lead casting recepies

M

murph

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Thunder Bay Ont
Hi all,
I am going to try casting for my 9mm and 357 mag in the spring. I have a free source for pure lead. My question is what do I have to add to it and in what quantities to make it hard enough for these calibers. I am brand new to this but have been doing some research on the topic.
Thanks,
Murph
 
Take a look at the Castboolits website, good bunch of guys, and all the information on casting and lead recipes than you can imagine.
 
Trade some of the pure lead to the black powder guys for some thing harder

pure lead will have a hardness around 5 BHN and you need at least 11 BHN or harder
 
The best thing to do is to mix the lead 50-50 with scrap lead-based wheelweights. That will give you all the alloying elements you need in one fell swoop, for cheap. If you try to make your own alloy by buying tin, antimony, arsenic, whatever at normal metal prices you will pay through the nose.

Antimony is a metal, just like lead and tin.
 
BattleRife said:
The best thing to do is to mix the lead 50-50 with scrap lead-based wheelweights. That will give you all the alloying elements you need in one fell swoop, for cheap. If you try to make your own alloy by buying tin, antimony, arsenic, whatever at normal metal prices you will pay through the nose.

Antimony is a metal, just like lead and tin.
Click to expand...

Murph. A quick place to find the "street value" of antimony is on Ebay......and you aren't going to like what you see if it's the same as the last time I looked. Around $7.50/lb plus shipping if I remember correctly.

Stop messing around with the pure stuff....get some wheel weights and be done with it.
 
Good old wheelweights. I would hate to have to carry all the wheelweights I've fired through my 9's and 38's. I use WW for lighter rifle loads, too. They can also be hardened by dumping in water right out of the mould. As posted above, go to Cast Boolits. Tons of good info there.:p
 
AIM will sell Tin to bullet casters. They will also mix alloy antimony with lead to your specifications and they sell 92% Lead, 6% Antimony and 2% Tin alloy.

When I talked with them on the phone they seemed very keen to supply do it yourselfers. If you want Antimony, other than from wheel weights, it is best to buy it already mixed with lead. Getting Antimony to dissolve in Lead is very difficult for the home caster from what I have been told.

I agree with all the others, Castboolits is a fantastic source of information.

Gunstock
 
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