Old boolets in the pot

[Land Owner]

I recently purchased 500-plus circa 1980 cast boolets that are both gas checked and lubed for $0.05 apiece. The lube is old and cracking. The boolets are of unknown hardness but thought to be softer than when first cast.

I already had 500 circa 1970 mica-lubed cast 357 Mag Hornady Match SWC's of questionable hardness, which do not shoot worth beans in my Ruger SP101.

Any reason not to recast these into the moulds and with the lube I now have?

[HammerMTB]

They're gonna smoke like mad, but you might as well....
The circa 1980 boolits, tho, do you have a gun they fit? If so, you can boil the lube off and relube them, if they are worth saving.

[stubshaft]

You could either sell or trade the Hornadys but other than that I can see no reason not to remelt and cast. The 1980 cast boolits will probably smoke alot so when/if you remelt make sure there is alot of ventilation.

[Bret4207]

The Hornadys are swaged soft lead alloy that won;t take a lot of pressure, especially if they don't fit. Try slowing both groups down to the 750-800 fps area. They can be tumble lubed with Mule Snot. If they are within reasonable size of what the gun wants and you don't push them too hard there's a good chance they'll shoot decent. "Hardness" is irrelevant, the load you have behind them and fit is. If the GC boolits, when lubed, don't shoot well at all then it's either a fit issue, your load or a design your gun simply hates.

[garym1a2]

Questionable bullets I just throw back into the pot with the range recovered lead.
If it's not perfect no sense wasting the primers and powder.

[Boolseye]

They can be tumble lubed with Mule Snot. If they are within reasonable size of what the gun wants and you don't push them too hard there's a good chance they'll shoot decent.
+1 on that. Particularly since they have a gas check.

[rockrat]

I would just tumble lube the '80's ish boolits. Thats what I do with some commercial stuff I bought back in the mid '80's. Works well in my 45acp

[Echo]

If so, you can boil the lube off and relube them, if they are worth saving.

+1, plus tumbling them in Mule Snot, or running them through the lube/sizer with a +.001 H&I setup.

[prs]

Melt'm-Smelt'm

I use traditionallu lubed scrap boolets as pot fluxers.

prs

[bhn22]

The gas checks are probably worth $10-$15.00 alone. I'd try boiling the gaschecked bullets & run them through my Star if the original diameter suits me. The Hornady bullets don't mean a lot to me since my bullets are better for my purposes anyway.