Alloy for wadcutters

[Double B]

Been casting for just a year or so, and have accumulated a few molds, including a Lee 148 tl two cavity and an old Lyman single cavity 358425 for 112 grain boolits. I have clean lead as well as coww's and casting them using 50/50 lead to coww's. I keep velocities low and load target velocity in snub and 4" 38's. Am I ok to cast in pure lead or maybe use less coww's? Maybe a 75/25 mix of lead to coww's or even less? Cast pure lead wadcutters ok? Tumble lubing w Lee liquid alox and also Emmert's pan lubed at times with the little 112's. Trying to conserve the coww's I have for some hotter loadings. Using red dot and tg powders for this. Looking for recommendations from your experience. Thanks for your time and help on this.

[Tatume]

Wad cutters are typically cast very soft. At the very low speeds at which they are shot the soft lead upsets in the throats and bore better and thus produces better accuracy. Cast them soft and shoot them slow, like 700 - 800 fps.

Take care, Tom

[runfiverun]

instead of just throwing the ww's in there.
try just adding some tin to your lead, 40 pounds of lead to 1 pound of tin would be a pretty good place to start.
make a small test batch and see if they pour large enough for you.

[Wayne Smith]

The hollow based wadcutters are swaged from pure. I'd follow FiveRun's advice.

[dodgyrog]

I cast mine from range lead (quite hard) and pure lead - 2/3 pure to 1/3 range. They work well in my Marlin underlever from 38 spl brass.
I use 3.2 gr of fast burning pistol powder but I expect 3.0gr would work well.
I size to .358"

[GBertolet]

I usually mix 50% lead with 50% wheelweights for standard loadings. With a good lube it works well with velocities under 1000 fps, and sometimes even more. I used to hard cast my 38 WC bullets. Even though they were sized properly for my cylinder throats, I still got leading in the cylinder throats and forcing cone. But when I switched to the softer 50-50 mix, the leading disappeared. I believe the softer alloy obturated more, and sealed off the rear of the bullet from the hot gasses, while the harder alloy didn't at the lower pressures of the more moderate loadings.

[Double B]

Thanks for the replies, it is much appreciated. I have an old lyman manual that lists very light load data for the 112 and will try it in pure lead. It is very accurate and pleasant to shoot which is tough to find for the snub.

[ShooterAZ]

I have been using 1/30 with very good success. My mold is the RCBS #82031 .38-148-WC. 3.2 grains of Titegroup is my go to load, sized .358, Starline 38 Special brass, Fed100 primer, BAC lube.

[Shiloh]

Mine are straight range scrap.

Shiloh

[lwknight]

Those light target plinkers can be cast with whatever you have. No need to use valuable antimony. Pure lead is fine but truly pure lead will oxidize pretty fast. Most so thought to be pure lead has some tin in it anyway.
I would wan't at least 1% tin both for better casting and resistance to the elements.
Personally I would use 2% tin in anything I cast.
I have shot a lot of commercial hard cast wadcutters too and they are great if sized 1/1000 over slug size in plinkers. I find the 2/1000 over does not work so great in light plinker or rat thumper loads.
My favorite is a 100 grain WC with 2.0 grains bullseye. 400 fps and no hearing protection required.

[captaint]

I used to shoot lots of those wadcutters Wayne Smith mentioned. They were VERY soft and shot VERY well. Not sure I have managed to cast wadcutters that shot as well - yet... Miked

[44man]

Depends on distance and accuracy needs. Soft will work but as distance increases harder works better. Even the shoulder on a soft Keith can wipe off pulling the cylinder in line with the bore. Nothing to do with expansion in the throats and everything to do with the edge of the boolit in the forcing cone.
Only if the chambers and throats are in perfect alignment to the bore will soft shoot good.

[Old School Big Bore]

The most accurate .38 wadcutters I have shot in decades were the Meister hard swaged ones. They were pretty hard, and the skirts were awfully thick, so I don't think there was a lot of obturation going on, but with 3.0 of W231 and crimping in the top grease groove in magnum brass, they were easily the equal of WW or FC match WCs and did not make any detectable leading. Regretably they've been discontinued (no amount of pleading worked and the tooling is gone), and my stash is shot up, so I have an M-P HBWC mold on the way and we'll see what happens. I said all that to say this - there's a group buy for these that's still open.

[mdi]

I have cast my wadcutters in everything from nearly pure (mebbe 98%) to linotype. Since I'm not a Bullseye shooter and 1/2"-1" difference in groups at 30-40 yards doesn't make much difference to me I usually wind up casting in range scrap (most of the Range Lead I get is fairly soft 7-10 BHN). I think the key to my success with nearly any lead alloy is my bullets are sized to fit my guns...

[hanover67]

I use range lead and I have no idea how hard it is. I add some 50/50 lead/tin solder to the pot. I cast with a Lyman 35863 148gr mold and size down to .354" for an old Colt Officer's Model with a tight .353" barrel. Boolets shoot better than I can hold.