New to me Mold, More learning experiences.

I bought a new to me mold from a member of Cast Boolits who goes by the handle of dk17hmr.

The mold is a Lee 140 gr .358" SWC single cavity.



When I received it, rather quickly I might add, I noted that the sprue plate was excessively tight. I immediately loosened the sprue plate just enough that it would open and close under it's own weight and a little motion.

Other than that, the mold is in perfect shape. By the looks of the box this mold is more than a few years old, and I noted that the vent lines on this mold were much deeper than the ones originally on my newer Lees.

So, I cleaned it up, and decided I would cast myself some boolits and see how this thing fared.

After getting it heated up, it started casting some decent boolits, though I noted it requires quite a bit of heat to keep this thing happy. Understandable, as the mold blocks are smaller, it loses heat at a more rapid rate than it's larger 2 cavity cousin.



I also caught myself cutting the sprue entirely too quickly, which caused me to tear the sprue.

Later on, I started getting voids in my boolits which were visible to the naked eye.



I got 90 acceptable boolits from my hour of casting. The average diameter of my finished boolits is .3595"

Overall, a good mold, for a good price. Now I just need to work out what it likes.