Being cheap about the wrong things and frugal with those that are right, I gathered up a can of fine sawdust from a shop saw that had been cross-cutting a batch of really pitchy pine planks.  Works good for me, although I am sure it is not the best.

Marvelux flux always rusts my lead pot. Think the label says it will not rust your lead pot, huh?

I use old bullet lube for fluxing.

Never lube a mold with wax oil or bullet lube.

Soapstone works excellent for dry lube and keeps lead from sticking to the sprue plate and mold. 

Hoch molds often need adjustment and vented. Once you get it right they're hard to beat. 

     Joe.

My shooting has deteriorated over the years but my casting ability has improved with age.  Here's what I do to produce excellent bullets.

1. Clean the pot and ladle with boiling water and a wire brush. Be sure all traces of old (unknown) alloy are removed.
2. Fill the pot with RotoMetals 20/1 alloy.
3. Use a casting thermometer and cast at 750-775 degrees.
4. Do not use flux of any kind.  After each casting session, refill the pot with sprue and new alloy as needed. Use a long spoon to stir, and scrape the sides and bottom of the pot while stirring.  The carbon in the rust scraped from the sides is all the flux you will ever need.
5. Stir until the crap on top turns to a light fluffy grey residue then skim.
6. Remove all traces of Frankford Arsenal mould prep from your mould.
7. Do not smoke your mould.
8. Buy some "Mould Prep" from Buffalo Arms.  This is colloidal graphite in Isopropyl Alcohol.
9. Use the Mould Prep to lube the locating pins and lightly coat the top of the mould and the underside of the sprue plate.  Make sure that no Mould Prep seeps in the mould cavities.
10. Cast with a full ladle.
11. Hold the mould sideways.  Bring the ladle into full contact with the sprue plate and then rotate the mould and ladle together to fill the mould.
12. Be patient. It will take quite a few bullets to "season" the mould.

Good luck.

JackHughs 

Quote:

Brudford - take Paul's advice to the bank!
* Drop the forearm of your 32-40 and the Douglas barrel will be marked for it's land & groove dimensions.  My Douglas barrel is marked .312 - .3201 meaning the groove depth is 0.0081.  This really is not a shallow groove depth. IMHO, shooting a smokeless .320 diameter bullet that is groove diameter will also provide good groups
* My Hoch 322-200 is not marked with a "D" and the base diameters are 0.320
Quote:

OK, let's determine how to cast fatter bullets:
Put this website in your references. A section is Cast Bullet Reference on Lead Alloy ... (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links);
Read the "Alloy Shrinkage of Cast Bullets section and memorize this wording: "From the above two tables it can be seen that the softer the alloy and the larger diameter the bullet that more shrinkage will occur."
Meaning the harder the alloy, the less shrinkage!  So probably your scrap lead of an unknown alloy was either range lead or clip on wheel weights.  Range lead Bhn hardness can be any hardness under the sun.  COWW's come in 2 harnesses depending on the manufacturer ... Bhn 12.5 or 15.4.  Bhn 15.4 is the approximate hardness of Lyman #2 which is ~Bhn 16. You will have to have a lead hardness tester to determine the hardness of any wheel weights if you have some and use it   
Here are some recipes to make Lyman#2:
Recipe 1:
    9 lbs of wheel weight lead (clip-ons, not the stick-on ones)
    1 lb of 50/50 lead/tin bar solder.*
Recipe 2:
    4 lbs of linotype
    1 lb of 50/50 lead/tin bar solder.
    5 lbs pure lead (here's where you can use those stick-ons)
... or just use Bhn15.4 COWW's that is close enough to Bhn16 
You posted that you had 322-200's that were I believe 0.324.  Don't throw them out, just order a .322 lube sizer from Lee Precision and squeeze them down.

From the looks of your target - your over the issues and on your way.  Congratulations

J Louis-what diameter are your Hoch 322-200 bullets?

John the Hoch Mould was .319 tapering up to .322. I sold it to one of the fellows on this site for his new to him CPA.
I moved away from the tapered bullets quite sometime back, I have found that a cylindrical bullet provides better results in regards to an increase in consistant accuracy. The nose on a tapered bullet has to move back substantially to enable the bullet to completly fill the grooves. Thus the odds are greater for the nose to move / slump off and no longer being central with the bore. A cylindrical mould is harder to come by and the bullets do seat a little harder so it might not be a good choice for use with a CPA plugged case seater. If one is using a mechanical seater I highly recommend their use.

JLouis

John interesting reading!
I spent a little over a year experimenting with harder alloys containing antimony, Lino, hardball, Lyman #2 etc. and I shot some really nice 200yd. targets but in the long run the consistency in accuracy just didn't materialize for me so I went back to lead and tin alloys. I found 1-18 lead tin to be the best all around with 1-16 the best for my use. The harder seems to be the better if leading does not become a problem of which I started to experiance at 1-10. The nose slumping of a bullet is not conducive to good accuracy and any increased hardness to minimize it is an extreme advantage based on my personal experiance. A friend of mine did catch box tests with 1-20 and found nose slumps from 5 to 12 thous. with the spitzer bullets and there long unsupported noses.

JLouis

John, you mention 1:16 alloy and nose slump... Dan Theodore, a BPCR gun crank played around with alloys with large bores, particularly the Mini Groove (Money Bullet) he invented for Dr Keith Lay - a top ranking BPCR long range shooter.  Dan did a subsequent full detail (with bullet pictures) of the pluses using this 1:16 in an issue of Black Powder Cartridge News.  Here's a recap of the 1:16 that Keith sent to me before Dan did the BPCR article...

Dan tested an alloy of 97.5/1.25/1.25 which he says equals the 8.2 BHN hardness of 16-1 lead/tin.

But, a different alloy has became his favorite because it is so stable after it's initial hardening period.

Dan calls that his three-seven alloy. It is three parts Lyman #2 and seven parts pure lead.
It contains 97% lead, 1.5% tin and 1.5% antimony.
After 18 hours, it hardness tests at 9.8 BHN, and remains at that level for (at least) a year.

It is hard enough to hold the rifling in fast twist barrels, and prevents nose slump in paper patched bullets with the Money nose.

Note the ... It is three parts Lyman #2 and seven parts pure lead instead of a 1:16 straight Sn & Pb.  I now have one casting pot dedicated to the three-seven alloy for BPCR bullets.  Next batch of 32's & 38's will be cast with this alloy mix