new to casting

[duckndawg]

Howdy all been lurking for awhile trying to learn. I've yet to start casting but am going to, I'm wanting to cast for CAS, so my fps is under 800. I'm shooting 38 special. I have around 400 lbs of ww and around 100 lbs of soft lead. can I mix say 15 lbs of ww with 5 lbs of soft without leading the bores on the guns? Or is that a no no?

[wiljen]

You most certainly can mix them. I use a mix of 1:1 WW with pure lead for most of my 45 ACP without problems or leading. You will need to make sure they are a good fit in the bore, and that they are well lubed. Those two things play a bigger role than hardness in leading.

[Bullshop]

Fact is you can use the pure lead for that. Its funny that pure lead is far more forgiving to being undersized than anything harder. Lotsa folks think its the other way around but not so. The guys over at DWB's are shooting pure lead at up to 1400 fps or more with incredable accuracy and bore diameter not groove diameter boolits. I think that would be considerd undersized boolits.
BIC/BS

[9.3X62AL]

D&D--

Welcome aboard, sir. I rate dimensional integrity as most important by far, lube amount and characteristics a distant second, and metallurgy way back in third place. 800 FPS in handguns and 1200 FPS in rifles is not a tough task for plain-based boolits that fit well.

[Goatlips]

Howdy duckndawg,

I shoot CAS in .38 also. As you probably know, most CAS rifles prefer .357 length. Snakebite (SASS Wire) designed a boolit that stretches a cheap .38 case overall length to that of a .357, and it feeds well in Marlins. Do a search on Snakebite Greasewagons (they hold 4 times as much lube, for us Black Powder shooters). Lee makes the six-hole mold.

Straight wheelweights have worked well for me with them, I cleaned my last two matches :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :Fire:

If you're just getting started, here's my humble input on casting:

http://goatlipstips.cas-town.com/casting.html

Goatlips

[44man]

Some make a big issue out of making the perfect alloy but I don't think it is as important as boolit fit and lube. I shoot hot loads and find harder stuff works better for me but I have shot all kinds of alloys and the only way to see what happens is to try it with what you have. It will depend more on your gun then anything else. If you get bad leading, tweak the alloy and lube until it stops. It is hard to say that you must use only one alloy, only you can determine that.

[lovedogs]

It appears you've already gotten plenty of sage advice so I'll just say "Howdy, and welcome."

Mike

[WHITETAIL]

D&D Welcome to the forum. And yes for the longest time I just melted and shot pistol boolets. Now you must be more carfull of the dreaded ZINK monster.