@Kenk I've been speaking to you for a while about casting and was able to do a few today.  I took plenty of pictures so hopefully you can follow along. I've always heard a picture is worth 1000 words.

The first handful of pours will need to go back into the pot until the mold warms up enough.  But, as you can see, the texture and the frosting and the ridges and just generally looking bad, lets you know to dump those back into the pot.



I kept a few bullets out to show how they progressively get better when everything starts working together.  The far left is before the mold gets warm enough, all the way through to the right when everything is as good as it's going to be.



Once everything is the right temp, casting goes pretty quickly.  I was able to use my little double cavity mold and have a box of bullets poured in around 15 minutes.  After you do this for a little while, you get into a groove.



After they cool down for a bit, I like to powder coat mine.  Some people will run them through a sizer die, but these poured perfectly so I didn't see a reason.  After sizing though, it's time to powder coat.

I use the shake-n-bake method. It's the easiest out there.

I put the bullets into plastic butter bowl or cool whip bowl with a lid, and use a teaspoon of powder coat and dump in the bowl with the bullets.





Then you put the lid on the bowl and swirl it around for a minute or two.  You'll be able to see when they're coated well.  *I will note that I used OD drab green on these, and they had a bunch of light spots that wouldn't cover no matter what I did or how long I swirled them around.  Some powder is just that way.  I am still going to use those bullets, but going forward, I doubt that I'll use the OD green anymore and will use another that covers better.  But, this is what I got this batch so that's what I'm showing.



After you coat the bullets, I dump them out over a mesh wire and let the excess powder catch on a piece of aluminum foil underneath, where I can catch it and put it back into the bowl for the next batch so it's not wasted.  You can see the little pile of powder in the middle of the foil where I dumped it out of the butter bowl.



Then dump the coated bullets onto a little baking tray covered with parchment paper so it doesn't stick and let it bake for 15 or 20 minutes at 400*.  I generally try to keep any of the bullets from touching each other, but sometimes it's unavoidable.



After it cools down, you're ready to load them.



I hope this helps explain it a bit better.

powder coating IS the way to go in my opinion! about the only thing I do different is I size them after powder coating. that way if some bullets stuck together or there are any kind of irregularities, the sizer smooths them out.

Thank you John, I should have all my needed equipment and other stuff soon. I really appreciate the photos and info on this and hope to get started by the end of the week time permitting

Ken

blaster, I agree on it not hurting to resize after powder coating.  That doesn't hurt anything.

I mostly wanted to take some pictures to show Kenk some of what I was trying to explain.  I can tell him the first multiple bullets won't have the mold heated up good, or I can show him what that looks like.  Then he'll be able to look and go "oh yeah, it needs to be warmer" or the mold isn't hot enough yet.  That's when you just dump those back into the pot next time.  No big deal.  It's not the end of the world.  It's going to happen.  Expect it.

That was the first real problem I ran into is figuring out where/how to set my temp.

Kenk:
Too cold:  wrinkly clumpy frosty looking
just right: looks like shiny silver soup
too hot:  purplish blue hue color

I have several friends who has forgotten more about casting than I ever knew that helped me learn.  And I'm just trying to pass along something that may help someone else.  No one was born knowing how to do anything and this is no different.

Though, this isn't all that hard once you do it a few times and figure things out.

I hope some of the pics and explanation helped.  If not you, then maybe it'll help someone else.  It's a little daunting at first, but you got this.

I hope you can get started casting this week.  This is my favorite time of year to cast when it's not too hot out, not too cold.  I try to cast a couple times a year.  First of spring when it's starting to warm up, and early fall.  I try to cast enough to last until next time.

Me too, thanks again John