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Posted: 6/16/2009 12:25:26 PM EDT
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I just got a considerable amount of lead from around my chimney. I presume it's pure lead, or something close. I want to eventually melt this into ingots, which will be then melted into bullets.
What is the best way for me to add stuff to the lead to make bullets of sufficient hardness? What should I add, and where do I get it easily and cheaply? How can I be sure that I add the right amount, and the bullets come out the right hardness? Total newbie to this aspect of shooting, (but not reloading) so I want to do it right from the start. Cheap/easy/low-cost solutions appreciated, but the emphasis is on doing it right. Figure my needs range from round ball black powder revolver to Semi-auto pistol. If It is possible, some rifle, also. I'd want to add whatever it takes to accomplish all the above, so as to keep my options open. |
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Depends on what you are casting.
38 Special and 45 ACP do great with pure lead. Black Powder almost demands pure lead. Since you don't know how pure your lead is you might want to take a shot at harding it by mixing it with refined range lead, make sure you render out all the crap first. If you are casting rifle bullets you might want to do more. |
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I've had good success w/ 50-50 wheel weight/pure lead alloy. I would throw even more pure lead in if I had it but I have more WW ingots than lead ingots. Water quenched WW/Lead alloy will drop around 18-22 bhn. You only need around 10-14 for most pistol. Some like even softer.
I've tried pure lead for 9mm...A LOT of leading for me. YMMV. If you don't have any WW, try to find some tin. Roughly 2% will reduce the surface tension of your alloy and increase the "flowability" of your alloy into bullet molds. 2% is about 6 oz per 20 lbs lead. But yeah, like pdg said above, it depends on what caliber/velocity you're casting for. |
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The flashing is probably pure lead, or near enough. Add tin solder. AssaultRifler was buying rolls of tin solder from Grainger at a bargain price.
The Antimony Man LA Silouette Club I found an article about making a hardness tester; I'll see if I can turn it up again. You'll have to weigh the components of the mixture to get the alloy you want. A hardness tester just tells how hard the alloy turned out. Here's something, although it's not the article I wanted, I like this set up about as well. Home Made Lead Hardness Tester Stolen from castboolits: There is a fairly easy way to measure lead hardness if you can get some pure lead to start with. Take your sample of pure lead, a small ball bearing and the unknown lead sample. Place the ball bearing between the 2 samples and squeeze this sandwich in a vise.
Remove the sandwich and measure the diameter of the 2 dents with a caliper and write down the readings. Square each reading (multiply times themselves). Divide the square of the unknown sample into the square of the pure lead sample and you will get a number larger than 1. (If you don't you went the wrong way). When you get a number larger than 1 multiply it times 5 and that will give you the Brinnell hardness of your sample. The reason you use the number 5 is because that is the Brinnell hardness of lead. The key is the pure sample and your ability to measure the dents but it is not difficult to do and is accurate. |
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Well, the recipes for testing the hardness of the alloy look a bit complicated, and none too exact. Add to that fact that I have nothing to test against.
So I guess I'll have to spring for a store-bought lead hardness tester. No doubt Brownell's has such a thing, and most likely Midway. OK, then, where can I buy some suitable tin to add to the pure lead? Is such a thing available as some form of plumber's solder at Home Depot, for example? Is there some suggested guidline as to how much to add to pure lead so's to get me close? I don't have easy access to linotype, and all the tire shops/garages hereabouts send their wheel weights out to a recycler, so that's out as well. I must have tried a hundred shops, and the local papers converted away from linotype decades ago. |
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http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=54476&highlight=hardening+lead
Link to a discussion on hardening lead Don't know what you're casting for. A .45 ACP is fine with real soft (pure lead), and .38 special as well. If you are casting rifle bullets you'll likely want harder bullets and maybe gas checks as well. That cast boolit forum has lots of good info on it and helpful folks when new guys have questions. |
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Quoted:
The flashing is probably pure lead, or near enough. Add tin solder. AssaultRifler was buying rolls from Grainger at a bargain price. The Antimony Man LA Silouette Club I found an article about making a hardness tester; I'll see if I can turn it up again. You'll have to weigh the components of the mixture to get the alloy you want. A hardness tester just tells how hard the alloy turned out. Here's something, although it's not the article I wanted, I like this set up about as well. Home Made Lead Hardness Tester Stolen from castboolits: There is a fairly easy way to measure lead hardness if you can get some pure lead to start with. Take your sample of pure lead, a small ball bearing and the unknown lead sample. Place the ball bearing between the 2 samples and squeeze this sandwich in a vise.
Remove the sandwich and measure the diameter of the 2 dents with a caliper and write down the readings. Square each reading (multiply times themselves). Divide the square of the unknown sample into the square of the pure lead sample and you will get a number larger than 1. (If you don't you went the wrong way). When you get a number larger than 1 multiply it times 5 and that will give you the Brinnell hardness of your sample. The reason you use the number 5 is because that is the Brinnell hardness of lead. The key is the pure sample and your ability to measure the dents but it is not difficult to do and is accurate. Could you send a link, I have been looking through Grainger and Mcmaster and have had luck finding low price lead |
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I bought the Lee hardness tester. If you are going to roll your own alloys I would recommend the tester. Otherwise you are just guessing. Something else you will want to experiment with is heat treating. After I cast my bullets I put them in a toaster oven at 350 - 400 for 30 mins and then quench them in cold water. After that it takes a couple weeks for them to get to full hardness.
My experience with this is that you need to harden bullets in the 'magnum' calibers like 357 and 44, otherwise you will get a lot of leading in your barrel. I found the Lee moulds and sizers to be a good value. I also found this site to be very helpful. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ |
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Quoted:
I bought the Lee hardness tester. If you are going to roll your own alloys I would recommend the tester. Otherwise you are just guessing. Something else you will want to experiment with is heat treating. After I cast my bullets I put them in a toaster oven at 350 - 400 for 30 mins and then quench them in cold water. After that it takes a couple weeks for them to get to full hardness. My experience with this is that you need to harden bullets in the 'magnum' calibers like 357 and 44, otherwise you will get a lot of leading in your barrel. I found the Lee moulds and sizers to be a good value. I also found this site to be very helpful. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ I haven't tried baking my bullets...interesting. I do water quench everything that's destined for a rifle or the 357, and all of those get gas checked too. Lube and size quickly after casting, then let them sit and harden really good for a few weeks. Never had leading, and I've pushed those pretty hard. |
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Quoted: So I guess I'll have to spring for a store-bought lead hardness tester. No doubt Brownell's has such a thing, and most likely Midway. Or get in contact with a fellow caster and send them a sample for testing.  I have a Lee Hardness tester that I would love to test a sample on for you, or even let you borrow the tester if you want! |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
The flashing is probably pure lead, or near enough. Add tin solder. AssaultRifler was buying rolls of tin solder from Grainger at a bargain price. The Antimony Man LA Silouette Club I found an article about making a hardness tester; I'll see if I can turn it up again. You'll have to weigh the components of the mixture to get the alloy you want. A hardness tester just tells how hard the alloy turned out. Here's something, although it's not the article I wanted, I like this set up about as well. Home Made Lead Hardness Tester Stolen from castboolits: There is a fairly easy way to measure lead hardness if you can get some pure lead to start with. Take your sample of pure lead, a small ball bearing and the unknown lead sample. Place the ball bearing between the 2 samples and squeeze this sandwich in a vise.
Remove the sandwich and measure the diameter of the 2 dents with a caliper and write down the readings. Square each reading (multiply times themselves). Divide the square of the unknown sample into the square of the pure lead sample and you will get a number larger than 1. (If you don't you went the wrong way). When you get a number larger than 1 multiply it times 5 and that will give you the Brinnell hardness of your sample. The reason you use the number 5 is because that is the Brinnell hardness of lead. The key is the pure sample and your ability to measure the dents but it is not difficult to do and is accurate. Could you send a link, I have been looking through Grainger and Mcmaster and have had luck finding low price lead You're not looking for lead, you're looking for tin solder in rolls of about 2 pounds. |
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If you can't get your hands on any wheel weights locally, then linotype works great for hardening pure lead.
You could also use magnum bird shot. It's 6% antimony IIRC. If you water drop you should be able to get a 2% antimony, 2% tin, 96% lead mix to 20 BHN which is plenty hard for 99% of apps. |
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You could mix soder with it to harden it up, done that before it work "ok" but the cost is kinda high.
I say trade the pure lead for WW or sell it and buy WW, Alloy is over rated and over priced IMHO, I have cast 1000's of strait WW bullets zero issues. best of luck |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
So I guess I'll have to spring for a store-bought lead hardness tester. No doubt Brownell's has such a thing, and most likely Midway. Or get in contact with a fellow caster and send them a sample for testing.
I have a Lee Hardness tester that I would love to test a sample on for you, or even let you borrow the tester if you want! Thank you kindly for your kind offer, but my position here–– at least my concept of it–– prohibits me from accepting. If sometime in the future I had to make a decision about sanctioning you, or some other person who had made a similar offer, my acceptance of your (or their) unsolicited, and no doubt no-strings-attached offer might cause some folks heartburn. I've never accepted anything of value on account of my position here, because I never want to be seen as having my integrity compromised. I might be right or wrong, but I never want it even thought that I could be bought. I know you did not make your offer with any sort of ulterior motive in mind, and I would like to accept. Unfortunately, that can't happen, and I hope you don't take offense at my refusal. I make enough mistakes as it is, and this potential problem can be easily be avoided by spending a few bucks. But thanks anyway. |
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I just started casting a few months ago. I have accumulated several different alloys of lead. I made a lead hardness tester. I took an arbor press, .312" ball bearing and a 22 LB weight. I put the ball bearing on the ingot or boolit. I hang the weight off the arm for 30 seconds. The pure lead makes a .240" impression in the lead. Lynotype makes a .130" circle, wheel weights about .160".
Before I had these results and made the tester, I made some 45 boolits out of pure lead. I did not get good results. Last night I mixed WW with the pure lead 4/1. I water dropped the boolits. The boolits measured .140" after water dropping and the ingot mix measured .175" So water dropping does add hardness. The commercial Carroll boolits I used to buy measured .140" so I'm curious as to how these will shoot. I also have a supply of 60/40 tin/lead solder that I add an additional 1% of tin to my alloy. You can mix your pure lead with WW and make the lead last. I have lots to use up. Get some wheel weights. |
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