pure lead boolits?

[Charlie Horse]

I have a 17 lb ingot of pure lead. I want to cast some soft bullets to shoot from a snubbie.
Do I need to add a little tin in the form of lino, or can I cast them from the pure lead?
Thanks in advance.

[grumpy one]

First, while bullets can be cast from pure lead it requires high temperatures and the job can be made quite a bit easier by adding just a bit of tin - say 1.5 or 2%. Second, adding a bit of linotype adds a lot more antimony than it does tin. Antimony makes bullets harder without making them easier to cast, so whether you add lino depends how hard you want your bullets to be.

The first question to answer is what velocity you want (which determines what the breech pressure will be). That pretty much determines the bullet hardness that will be best. Independent of that, small amounts of tin improve castability while initially having a fairly small effect on hardness.

[shooting on a shoestring]

I did it for .38 spl. used 358091 in plumbers lead. As I recall they stripped the riflings at about 800 fps out of a 1.875" J-frame. They tumbled and keyholed through my target at about 10 yards. I never did load them down until I could shoot them, but switched back to 50/50 wheel weight/plumbers lead and hollow pointed them.

If you do want to cast pure lead you can do it best by adding a little no-lead solder. You can get it at Home Depot or Lowes in the plumbing or electrical departments. It has a very high percentage of tin. You only need about 2% tin. More won't help. Even 1% may make your moulds fill out fine.

[BAGTIC]

Why would you want pure lead bullets from a snubbie? A pure lead bullet at the low velocities typical of snubbies would if it expanded risk reducing penetration so far as to diminish effectiveness. If it doesn't expand it wouldn't perform much different from a harder bullet and you risk increased leading.

[RugerFan]

Second, adding a bit of linotype adds a lot more antimony than it does tin. Antimony makes bullets harder without making them easier to cast, so whether you add lino depends how hard you want your bullets to be.

Actually I've found that adding 20-25% linotype to wheel weights will help some finicky molds cast easier.

[MakeMineA10mm]

Confusing isn't it?

The fact of the matter is, that whether Linotype aides castability or not, it also adds significant hardness, and it appears the original poster wants expansion at the low velocities of a snubbie.

My best guess is he's trying to load 38s with a bullet that will expand at low velocities, as he also doesn't want to deal with the recoil, blast, and flash of medium to slow powders.

Second, as far as expanded lead bullets reducing penetration, this is true, IF all other variables are the same...namely weight. It would be quite easy to use a 180gr pure lead cast hollow point at, say 650 fps to give good penetration PLUS expansion PLUS energy PLUS low flash and blast.

A pure lead bullet stripping the rifling at 800fps is plausible, but if I was doing what the Original Poster was alluding to, I'd go with a heavier bullet and lower velocity. I think my guess as to his thinking, with the addition of some weight, gives one a fantastic option for a short-barrelled revolver, probably better than the vaunted FBI-load of a 158gr SWC-HP +P.

[dakotashooter2]

You could also try qwenching the boolits. I'm not sure it is as effective on pure lead as alloys but should give you a slight gain in hardness without going overboard.

[Buckshot]

..............I cast WC's for target use in my K38 (2.7 Bullseye) and in 3 revolvers chambered 38 S&W. Accuracy in the K38 is superb with no issues. Those in 38 S&W also display great accuracy, and one is a top break Iver Johnson that shoots all out of proportion to it's intended use. No leading problems in any of them.

The author/experimentor Paul Matthews surprisingly reported accuracy as good as he'd ever gotten from a Marlin M1895 in 45-70 with Micro-Gruv rifleing shooting pure lead boolits (not paper patched) to 1800 fps. Board member Jumptrap did the same in his Marlin.

...............Buckshot

[randyrat]

Trade you pure lead to a black powder fella for some WW alloy with a little tin and antimony in it. Pure lead is pure gold to the Bp guys. You'll both be happy.

[Lloyd Smale]

in a good gun pure lead will work in my experience up to about 900 fps with a good lube. It can be agravating to work with and like i said you need a good gun to get away with it in. What id do with that pure is cut in half and half with wheelweights and then add a little tin. that makes a real decent low velocity handgun alloy. Easy to cast with doesnt lead and still will give some expansion at low velocitys.

[cohutt]

in a good gun pure lead will work in my experience up to about 900 fps with a good lube. It can be agravating to work with and like i said you need a good gun to get away with it in. What id do with that pure is cut in half and half with wheelweights and then add a little tin. that makes a real decent low velocity handgun alloy. Easy to cast with doesnt lead and still will give some expansion at low velocitys.

+1
I was able to get a good bit of pure lead when I started gathering raw materials last year. WW, lino & tin were slow to come so i really stretched the alloys out where i could. I found 50/50 (no tin added) works well in 44 and 45acp for me for target loads. Velo is below 900 and notta problem with leading in any of the 3 guns...
Expansion? Flatter than the drips from my casting pot when ringing the RR plate gong- 200 g swc becomes as thin as a dime and as wide as a quarter.. hehe
Actually the recovered bullets i have fired into a sandy dirt pile just to recover were pretty deformed, although not in any consistent or symmetrical pattern.

[Charlie Horse]

Maybe I misinformed you guys.
I've got this chunk of pure lead and I want to make boolits from it. I don't care about expansion, etc. They will be plinking rounds.
What's the best way to make it cast good? They will be shot from a snubbie.

[USARO4]

I've had good luck with an alloy of 2 parts WW and 1 part pure lead. I also add a 6" piece of 95/5 solder to a 20lb pot of alloy. It makes a good moderate velocity plinking load in all my handgun calibers. It has a BHN of 10 using a Cabine Tree tester and the tin from the solder helps it cast good. I use this alloy for 90% of my bullet needs.

[versifier]

If you just want something shootable, just add a little tin - solder is the easiest source to work with, maybe not the cheapest, depending. I prefer WW's for most of my boolits, but I am in the process of smelting a lot of old lead pipe. I don't have enough WW's or Lino to be adding to it for plinking boolits, but I do have an amazing amount of old solder gathered and stashed over the years by my family of Yankee packrats. It makes for good shooting added to the pure lead (at around 2%) for handguns in light to medium loads.

[Larry Gibson]

I have a 17 lb ingot of pure lead. I want to cast some soft bullets to shoot from a snubbie.
Do I need to add a little tin in the form of lino, or can I cast them from the pure lead?
Thanks in advance.

Concur with others here - NO linotype as it adds antimony and hardens the lead. A little tin maybe, 1/2 lb tin per 20 ponds lead at the most.

I have two basc loads I use these almost pure lead bullets for. One is for serious shooting and one is for most of the practice and or plinking type of shooting.

I use the lyman 358156 GC mould to cast bullets of pure lead or pretty close to it. I load them over Unique to +P+ velocity for use in a 5" M15, a 2 1/2" M19 and a 2" M10 I used to have. I have also shot a few in a M36. I HP them with the Forster HP tool. Out of the M10 and M19 velocity is 900+ fps and expasion is still good at close range. Better performance from this load than with the Winchester or Federal "FBI" load. As it is +P+ I use it only for occasional serious shooting from good revolvers. I don't shoot a lot of these.

I've cast thousands of 358477s out of scrap lead and shot them over 3.5 gr of Bullseye which gives 820 fps out of the 5" barrel and 745 fps out of the2" barrel. It is also a very accurate load and I use it for TRC competition when I was a LEO in lieu of WCs. A standard .38 special load duplication load for this bullet is 4 gr of Bullseye which gets right at 850 fps out of a 4" M15. I use Javelina lube and in the past sized at .358 but have been at .360 for some years now. I've not had any leading with these loads when cast of pure or scrap lead.

Larry Gibson