Making lead wire

[fingers284]

So I've only got 20 or 30 projects on the go so was thinking what else needed started without finishing in a timely mater...and came up with the idea of making some extruding dies for smooth sided lead .459 slugs for powder coating but need a simple method to come up with the "wire-line" slug blanks that are close to finished weight.

I've thought about a couple of methods that "might work", Hydraulic force through a die from a large cold billet( I can probably come up with 40 tons of force with farm junk on hand) Or, the other thought was to "large pot melt" about 50-80 lbs of lead and open-valve pour a suitable stream of lead into a 45 gallon drum of cold water, basically make a bunch of 4 ft "close to .400" lead rods.
I;m open to all criticism & other ideas pls...

 

[yomomma]

The russians are good at this game. When I was looking at making my own shot I found lots of russian videos for doing what you are thinking. Will try to find them

 

[yomomma]

 

[yomomma]

 

[Rayleigh_Scattering]

I’ve used the extrusion approach to make .300 lead rods. Steel cylinder, snugly fitting steel rod, die at the bottom with a hole in it for the metal to extrude from.

It is fairly simple, but takes a surprising amount of pressure.

They don’t come out totally straight but it’s soft lead, so who cares.

Do make sure you have some way to pull the plunger back up. A bit of material leaks into the gap and will bind it.

But at .4 you might be better off casting it.

 

[Auggie Doggie]

Interesting videos. I wonder how much lead dust is produced making that buckshot.

Auggie D.

 

[yomomma]

Interesting videos. I wonder how much lead dust is produced making that buckshot.

Auggie D.

More than us "westerners" would be comfortable with

 

[freire]

More than us "westerners" would be comfortable with

Who's west of who?

 

[fingers284]

I’ve used the extrusion approach to make .300 lead rods. Steel cylinder, snugly fitting steel rod, die at the bottom with a hole in it for the metal to extrude from.

It is fairly simple, but takes a surprising amount of pressure.

They don’t come out totally straight but it’s soft lead, so who cares.

Do make sure you have some way to pull the plunger back up. A bit of material leaks into the gap and will bind it.

But at .4 you might be better off casting it.

I was thinking along this line yesterday. I have a couple 3 ft joints of DOM pipe with 1" bore...thinking of pouring them full of alloy ( will be either straight COWW or I/2 and 1/2 pure)
and attaching a die to one end and a plunger set up at the other. I have a 20 ton press available now but not sure if it would be strong enough (might have to shorten the DOM to a foot each). If I need a stronger press can probably cobble up something...sure wish I had Roy's 150 tonner Ken!!! Will probably make die's to cover all the bases -.308-378-459.

Thanks for the vid's YO but I have to do something at this end...their all just a black square.

 

[fingers284]

I’ve used the extrusion approach to make .300 lead rods. Steel cylinder, snugly fitting steel rod, die at the bottom with a hole in it for the metal to extrude from.

It is fairly simple, but takes a surprising amount of pressure.

They don’t come out totally straight but it’s soft lead, so who cares.

Do make sure you have some way to pull the plunger back up. A bit of material leaks into the gap and will bind it.

But at .4 you might be better off casting it.

Your probably right there. the most logical way to do this would be to drill out an old unused mold to drop some wad cutter type slugs of the appropriate dia. ...but that would be waaay to easy.

 

[Rayleigh_Scattering]

Lead is super casting friendly. High density, low surface tension, and almost any contaminants are light enough that they float to the top. If you have access to tubes of a close-to-correct diameter that would be a good approach.

 

[yomomma]

Thanks for the vid's YO but I have to do something at this end...their all just a black square.

...

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[mulenv]

.459" should extrude with a .457" ish button.if recalling correctly.
Pure lead BH 4-6 no exceptions.
I do these for .452, and .50 cores on jacketed closest to your sizes.

What kind of lead are you working with?

 

[fingers284]

.459" should extrude with a .457" ish button.if recalling correctly.
Pure lead BH 4-6 no exceptions.
I do these for .452, and .50 cores on jacketed closest to your sizes.

What kind of lead are you working with?

Well, health issues have put this project in the same bin as the 20 or 30 other projects previously mentioned, but when i do reserect the project I will want to end up with .458 naked slugs and will be using plain COWW lead so in the 10-12 BN range.