When casting new bullets, what should i drop them onto to avoid damage? I tried dropping them onto a cloth but i am not sure if this puts a little deformity on the dropped side of the bullet.(looks like an imprint of the terry material. thanks

Ya must be droppin' em pretty hot if its still soft enough to take the cloth imprint. Try letin' em cool a bit more and use several layers of the material, I use a bath towel folded to give me four layers and it don't mark my boolits at all. Or you can put a bucket of water under your castin' setup and drop them on a edge of a sponge floating on the water sos they roll it over. Just don't get even a drop a water in your pot. It will get your attention real quick as the lead comes flyin' out.

WHEN I CAST BULLETS I GET A SMALL CARDBOARD BOX LIKE A BEER FLAT AND PROP UP THE END OF IT A LITTLE SO THE BULLETS ROLL TO ONE SIDE OF IT.
AFTER THEY HAVE SET IN YHE MOULD A LITTLE JUST DROP THEM INTO YHE RAISED END OF THE BOX. NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEMS WITH DEFORMATION.

THE 2ND AMENDMENT PROTECTS US ALL.........

Try a bucket of room temp or cooler water with at least 12 inches of water in it. It will quench-harden you bullets if your alloy has some antimony and arsenic in it, like wheelweights do.

Poor man's linotype.

regards,
Graycg

I tried dropping into a bucket of water, but noticed little bumps on the surface where they landed on other bullets. Someone suggested a sponge in the water and it works great. I drop onto one end and the bullet tips the sponge over and rolls off, no more bumps.
lar.

Make sure that your alloy is the right hardness for your speed. Too hard a bullet will not obdurate at a low velocity and accuracy will be affectd IMHO. I find this especially true at all but full power magnum loads in handguns and at rifle velocitys over 1600 fps it is usually unnecessary. Gianni.

Greg, I seldom cast much any more, but when I did, I used a one-foot square of GI sleeping pad foam under a folded towel.

That 1/4" thick foam is fabulous stuff. I buy used pads for a few bucks each and use the foam for weatherstripping, rifle bench pads, mouse pads, floor mats, field sitting pads, bullet catchers and more.

I use a drawer from an old discarded desk. My wife cover a foam pad with material to cover the bottom of the drawer. The foam is about one inch thick. Then, she made a second covered foam pad that also fits in the drawer, but is about four inches shorter. This goes into the drawer and leaves a step at one end of the drawer. The top pad is larger enough to hold 20 to 40 bullets, depending on size without them banging into each other. When the pad is well covered, the bullets are carefully pushed into the lower pad as a storage area, which BTW, should hold as many as 200 or so 30 caliber bullets. Dented or otherwise damaged bullets have almost become a thing of the past by this system.
Paul B.

greg p,
Try dropping them on your foot for perfect bullets. Make sure you only allow for 10 seconds of time from pour and always wear sandals and no socks
You'll see how perfect they are after the first one!
best,
bhtr

My casting buddy and I would rotate places every 15 minutes. We rotated two eight or ten cavity molds and dropped the bullets into a 5 gallon bucket half full of water on the floor. My buddy would feed cleaned ingots onto the second top dip pot and pour into my bottom pour pot. We used torches from a propane tank on our pots and when the water reached the top of the bucket we quit for the night.
The bullets did not deform from hitting anything and they increased in hardness for the next month.