Melted some lead this week

[Slow Hand]

Been meaning to do this for awhile. Ended up with about 145 pounds of ‘pure’ lead. Now need to alloy much of it down for my normal 20:1 alloy.




it just doesn’t look as impressive when it’s somewhat organized!

 

[DadSmith]

How long does it take to melt all that down?

 

[Cynical]

Nice, I’ve got so much soft lead I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t cast muzzle loader bullets and I have enough jigs and sinkers to last a lifetime. I tried dumping soft lead into wheel weight lead and see if I could stretch my supply out a bit. Anything more than 1 lb of soft to 6lb of wheel weights and they cast undersized and keyholed at 15 yds. I’ve got a 5 gallon bucket full of 1/4 lb. ingots “cause I stole my wife’s mini-muffin tin” to make them and don’t really have any purpose for them.

 

[Slow Hand]

How long does it take to melt all that down?

That pile took about two hours or so. It’s been awhile since I’ve done it and had to remember how the turkey fryer worked! Once you get a half a pot or so melted, it goes quicker adding lead. I was melting down rolled up sheet lead that came from an X-ray room years ago. I sawzalled it into pieces that would fit in the Dutch oven. I have a slotted spoon and a couple of ladles to clean the lead and to dip it out into the Ingot molds.

 

[Slow Hand]

Nice, I’ve got so much soft lead I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t cast muzzle loader bullets and I have enough jigs and sinkers to last a lifetime. I tried dumping soft lead into wheel weight lead and see if I could stretch my supply out a bit. Anything more than 1 lb of soft to 6lb of wheel weights and they cast undersized and keyholed at 15 yds. I’ve got a 5 gallon bucket full of 1/4 lb. ingots “cause I stole my wife’s mini-muffin tin” to make them and don’t really have any purpose for them.

That’s odd. Pure lead usually does cast a bit smaller, but I’ve mixed lead and WW 50/50 for years and had good luck. It’s not cheap but if you can source plumbing solder, modern stuff is 95/5, which is tin to antimony. Most of what I shoot (handguns at 1000fps or less) is cast out of 20:1 lead to tin.
I do powder coat and they say you can drive softer lead faster with the coating, but I haven’t tried any specific tests to see how well that holds up.

 

[DadSmith]

That’s odd. Pure lead usually does cast a bit smaller, but I’ve mixed lead and WW 50/50 for years and had good luck. It’s not cheap but if you can source plumbing solder, modern stuff is 95/5, which is tin to antimony. Most of what I shoot (handguns at 1000fps or less) is cast out of 20:1 lead to tin.
I do powder coat and they say you can drive softer lead faster with the coating, but I haven’t tried any specific tests to see how well that holds up.

What mixture would be required for a 44mag say 1800fps? Or would your mix work as long as it was powder coated?

 

[Slow Hand]

1800 is scooting. Does your bullet have a gas check? I personally would not want to try to push a plain based bullet that fast.

 

[Slow Hand]

There’s a formula, which I cannot recall that basically correlated pressure to bhn. I would looks through the LASC cast bullets pages and especially articles by Glen Fryxell, he’s a Freind and a very knowledgeable caster (and a scientist with multiple patents in his name!)

 

[Whip_McCord]

There’s a formula, which I cannot recall that basically correlated pressure to bhn. I would looks through the LASC cast bullets pages and especially articles by Glen Fryxell, he’s a Freind and a very knowledgeable caster (and a scientist with multiple patents in his name!)

Below are the formulas. I put them into a spreadsheet for easy calculation.

Ideal hardness in BHN = Pressure / 1,920

Maximum BHN = Pressure / 1,422

 

[shibumiseeker]

I’ve been cleaning brass and lead from an old range. I brought home about 150 to 200 pounds of scrap bullets. So far I’ve got about 40 pounds of lead ingots. Although I have plenty of lead electric casting pots, I’ve been doing it on a camp stove with a cast-iron pot typically takes me about an hour to do 10 or 15 pounds depending upon how picky I am about making sure that all the lead is out of the bullet casings.

I bring home about 50-60 pounds of bullets each trip, and will probably end up with a couple of thousand pounds of lead overall total.

 

[Leadeye]

Always looking for lead.

 

[Michigan Slim]

I've got a couple hundred pounds to process yet. Time is the issue.

 

[DadSmith]

1800 is scooting. Does your bullet have a gas check? I personally would not want to try to push a plain based bullet that fast.

I don't make my own. I'm looking into it, have been for a long time.
I've been using coated Hoosier Bullets, or Summit City Bullets.
Their BHN is 16 IIRC. I've been shooting their 180gr FN at around 1750fps in my 6.5" revolver. With no lead fouling.
I'm sure in a Henry rifle it will be well over 1800 fps.
That's why I ask about it. They are not gas check Bullets.