lead mixture

[686]

at this time i only cast for targer pistol cal. i mix 10lb ww- 2lb lion- 6oz 60-40 soder. i know this is harder and over kill . it does pour good ans stays shiner a long time. my liontype is down to 800lbs . i am thinking of cutting it down to 2 lb. is any one using simler mixtures? i know a lot of you use only ww. i to use to water cool. this is a clean way for me. i use these bullest for up to 50yards compition. they are very good. what is your take? the way i smelt is---i use 3 plumer furnices with pots from 60-200lbs size. i first melt the ww , i do not clean them before melting, i judt leat what ever is on them burn off. i d take out the rubber stims. then pour in 5 lb moulds. my 60-40 is in 2-6 oz sizes. the lion is in printers strips . after i have 500-1000 lb ww and this may be off and on for 6mo. and when weather is good i then mix. i had been using the 60lb pot but now i have 200lb i will be wsing it ot mix in. i weigh my mixture. i take out maybe 50 lbs them add by weigh some even amout maybe 30 or 40 ww with right lion and 60-40. if you are always adding the right mixture it does not matter how much you take out or how much you add. i feel with the bigger pot my mixture will stay more even. thanks

[Bass Ackward]

686,

Well, I will tell you like this. Mix is a highly person thing. Sometimes changing reloading techniques and possibly loads, will allow you to shoot other mixes, but maybe not. I have heard, and we have guys here that claim, they can't shoot ACWW and guys that say they can't. All bullets and barrels are made of the same thing, so what gives? Handguns are clearly the most finicky for me. Rifles, I have one mix for 1500 to 3500 fps.

My point is that you spend a lot of time developing and perfecting what you have. Change can be good .... or it can be bad. This is because YOU may have to change to adapt to it. And we are creatures of habit. We want to do everything the same blah, blah, blah. Some guys clearly don't want to bother experimenting all over again. All they want to do is shoot. Different strokes .........

As far as larger batches, heck ya. I smelt in at least 5, 150 lb batches every time. Then when I add to my pot, I use one, one pound bar from each batch. So nothing less than 5 lb is ever added. Then my batches are much more consistent. Sure.

[WHITETAIL]

686, You have a good idea! When I clean my lead, I use a big canning pot. I only clean my lead once a year. But I do the entire weekend. All year long I put the lead in buckets. If I get rang scrap, it gets washed on the driveway. If I get WW then they get picked through. Then I also never put my spru scraps back in the pot. They go into the next cleaning melt. After all of my treasures get melted togeather I will mold a few boolets with the new batch. And whatever the BH is the entire new batch gets marked with a steel stamp. Sorry for being long winded!

[felix]

Half of the fun with cast boolits is not knowing what the alloy is in advance of going to the range, and then making adjustments to the pot to compensate for the "new" load. Example, I want to shoot 1800 fps; next pot, 2200, etc., and maybe with a different gun and/or caliber. The only downfall of this is that the pot cannot be repeated, but then, the spice of life is "controllable" surprises. Also, consider my background in shooting repeatedly the same-o, same-o for the majority of my time with a particular gun. ... felix