lead free bullets?

[Lawnjockey]

I am going to be hunting an area that requires lead free bullets, thank you State of California. I just about soiled myself when I saw how much loaded lead free ammo costs and just buying bullets runs over a buck a piece. Being a bit of a penny pincher I immediately started thinking about making my own, the question is how? Swaging? Any experience out there on this? Any cheap suppliers of lead free bullets?

Thanks

[DLCTEX]

The only way that comes to mind is to turn them on a lathe. My son loaded Barnes .224-70 gr. bullets in .223 for deer. Shot a doe in front shoulder and penetrated 30 inches, lodging under hide of the opposite ham. Expanded nicely and 100% weight retention. Doe was DRT.

[Shooternz]

You could cast some out of zinc, I did a few years ago only cause I got given some pure zinc balls
the mould needs to cast them the correct size because they are to hard to size in a lubesizer,
and only cast in one cavity and cut the sprue before it hardens, you get real hard light bullets
the mould I used was a lyman 358402 120 grain in zinc they weighed 68 grains went like stink
out of a 586 and a case full of Herco quite accurate as well, just pick the heaviest bullet your gun will shoot and give it a try.
Robert.

[Norbrat]

I feel your pain as I am also a penny pincher; can't remember how many hundreds of dollars I have spent to save a couple of bucks! :rolleyes:

In reality, how many rounds do you expect to actually shoot while hunting? I always get a giggle when friends lug a couple of hundred rounds to a hunting site when they will shoot maybe 10 shots for the whole trip, including sighting in!

I s'pose what I'm saying is, as much as it seems to hurt the hip pocket to buy a batch of solid copper or brass bullets, the cost will be only a fraction of the total cost of the whole trip.

[JeffinNZ]

I feel your pain as I am also a penny pincher; can't remember how many hundreds of dollars I have spent to save a couple of bucks! :rolleyes:

In reality, how many rounds do you expect to actually shoot while hunting? I always get a giggle when friends lug a couple of hundred rounds to a hunting site when they will shoot maybe 10 shots for the whole trip, including sighting in!

I s'pose what I'm saying is, as much as it seems to hurt the hip pocket to buy a batch of solid copper or brass bullets, the cost will be only a fraction of the total cost of the whole trip.

Amen.

When you start varminting and burn 500 rounds in a weekend then come back and we will find a solution. Right now it's just a mind set issue.

[olafhardt]

I plan to cut up various 1/2" rods into one inch peoces and try them in my 500s&w handyrifle. Copper, zinc, brass, aluminum and mild steel. One of the old africa hands, Buhlmiller I think, lamented that there were no true 500 bores because he wanted to cut up 1/2 coppertp rods for boolits. A savvy gunsmith might do well to bore out the 1/4-08, 5/16-08 and the 375 win or 38/55 could be adjusted to the 3/8 snot knocker. You could shoot screws chunks of rod, etc.

[Lawnjockey]

The deal is the BLM land is in the condor zone so no lead except in shot shells for hunting. I can plink away with lead but I can't shoot a pig, deer, coyote or rabbit with it. This place is close enough that I could do a couple of overnighters a month and coyotes and pigs are a year round season. If I only thought I would be shooting 50 rounds every couple of years I would bite the bullet and pay the big bucks. It is the idea of doing it over and over again that gets me.

I would not mind spending a few hundred to get set up to make .30 lead free bullets and my buddies could use them too, maybe even donate to the cause.

Back to the questions, any experience casting or swaging copper? I have cast brass, making quarters for the cigarette machine during high school crafts class. There we used a kilm to heat the metal. Sizing would be an issue however if the bullets were coming out undersized having the mould opened up a bit might do the trick otherwise it would be a custom job. Rather than reinventing the wheel I would like to hear about other's experience with this.

[bearcove]

Bronze casts nice but I have no idea about shrinkage. Be like sizing steelif oversize. Brass makes fine boolits. Check Belt Mountain he machines them.

[MtGun44]

Move.

Bill

[Lawnjockey]

I would love to move, this place is F-ing nuts.

I have done a little more poking around and it looks like the melting point of copper is just shy of 2000F. Without shopping too hard I found a jewelers kiln that will go to 2400F for about $350.00 new. Seems to me this could make sense dollar wise rather quickly, assuming a home cast copper bullet performs reasonably well.

In regards to shrinkage probably the simplest thing to do is chase down someone with a kiln and cast a few to see how they come out. This would allow for some experiments sizing too.

[bearcove]

I have kiln, but little time. Don't know how it would release. Preheat on mold?

Working that might not be easy. I've done furnace brazes with nickle at 2250f and that is HOT! You open the door and its bright. We used a graphite form.

[bearcove]

Barnes bullets are cheap if you think of it that way.

[Norbrat]

I've sand cast aluminum and that is a whole different ball game to casting low temp bullet alloys.

Casting brass or bronze would be something else again. Obviously aluminum or brass moulds would be out of the question, and I'm not sure that a normal iron bullet mould would do the job.

This is a recent thread about turning bullets. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=129926&highlight=turning+bullets+lathe

Post #24 is particularly interesting. These metals do not swage as easily as lead boolits or lead cored bullets, so just making a brass/bronze/copper bullet to a cast boolit design could lead to serious pressure issues.

If you are really serious about trying to cast a non-lead bullet, I would suggest zinc. I have an article at home from an old NRA publication where they successfully cast zinc bullets. I will have a look for it tonight, scan and PM it to you if you are interested.

[fcvan]

I have often wondered about casting or swaging bismuth or using bismuth as core material for swaged copper boolits. California has gotten too crazy with their blatently whacko regulations designed to discourage hunting/shooting/owning firearms in general. I grew up in condor country and moved north to redwood country. lead boolits are the excuse for shutting down or at least crimping down on legitimate sporting use of firearms. how in the heck do you have a black powder hunt in a lead free zone? a patched round ball made of what? retiring soon, moving to colorado. i've had enough of the 'people's republic of kalifornia'

[MikeS]

Well, if you need lead free boolits, you could always get some tin, and cast boolits out of tin. I had been thinking of maybe a 50/50 mix of tin and zinc. I don't know if that would work or not. I'm pretty sure you could cast pure tin boolits with all the existing tools to cast lead boolits. I might get a couple of pounds of tin, and try casting some boolits with it just to see if it would work, and how much lighter than lead they would be. I don't remember which metal is denser, zinc or tin, but I would think tin alone would be the easier metal to cast with, without any chance of ruining anything by using zinc. I have a bunch of 50/50 lead tin alloy, but probably less than a pound of pure tin, but a trip to the hardware store can fix that problem real quick.

[Jim]

I thought I'd wait to see where this would go before I piped in.

It is possible to cast boolits using plumber's solder or straight tin. I've done it. However(comma) it is difficult, expensive and tricky to get the boolits to shoot without 'tinning' the barrel and/or keeping the boolits from tumbling.

Just a thought here: If one were actually using some homemade concoction of lead free alloy to cast, load and hunt with and your friendly neighborhood G/W showed up, would he accept one's story that the boolits are indeed lead free? The G/W is not likely to be carrying a pocket size metalurgist's base metal analyzing kit. Who's to say that he would not issue a citation, or worse case scenario, arrest the hunter, based on the likelyhood that the hunter is lying?

Unless a person has manufactored lead free ammo with the box in hand to show what he's hunting with, is it worth all the trouble that might be encountered using 'roll your owns'?

Lawnjockey, I know it sounds like I'm trying to rain on your parade. I promise you, I'm not. I'm just being my cynical self in light of all the rediculous rules and regs in that regime.

[Mal Paso]

A Lost Wax Jewelers set up would likely do the job. No furnace, just Oxy-Acetylene and a centrifuge to sling the metal into the mold.

I bought 20 Barns XPBs years ago for Dangerous Game. I used several for load testing, carry 12, and still have Spares.

Watch out! Earlier this year a Calif. F&G Officer while patrolling the Salinas River found a Bomb. A Water Cannon was brought in and the Bomb was destroyed. The Bomb was later identified as a Monterey County Water Meter.

[Reload3006]

your best bet would be to swage copper wire into a bullet. Expensive and hard on tooling. But doable. As bad as I hate to say it the cheapest thing for you in the long run would be to cough up the dough for the Barns X

[Lawnjockey]

No rain on the parade as far as I am concerned, just useful info. The mould temp could be a problem. Lead free soldier is interesting but expensive and field verification of it being lead free would be a problem.

[Reload3006]

I got to thinking more about this. And I believe that swaging is your answer. why not get copper tubing make copper tubing jackets fill them with copper powder and close the nose in a point form die. Yes that would be the least expensive way to make a "LMAO I'm sorry but the concept still causes me to laugh" "non toxic bullet"
I know its not funny and my answer is serious. That would be the easiest way although not cheap. you dont have to make copper tubing jackets you can use Sierra and J4 jackets too. and fill them with copper powder from Corbin mfg. or different supplier.

[sqlbullet]

Move.

Bill

Bill wins the thread IMHO.

[mdi]

Having put up with CA's stupidity for too many years, I would think the DFG has a list of acceptable bullets, and not just a blanket regulation against lead. I doubt if a Ranger would test your particular ammo and just cite you 'cause your bullet isn't on the "OK" list...

[BLTsandwedge]

I do believe 'lead free' will spread throughout the country. I also believe that the Lymans Lees et al will come up with some handloading/casting solutions such as a sabot system. In the meantime, I'm not sure what we could do with our current equipment to turn out a lead-free expanding projectile that would fit in a home-grown sabot, but I'd well imagine the engineering folks here could think something up...........

[pdawg_shooter]

Cast to BORE size using bismuth, tin, copper, brass, or whatever, and paper patch to size. No sizing needed, no excess bore wear, lower pressure, full velocity, and great accuracy.

[trench]

I"ve cast out of tin ("lead free solder), which is actually 5% antimony and 95% tin. The bullets will be very lw, relative to lead, obviously, quite hard, altho they do take the rifling at 2000 fps in a .45 auto. :-) I used a 155 gr swc Lee mold and hollow based the bullet to 80 grs. Your POI on the target will be vastly different than lead, but lead cast bullets vary a lot, in rifles, at least, from POI of jacketed spitzers, too. I'm afraid that you will have to travel further, to hunt in another state.

[Mal Paso]

I do believe 'lead free' will spread throughout the country. I also believe that the Lymans Lees et al will come up with some handloading/casting solutions such as a sabot system. In the meantime, I'm not sure what we could do with our current equipment to turn out a lead-free expanding projectile that would fit in a home-grown sabot, but I'd well imagine the engineering folks here could think something up...........

How dare you Sir! We should be in full denial. We can't have Boolit Casters "believing" Lead Free.:bigsmyl2:

[Ronbo256]

Mal Paso, that lost wax method is one of best ideas for casting non-lead, a buddy of mine cast a bunch of of parts for a working model steam engine that way in the early '80s out of brass. He also used the vacuum method to eliminate air pockets. Bismuth is the only metal I can think of that we might be able to cast in a similar manner to how we cast lead.

[trk]

I have cast lead-free solder into bullets. There are seveal commonly available blends - one 96/4 tin/antimony and my favorite 96% tin 3.5% Silver and 0.5 % copper.

It casts into STONE COLD molds perfectly. It takes a loooooong time to cool.

It tests at 42-43 on the ROCKWELL B scale for hardness. (Same as copper jacketed bullets).

[Mal Paso]

Mal Paso, that lost wax method is one of best ideas for casting non-lead, a buddy of mine cast a bunch of of parts for a working model steam engine that way in the early '80s out of brass. He also used the vacuum method to eliminate air pockets. Bismuth is the only metal I can think of that we might be able to cast in a similar manner to how we cast lead.

IIRC the vacuum was used on the mold to get the air out of the plaster before it hardened. The centrifuge was open air. You could use the same rubber mold technique to produce quantities of wax bullets to be joined by wax sprues into a larger casting. Multi Cavity. A furnace was used to burn the wax out of the mold and drive off the last bit of moisture.

But Officially we should declare anything non lead, heirisy.

[Ronbo256]

Mal Paso, you are probably right, the vacuum was for removing the air bubbles from the plaster. I was in the Air Force while he was doing this , so I only got to see a few parts of what he was doing when I came home on leave. I've had a little experience designing equipment used in cast iron and aluminum foundries, but nothing directly involved with the molds themselves. I agree, invest in precious metals, buy lead!

[HollowPoint]

Virtually all the lead I use to cast bullets with was given to me for free. In a "lead-free" hunting area, this could be a loop-hole for me to jump through.

I'm afraid that if the "Greenies" gain more power, the whole country will eventually drift toward "lead-free hunting.

I've wondered how it might be possible to make my own lead free bullets. Most of the ways I've thought of have already been mentioned.

If you anticipate firing only two or three rounds you could conceivably use copper BB's imbedded in a barrel friendly epoxy.

I used to watch the body-shop guys where I used to work as they used their Spot-Welders. At the time I wondered if there was a way that I could rig up a spot welder to liquify a small chunk of copper or brass to form in a bullet mold.

I never got around to looking into it any further than just wondering about it but, if the chance presents itself, I might give it a go.

HollowPoint

[Judan_454]

I think all this lead free stuff is just a way to make it too expensive hunt and to limt are gun rights. But to say that lead free will spead across the United States not always true. Just because they do it other States does mean it has to happen your State. You have elect officals that understand and the science behind our point of view. I hunted with cast bullets this year never fired a shot and the years I did get vension it was only one shot for one deer. We as hunters reloaders and bullet casters have speak out if we dont are hobby will die.

[wallenba]

In the worst case scenario...that lead is banned in all ammunition (not really likely ), what would the next most economical 'go to' substitue be?

[Judan_454]

One thing you remember is to follow the money trail, wouldnt be in ammuntion manufacters best interest to go lead free. This would force all of us bullet casters stop casting bullets. We would have to go buy lead free bullets from Hornnady,Sierra,Speer and all other bullet manufacters with the high cost of copper and brass it greatly reduce the amount of compitive shooting,target shooting and plinking, shooters do.Which would greatly reduce new people from entering the sport of shooting and reloading because the expense which would greatly reduce the number of people that use guns. And isnt that would that gun banners want, to make the cost so high that people can't afford to shoot.
I know its the slippery slope theroy but its one step at a time for the Anti-Gun people.
Just my thoughts.
Great forum guys I love it.

[MtGun44]

Lead free is based on the highly dubious claim that it harms condors. Never saw one in
Kansas, and all other reasons are totally bogus. The antis have repeatedly tried to close
ranges due to "lead contamination" and "potential to contaminate ground water". The
only problem with their arguments is that repeated testing shows that lead does not
migrate. IIRC lead oxide is essentially non-water soluable at normal conditions.

I doubt we are headed "lead free" nationally.

Bill

[HollowPoint]

Lead-Free or Not, it would still be great if one of us guys came up with a way to make our own "Lead-Free" bullets wouldn't it? I mean good usable and accurate shooting and hunting bullets.

I believe it would go a long way toward pulling the rug out from under whomever it is that's behind the "Lead-Free" BS. I'm also sure that such a discovery would be countered with some other bogus claim with the intent of stifling our shooting or hunting sports.

There's are enough functional brain-cells in this forum alone to come up with an alternative to lead if need be. Things just haven't gotten bad enough to warrant that kind of necessity.

HollowPoint

[Hang Fire]

I would love to move, this place is F-ing nuts.

I have done a little more poking around and it looks like the melting point of copper is just shy of 2000F. Without shopping too hard I found a jewelers kiln that will go to 2400F for about $350.00 new. Seems to me this could make sense dollar wise rather quickly, assuming a home cast copper bullet performs reasonably well.

In regards to shrinkage probably the simplest thing to do is chase down someone with a kiln and cast a few to see how they come out. This would allow for some experiments sizing too.

If I was going to cast copper boolits, think I would just go the lost wax route with centrifugal injection (AKA spin casting) to insure fill out. It would only require a simple set up and should be able to get quite a few on one tree.

[Hang Fire]

Dang tricky submit finger.

[Whiterabbit]

I have cast lead-free solder into bullets. There are seveal commonly available blends - one 96/4 tin/antimony and my favorite 96% tin 3.5% Silver and 0.5 % copper.

It casts into STONE COLD molds perfectly. It takes a loooooong time to cool.

It tests at 42-43 on the ROCKWELL B scale for hardness. (Same as copper jacketed bullets).

Holy ****. I'm trying this. What's the weight difference for a given bullet? 90%? 85%?

This is outstanding. I don't care if home depot is charging $15 a pound for lead free. Worth it.

Hey OP, here's some perspective. I live in CA and because I don't care to worry about where I am when I am hunting, chose to switch to only non-lead for all hunting regardless of location. Took a pig in Mendocino recently using a Barnes TTSX even though Winchester CXP2 would have been more than fine.

After two full seasons of hunting I haven't gone through two boxes of bullets yet. And that includes big game loads, varmint loads, and sighting in before every trip. That also includes my initial load development. At $35 a box retail (less online), it's cheaper than that jeweler's kiln.

Of course as time goes by I shoot less and less jacketed at the range and more and more cast :smile:

[Whiterabbit]

Which would greatly reduce new people from entering the sport of shooting and reloading because the expense which would greatly reduce the number of people that use guns. And isnt that would that gun banners want, to make the cost so high that people can't afford to shoot.


Just my thoughts.


Welcome to Europe.

(in my limited experience)

[Jim]

..... What's the weight difference for a given bullet? 90%? 85%?.....

Plug into your calculator the expected weight of the boolit cast with WWs, multiply by .65 and you'll be real close.

Coupla' notes:

95/5 plumber's solder is MUCH harder than WWs. If your boolit is more than a thou or so over groove diameter, expect higher pressures to show up.

If you decide to use this stuff in rifles, keep the nose back from the riflings. If the nose is up against the riflings, it will have a heck of a time forcing itself into the riflings. Again, high pressures will show up.

Tin is a lot harder to get out of a bore than lead. Without a really good lube that will stay with the boolit for the entirety of the ride down the barrel, it will 'tin' the bore.

I tried 95/5 in a .45 ACP a coupla' years back and couldn't get the boolit to stabilize. It tumbled like crazy. I went from just enough powder to get it out of the barrel to 'omg' loads and I just couldn't get it to work. That don't mean it can't be done, I'm just sayin' I couldn't get it to work for me.

TRK is right about how it casts. If you get the alloy HOT, it will flow and fill out like a dream in a cold mold. If you don't cut the sprue quickly, you'll be beating on the cutter for a minute trying to get it to cut. When the mold starts to heat up, you'll be waiting awhile for the sprue to harden. The melting point of tin is right at 450 degrees.

I really do think it can be done. I just didn't spend enough time working on it. If you Google '95/5 solder', you can find it all over the place. Watch out for 'rosin core' and '8 oz.' packages. Look for 1 lb. rolls and compare prices. You might find it to be cost prohibitive.

[badbob454]

ok lead shuts down the digestive tract of the condors so they starve to death .. im ok with that ban ,,as long as there are areas that can be hunted with lead . and target areas may use lead too , sorry but we want to save the condor from extintion, it is somewhat more important than a few dollars for a few copper bullets... , lets just get inventive , a power swager hydralic ram that will make nice copper boolits , something else a cruciform furnace to melt and a mold capable of casting copper , im sure we can do it we have inventive minds and we must preserve ths world for our children grandchildren and so -on lets get our minds on what we can do and not so much on what stupid laws are in place , im sure there is purpose in this world for the balance of nature that the condor exists , if nothing else it eats carrion that breeds flies and disease

[mdi]

Actually shootin/hunting isn't the only sport with banned lead. I believe (and I certainly can be wrong as I'm just going by memory of investigation 6 years ago) New York and Texas were going to/already banned lead sinkers. some lakes across the country have banned lead sinkers, too. Wheel weights of lead are banned in at least CA, prolly more states too. Read an article about several hundres of pounds of venison that was donated to a food bank was destroyed because of "lead poisoning" scare from game shot with lead bullets. I think it may be too late to educate the public on lead "poisoning" and how much publisized about it is plain old B.S.

Sorry for lack of hard facts/details 'cause my research was done briefly at least 6 years ago...

[MtGun44]

How good is the "science" behind this ban? I wonder if it is as much anti-hunting, political
based BS and lies as the global warming scam.

Frankly, I don't trust the other side not to lie every time they open their mouth and make
"fake science" the way to get what they want. They have lied so much in the past and
been caught at it that I don't trust anything they say without some real close investigation.

Bill

[Whiterabbit]

http://huntingwithnonlead.org/

Put up by a conservationist (aka the guy on our side, not the preservationist, who is not.)

I'll let you guys judge what is right and what is not. We can all pass on the PETA style footage of bald eagles shaking in near-death.

[xfoxofshogo]

i have seen powder copper and Tungsten and a few steel powder ones

[mpmarty]

It should be possible to make a sintered copper boolit as we already make sintered bushings and bearings by powdered pressure forming.

[Whiterabbit]

I always wondered what would happen if you took copper or brass or aluminum shavings off a machine tool and filled a mold with them, roughly as a filler, then filled the rest with lead free solder. Woulds stretch the tin, and no special tool required.

[mdi]

Tungston is used to replace lead sinkers and jigs, but I don't know the melting/casting characteristics of tungston...

[Reload3006]

Been working in the Machining industry all my life But not sure tungsten is the answer as every box of Tungsten Carbide insert tooling I have ever used warns of the risk of Cancer and grinding Dust from those tools.

[Whiterabbit]

Tungston is used to replace lead sinkers and jigs, but I don't know the melting/casting characteristics of tungston...

melting temp: really F high! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractory_metals

Many metals are toxic in dust form. Just not a format we deal with often. Copper is another hazardous metal, for example.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I live in CA too. just go to Midway USA and buy a box of their copper bullets which are really Barnes Bullets for,,, I think they were $17.00 per 100. That should last you for a while.

This is what I did, and mine are for .308 &.30-06 Same 150 gr bullet with blue plastic nose cone. Then you find a Barnes manual and get the loads for that bullet. I went to BassPro in LV and wrote down the loads for that bullet.

The Condor sanctuary extends from just below Monterrey to the Grand Canyon.

The logic was that a Condor died from lead poisoning,,, He must have ingested the lead from a gutpile left by a hunter (coyotes not withstanding) Since bullets fragment when they hit a 100 lb deer that has to be the place where the Condor got the lead.

This was the idiocy used to pass this law! And nobody is fighting it. They just tried to pass a law making it a felony to posses any leadfree bullet as they are all armor piercing! Brown actually vetoed it, since it would have ended huinting and he needs the money from hunters to fund his union obligations?

The good thing about watching the liberal mind at work is eventually it completely melts down, and we are very close to a melt down here in this state.

I just found out today why Diesel is $4.19 agallon here and only 3.79 a gallon in LV . They slapped a sales tax hike on diesel fuel. It is no longer 8.25% it is now 12.5%. This went by unnoticed as they didn't tack it onto gas. However since everything people consume is moved by diesel trucks everybody pays. Great idea huuh?

Gettin' close to revolution?

Randy

[Oreo]

I'd like to know more about swagging copper bullets.

Does copper get softer at higher temperatures before melting? Perhaps it isn't necessary to get all the way up to 2000°F. Maybe 500-1000° is enough that swagging gets easier.

How bad is the wear & tear on swagging dies if one were to swag copper bullets? Would the dies have a decent service life? Because making a press capable of copper swagging pressures is really easy when you think of it. Its the least of the trouble.

What if half a bullet mold was layed horizontally and the other half attached to a steel weight, like a heavy sledge hammer rigged on pulleys and guide rails. Hammer forge the copper into a preform this way and finish-form it in a swage die the way lead bullets are usually swagged.

I could come up with ideas like that all day.

[leadman]

I watched the video on tv concerning the "science" of how the condors got the lead. The biologist that was working with the condors at the Grand Canyon x-rayed a dead condor and found lead in it. He then fied a rifle into ballistic gel and saw all the fragments in the gel. The show did not say what bullet he was shooting but the end results looked like a varmint bullet. He then theorized that since the condors were mostly expiring in the fall it must be from hunters bullets left in gut piles. He never inspected gut piles for lead fragments.
There are many lakes and streams in the area so some of the lead could have come from there also.

W.R. Buchanan, I looked at Midway and did not see any lead free boxes of 100 for this price. There are 50 boxes for around that figure though.

A sabot might work, but I have not had good results with the 30 cal. sabots and a 22 cal. bullet. Would be minute of elk at 100 yards but I would like better than that.

My cousin had a machine shop with an automatic screw machine. He said he could turn out large quanities of bullets but this was 15 years ago and not much interest back then.

One of Elmer Keiths friends was a machinist and turned some copper bullets. This was back in the late '30s IIRC. Elmer wrote that they were a good bullet but to expensive to produce in a manual lathe. They even had the grooves in them to lower the pressure like the Barne's bullet now have.

[35isit]

Let me qualify this response. I did not do a search of any kind and may speak out of turn. I know there is a plain base check maker out there. If you had a check maker and then cast a zinc bullet the proper diameter. I realize it would be light for a given caliber but could be made as long as could be stabilized in a particular gun. It would probably have to be hollow pointed to expand. You would in essence have a short jacketed bullet. If it doesn't make a hunting bullet it could make a target/plinking bullet.

I am not an engineer or a great thinker. I just happened on this thread and was thinking about one I read a few days ago. The one from the other day was asking about casting zinc bullets.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I have a machine shop a with an automatic lathe that is sitting idle and could certainly make any brass boolit you could want, And if you'll pay my Liability Insurance I'll get right on it.

Swaging Copper is not going to work with any kind of machinery you can afford, it takes lots of pressure and you aren't going to generate that kind of pressure with any manual machine and no small machine either.. Takes big stuff. I would say off hand 70-90K psi to get it to flow well.

On another note:

Incidentially they had only ONE condor die from lead poisoning, and they didn't even confirm that was really the cause of death. It was all a law passed with the specific intent to severly limit hunting in CA. They even tried to extend the ban to northern CA but Arnold Vetoed that..

I personally think the Condors get lead from gnawing on the lead based paint on old barns in the back country. I have seen this happening, and I also actually saw one land on the center conductor of a 220KV transmission line once. Everything was OK until he decided to stretch his wings,, then it was,,,,"Pooft" one less Condor. Condors were nearly extinct because they are basically stupid birds, and without significant human intervention they willl go extinct again, however the attack on hunting only harms the effort as that's where Fish and Game gets it's money to fund projects like the Condor restoration project.

There and from idiot movie stars who feel guilty about their success and are too busy to actually do any research to find out what they are contributing to.

Randy