Lead for cast bullets

blacksmithden said:
With a very few exceptions, linotype is a thing of the past and I wish everyone the best of luck finding it......yea, I know...a few of you have, but you're the exception to the rule.
Click to expand...
Anyone can be "the exception to the rule" if they take the time to check out the babbitt offerings from various industrial sellers.

The outfit selling to sawmills that operated/operates out of Surrey had one of their babbitt formulas that is nothing other than linotype, although I believe they called it "genuine nickle" as its trade name or something like that.

As for pure lead, the nuclear medicine department of your local hospital is your friend. Those big 8 lb lead balls they ship the isotopes in are made out of pure lead. Tell them you're casting figurines for a diorama or whatever...
 
I have been casting bullets for over 30 years now and the last time I bought bullets for my handguns was never, rifles once in a while when I have specific needs, other than that it is cast only in my firearms. I even shoot cast in my M1 Garand which makes most people cringe.

Here are some articles to start reading to get a general feel for casting and bullet composition.
http://www.lasc.us/ArticleIndex.htm
Start to read on the right hand side "Cast bullet alloys and alloy maintenance" and it will answer all you questions about alloying the specifics of it, etc. On the left side you will find an article on "Heat treating lead-Antimony-Arsenic Alloys" which can be used to bump up your WW hardness to shoot in faster rifles like a 30-06 so the old adage of 1800fps is the max a cast bullet will do is pure bunk.

For most handguns just simple WW air cooled is just fine and for the .44 magnum's and up you can use WW water cooled.

For Black powder, when you get a bucket of WW from the tire shop, sort the weights out into normal clip on's, the stick on kind is pure lead, and throw the steel and zinc ones away.

Pick tire shops that cater to your specific needs at the time. If you want pure lead for BP then hit tire shops that do a lot of mag wheel work, usually the rice burner crowd can be spotted a mile away and the lawn mower sounding mufflers usually can be heard in the vicinity also. Here you will get a lot of stick on weights and some zinc because if it is a foreign car imported then all the WW are actually zinc (lead is banned in Europe and it is coming here).

If you want just WW with no stick on's then visit an industrial tire shop that caters to semi trucks etc. I picked up two buckets last week at a Kal Tire that only does semi trucks and found no zinc or stick on's and most of the weights were huge , almost the size of a small banana.

Visit http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ and the whole site is dedicated to nothing but casting bullets for various firearms. Wear protection in a well ventilated area while rendering lead and casting and have fun.
 
All lead bullets must be lubed correct? And sized? Lubrisizer a must? Also new to casting my own bullets - for a glock- gasp:p
Already have the answer to that many times over, just looking for info on lubing and sizing.
 
CanAm said:
Find a battery recycler. They will alloy the lead as needed for a good price.
Click to expand...

if i recall, all of the reloading books specifically recommend not to use lead salvaged from batteries as they give off lots of unhealthy/poisonous fumes when the lead gets melted.
 
In answer to spyderwire.....Lubing and sizing can best be done on a lubesizer with dif. dies to match your bore size, RCBS and Lyman make good ones for about $150, dies are about $20 US, and a top punch to match your bullet is $8. Lee makes dies that can be used on your press and you tumble lube in a sep. operation, I find the tumble lube and the final product to be messy and leaves your once shiny bullets, really ugly. If you only plan to do pistol bullets and you want to do alot of them, quickly, then the Star sizer is right for you, a little more money but capable of doing 1k or so /hr.
 
Spyderfire1 said:
Thanks Ben, another question, Steel or aluminum casting blocks. single, 2, 4, or 6 cavity. Anyone have any info or opinions?
Click to expand...



i've used both steel & aluminum and don't have any complaints about either. the lee stuff is good as long as you follow their directions. if you're casting for pistol, anything is better than a single cavity. while i have a 6 cavity for a 45 acp, it can become fairly labourious casting so i try to pick up commercially cast bullets when i can. last time i was at the gun store, they were selling 1,000 cast 45 acp for under $100, which is pretty reasonable considering the time it would take to cast the same amount of bullets. there is a guy in castor, ab who sells 500, 200 gn 45 acp cast for $40 or so, which is also very reasonable


i cast for a 303 using a single and, if i were to buy another rifle mold, would look at getting a double. while i use the reduced loads for my boy to shoot out of his 303, i see steve ridgeway indicates several different loads for hunting with a 303 which i'm going to try over the next couple of weeks.

regards
 
casting

Spyderfire1 said:
Thanks Ben, another question, Steel or aluminum casting blocks. single, 2, 4, or 6 cavity. Anyone have any info or opinions?
Click to expand...

get what goes with your budget. I have both lee aluminium 6 cav and steel lyman also a couple others. Lee 6 cavity for my .44mag and .45acp with the tumblelube using wheelwieght lead. I am lucky to get my wheelwieghts for free so my cost per round on the 44 is about 8 cents and the 45 5 cents.
Acuracy is decent. If you are shooting competitvly maybe a high end casting set up is for you if just plinking?? as I said your budget.
I was told by a guy at kal tire that they are moving to steel weights fairly soon so lead will be a valuable comodity. just my 2 cents
 
I have over 150 molds in use(not at the same time), I use 6 different lubesizers, 2-Lyman, 2 RCBS, and 2 STAR air driven units. I recommend any of that sizing equip.... For moulds, the best for the money are SAECO, RCBS, Lyman, in that order, best "buy" of the bunch are the Lyman 4 cav. for pistol bullets, and all are steel molds. In addition there are many custom molds that I can recommend...NEI, LBT, Mountain molds,(all are alum). CBE from Australia are excellent and avail. in brass, Paul Jones, David Mos,Steve Brooks, all make wonderful molds.
Over the years, the only ones that have given me grief are Lee(most by far), Rapine, and Hoch......IMHO
 
you can get lead from medical equipment like xray machines. the lead is safe to use and you may be able to get it for next to nothing.
 
gregc said:
if i recall, all of the reloading books specifically recommend not to use lead salvaged from batteries as they give off lots of unhealthy/poisonous fumes when the lead gets melted.
Click to expand...

----------------------------------------------

The warnings about smelting automotive batteries to recover the lead they contain needs a bit of explanation. Doing so really does have the potential to harm or even kill you and here is why. Maintenance free/low maintenance batteries use calcium metal-doped lead to catalyze the hydrogen gas generated from water electrolysis back into water. That is what makes the batteries low maintenance or maintenance free, you don't need to add water to the cells as often like in the old days. When the battery lead is melted down there is enough sulfuric acid from residual electrolyte trapped in the lead dioxide and lead framework of the battery plates to react with the small amount of calcium metal in the lead alloy. Normally when sulfuric acid (or water) gets in contact with calcium metal it undergoes a rather vigorous reaction that generates hydrogen gas. In and of itself this is no big deal, hydrogen is a simple non-toxic asphyxiant that is also flammable. But the lead alloy used in batteries also contains a bit of antimony and even arsenic to help harden and strengthen the lead to withstand the vibration and general knocking-about batteries have to withstand in order to survive normal automotive use. When hydrogen comes in contact with arsenic and antimony, or compounds of these two elements, the hydrogen reacts to form ammonia analogues called arsine and stibine, AsH3 and SbH3. Both of these are heavy gases and both have the similar characteristic odors of rotting fish. In World War One the Germans experimented with these, along with phosphine, another rotting-fish-smelling gaseous ammonia analogue with formula PH3, as war gases. As such they were highly effective since they are deadly in amounts too small to easily detect. In even smaller amounts that are too small to immediately kill they cause rather painful lung damage that often eventually leads to emphysema and lung cancer.
So, leave smelting car batteries or using lead smelted from them to professional recyclers. Many folks including myself have successfully smelted batteries and lived to tell about it, but the risk is just too great to mess with the stuff.

taken from castboolits website http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=40769
 
Tin in bullet alloy

johnone said:
WHEEL WEIGHTS work just fine, melt them down, remove junk, add 2-3% tine by weight, voila a very nice and very hard alloy for pistol and rifle....

WW without the tin will NOT give you cosistent bullets, adding tin allows the lead and antimony to mix....
John
Click to expand...

My understanding is that tin's primary function is to reduce the surface tension of the alloy, permitting more complete mould fill and that the secondary function is as a hardener, although going beyond 2% tin for this purpose gets you to the point of diminishing returns.

Lead clip-on wheelweights around these parts are at .5-1.0% tin, 2.5-3% antimony, .25% arsenic, balance lead.

We have cast hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bullets for folks using their wheelweights (on a special order basis) and they work just fine, giving you a nice medium 12 BHN, fine for velocities up to 1,000 fps with the correct powder and resultant pressure curves.

It's the flux and the manner in which you flux the alloy that combines the tin, antimony (and arsenic) with the lead to get consistent alloy.

On another topic in the thread, here in the states we're selling 2/6/92 certified foundry bullet alloy for $1.67 US per pound in small quantities. Can't export up your way, but just FYI.

Brad
 
Last edited:
Ben; here is another source... I have been thinking of phoneing them for a price per tone... as I have got casting machines now and WW dont have enough tin to flow correctly thru the machines and WW often clog the nozzles after about 500 bullets casting which I have to clean out the nozzel at that point. I have to over heat the lead too to get them to fill out the molds correctly which isnt the best.

Tin gives the lead fluidity makes it flow better and fill out the molds better

http://www.alchemycastings.com/lead-products/Pricing/203/CDNZone203-Bullet.pdf
 
American prices on 2/6 Pb by the ton

msg.drew said:
Ben; here is another source... I have been thinking of phoneing them for a price per tone... as I have got casting machines now and WW dont have enough tin to flow correctly thru the machines and WW often clog the nozzles after about 500 bullets casting which I have to clean out the nozzel at that point. I have to over heat the lead too to get them to fill out the molds correctly which isnt the best.

Tin gives the lead fluidity makes it flow better and fill out the molds better

http://www.alchemycastings.com/lead-products/Pricing/203/CDNZone203-Bullet.pdf
Click to expand...

Mayco in Granite City, IL is under a dollar (US) per pound on half-truckload lots. I assume they could export. Delivery across most of the US is about $.03 /pound.

We used to by our alloy there, FWIW. Fast service, excellent alloy.

Brad
 
johnone said:
WHEEL WEIGHTS work just fine, melt them down, remove junk, add 2-3% tine by weight, voila a very nice and very hard alloy for pistol and rifle....

WW without the tin will NOT give you cosistent bullets, adding tin allows the lead and antimony to mix....
John
Click to expand...

For moderate velocity pistol bullets I mix 1 part linotype lead with three parts wheel weight lead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom