
Instead of moving the boiling lead it is much saver to use a table beside the fire and poor your lead into the cupcakeholder from there.

(It is best to use welding gloves, protective clothes and a facemask....in backorder.)

This lead came out of the backstop and will be recycled into fire-202s pellets  later as shown in the video's.
I cleaned the backstoplead as good as could before it went into the melting-pot.
My backstop contains old clothes, which makes the backstop very silent.
Old clothes can take the impact of the pellet very well, only disadvantage is the waste coming from it...



Do not overfill the melting-pot which is on the fire.
I did my melting in two turns,



clean the lead from dirt with a pushing hoe at a save distance and put the dirt into a bucket
You never know what reaction the dirt with give once burning in the pot.



wait until the cupcakes are solid before moving them to the towel



We are ready for the LEE -pot;

"Cowboy T Are you ready?"

[melloroadman]

Another way of keeping the lead from sticking to the tin is to spray the tin with penetrating oil and wipe clean . Marvin

[bluzjamer]

Neat stuff, used to mold my fishing egg sinkers.

[airpuffhunter]

great place, very informative
thank you

[woodland]

For starting with my first molding I followed all the advices of the video's of the San Francisco liberal above.

And it worked well to make a list what to get.

Just before starting i looked at the video's  twice.  "Hot metal!"

i added an extra bucket of water besides the table in case i should burn myself.

I started melting at 9 and later turned the pot back to 4.  700 degrees is better 900 degrees.
The lead gets to hot.
Cooling the mould after using it 5 times gave the best results for loosening  the pellets and the sprue.
Together with prepairing the mould with penetrating oil (thx for the tip)
I could collect the sprue in my glove and put it back in the pot everytime.
No hammering on the tin needed.
The sawdust worked well for getting clean lead.
I bought that at a supermarket, they sell it for pet's.

The lee pro 4-20 is a great piece of kit.
Easy to use and the cupcake is a nice size to feed the pot (4 at the time but you can use less)
Welding gloves; you can't do without and the same is for the helmet although sometimes it's better to lift the front when the smoke gets under it. We don't want that.
The gloves only protect for seconds so check in the meanwhile if your handles and screws of the mold are still tight enough.
Mine came loose, but were easy to adjust again. So be aware of that.

The lead came from the backstop so by re-using my old pelletlead the gear makes it self usefull

so far so good

the next step will be sizing the pellets

[Gary]

Good info,I even learned about the saw dust to flux with. I have been casting bullets for 30+ years and have always used bullet lube or candle wax to flux with. The part about cooling the moulds I think is a little off. If my mould was taking to long for the lead to set I would lower the temp of the pot.
Gary