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762cavalier
12-15-2012, 02:03 AM
A friend gave me about 1000 lead 9mm and 500 lead .30 cal commercial hardcast boolits. The box says hardcast and they all have a hard commercial lube. My question is I would like to melt these and make .44 mag boolits. Do I have to remove the hard lube first? What would be the best way to do that? Can I melt them in my bottom pour pot? Anything else I am missing?

Thanks in advance

uscra112
12-15-2012, 02:41 AM
Leave the lube. It'll act as flux. Melt and start pouring new ones as soon as it's hot enough. That's nice clean lead. Do you want the 44 boolits to be equally hard? Might want to alloy in some soft lead.

Be interested in what those .30 cal boolits are. Might be worth swapping a bit my lead for them.

762cavalier
12-15-2012, 03:16 AM
the box the .30s are in say they are made by Bull-x hardcast 115gr roundnose.

uscra112
12-15-2012, 03:29 AM
Ah. Too light for my uses. Thanks !

WHITETAIL
12-15-2012, 08:15 AM
Yes you can remelt them.
I would make a few and try them out.
Do you have a hardness checker?:holysheep

44man
12-15-2012, 08:52 AM
I would use them as fluxing boolits in a batch of WW metal. They will make good .44 boolits as they are though.
It's a good deal not having to smelt dirty metal.

Kraschenbirn
12-15-2012, 03:05 PM
Based on my experience (a good friend was one of the original partners in Bull-X), those boolits are a lot harder than they need to be for most handgun applications. I don't recall the exact mix for their alloy but, air-cooled, it ran a just bit harder than straight Lyman #2 and they used the same alloy for everything except their CAS boolits. I bought several thousand Bull-X just before my buddy sold the business and still have a few boxes of .38s and .45s on the shelf. Not too long ago, I melted down a thousand or so Bull-X 9mms along with an equal weight of cleaned/fluxed range scrap to cast .44 RNFPs. Water-quenched, those .44s run 13-14 BHN and, at 1250 fps, are showing no appreciable leading in my Marlin 1894 carbine.

Bill