New caster, leading, and lots of variables

[Akheloce]

Greetings folks,

Last weekend, I smelted/ cast my first ingots, then cast my first boolits. Today, I shot them, and have some leading. In this case, I'm not sure what is causing it.

Alloy: I casted 3 different alloys... One mystery 65lb bar that turned out to be 9 BHN an hour after casting, and 10 BHN 48 hours later. Second was 65 lbs of fishing weights that tested 8 BHN right after casting, and 9BHN 48 hours later. Third was 85 lbs Linotype, 19 BHN right after casting, 21.5 BHN 48 hours after casting.

Mold: Lee 452-300rf GC 6 cavity. Cast 325 gr with GC

Guns: 4" Ruger Redhawk in 45 Colt, and 16" Rossi R92 in 45 Colt.

Load: 19.5-22.0 gr LilGun (array of 5 each test loads in increasing powder weights)

Velocity: Redhawk-1225-1260 fps (depending on powder charge). R92- 1520-1596 fps

The alloy I used for these boolits was the mystery bar which started at 10BHn, and water dropped. The two test culls I used for BHN testing came out to 15.4 and 16.0 BHN
The boolits were lubed with LLA, sized to .452 in Lee push through sizer (and GC'ed), then lubed again with LLA.

So, today, after testing the loads for velocity and pressure signs, I checked the bore. The Redhawk had minor leading in random areas in the grooves, but barely a little more near the muzzle. I have shot commercial cast boolits in this before, and never got any appreciable leading.

The Rossi is brand new. It was cleaned thoroughly, and today's test loads were the first through it. There's a fair amount of leading that follows the rifling, mostly on the edges of the lands, and mostly near the muzzle.

So, while I've done a lot of reading, I think I have gotten more confused ;). At first I figured too soft alloy, but with GC's and 15-16 BHN, I figured it would be ok. Then, I figured running out of lube, but the Redhawk only has a 4" barrel, and it was leading too. The Redhawk slugs .451, I have not slugged the Rossi.

Any advise you folks could offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[MtGun44]

No real need for that hard and the water dropping. Save yourself the step and air cool,
they will be just fine for sure in the revolver and I'll bet they will still be fine in the
levergun.

Bill

[canyon-ghost]

How about going the other direction? If your alloy is too hard, the rifling strips the lead from the outside of the bullet before it gets rotation. Sometimes, only sometimes. If the Redhawk is .451, you could size to .454 and still make it work. I'd go to .453 first.

That said, I haven't used Lil Gun, so can't say anything about the powder. There's an amount of thread crush where the barrel is threaded to frame on Rugers, I've only ran into that on a 41 magnum Blackhawk.

My 45 Colts shoot cleanly. I only use air-cooled wheelweight. The only time a guy needs water quenched bullets is for rifle, fast rifles. Being these are fairly new guns, be advised that copper fouling from jacketed factory ammo can really grab lead when you first start using it. I cleaned that 41 mag in excess of 4 times before I got all the factory fouling out. I use Hoppes #9 on copper but, I only need mineral spirits paint thinner for the lead. I like the way Carnuba Red lube leaves the barrel all shiny and polished.

Good Luck,
Ron

PS: Sounds like you are already knee deep in bullet casting, that's great for a boolit mold guy. Keep on doing good work!

[Three44s]

People get way too hung up on getting "hard lead" to shoot with.

Hard lead is usually not what it's cracked up to be.

I'd also advocate softer.

I'd also focus on one gun at a time while you are getting your feet wet. I'd probably work with the RH before the lever gun. No flies on the Rossi but you are trying to make things work on too many "planes" at once. You may well be running out of lube on the long gun as well.

I think you'll get your revolver running on the straight and narrow more easily.

What one finds is two things: Look at your bullet fitament ........ how it's fitting the cylinder and the barrel. And look at how clean and polished the forcing cone and the bore.

For a quick test, try your finnished boolits by sliding through the throats of your revolver. If they are loose there, you've got trouble right off the bat!

Even if they measure up there, you still have the bore to worry about. Your boolits need to obuturate there and if there are tight spots along the way (ie. thread crush in the frame barrel junction) you are surely going to have to deal with that.

Now, about bore smoothness:

I was lucky, as I merely used JB Bore paste and hand polished the bore between shooting sessions. The way I looked at it ............. as the bore quit grabbing lead ......... I backed away from polishing it.

If you want an easy to read reference on this ......... go to the websight of Beartooth Bullets and scroll down to the offer on getting the most out of lead.

Best regards and best luck in your endeavor!

Three 44s

[Akheloce]

Thanks for the advice and encouragement. Eventually, I hope to work it so the same load works in both the rifle and revolver. Maybe I should remove one of them as a variable at this time.

On the hardness, I'll accept that I need to go with softer if I have to, however I don't want to if there's any way to avoid it. This is my Brown Bear defense load, so max hardness without brittleness is my desire. With the Redhawk, my previous load was the 335 WFN by Cast Performance. They advertise it to be 18-21 BHN, and I never got leading, so that lead my water dropping thought process.

Thanks

[Akheloce]

Update:

I slugged the Rossi and Redhawk again.... .451 for both. I only have calipers right now. Mic is on the wishlish. I calipered some of the other sized boolits not loaded yet, and it appears that either my measurements are off, or boolits are growing, but the Lee .452 push through is sizing .453.

Before slugging last night, I didn't have time for a thorough cleaning, so I just ran a bore-snake through them to clean up some of the loose residue to see the rifling easier. Now, I don't trust a bore-snake for any real cleaning, I just have one for field/hunting use to remove loose dirt etc that gets in the bore. On the Redhawk, it appeared to remove all the visible leading, and on the Rossi, it removed about 75% of it. Now, Im not sure why. Ive seen leading before, and I've seen antimony residue before, and I'm confident about what I saw, but confused on why a bore snake could have removed as much as it did... maybe it just smoothed it out and made it less visible.


I also tested another unloaded boolit from the original batch, and it tested 20 BHN. Either the week of rest mattered that much, or my water dropping technique is highly inconsistent.

[Old Caster]

Don't worry about going softer just because it is your bear load. In the old days, most everything was pure lead with a BHN of around 5 or so. Soft lead will not shatter anywhere near as easy as hard and the soft will expand well.

[gray wolf]

IMO, I don't think you need anything over 13 or 14 BHN
A 300 grain bullet over 1200 FPS is a formidable foe for anything walking.

[waksupi]

At your velocities, you probably shouldn't need anything over 10 Bn.

[Akheloce]

Hmm , what to do with all this Linotype.

[Old Caster]

Trade it for more of other types of lead since it is worth more money because of its relative rarity or mix it with pure if you come across any.

[tomme boy]

You should let the bullets sit for at least 1-2 weeks before loading. Even water dropping them. Some of the stuff in the bore you saw was burnt ALOX. I hate the stuff. Some love it. Some people are dip lubing the bullets into the alox and letting them dry. Just dip the bullet past the lube groove then set it on its base on a piece of wax paper to dry for a few weeks. Then load as normal. You can do this with other types of lube as well. If you are not going to shoot a ton of bullets it works fine.

My 45 colt I had to soften up the lead to get it to stop leading. Air cool some of your bullets or mix up some more pure lead into your mix to soften them up. And look for some 2400 powder if you can find it.

[Akheloce]

Update:

If anyone cares;)

I cast everything exactly the same, except this time, instead of LLA, I used both Lyman super moly (came with Lyman 4500), and BAC from White Label. Both batches of Lyman Super Moly and BAC left absolutely no leading at all. They left a perfect lube star, and the bores are shinier than I recall with any commercial cast or j-words. I've shot more than 50 from each bore and they look great.

However, the alloy expanded a bit, and I lost a few inches of penetration in wet phone books. I think I'm going to try hardening up a bit. Right now, I'm getting 17.5" penetration vs 24" with commercial hard cast- with the 4" Redhawk.

Coincidentally, I'm not as patient or forgiving as some.... I made one attempt at pan lubing... With the wax still on my hands, I ordered a 4500 2nd day air. Not a fan of pan lubing.

[500MAG]

Update:

If anyone cares;)

I cast everything exactly the same, except this time, instead of LLA, I used both Lyman super moly (came with Lyman 4500), and BAC from White Label. Both batches of Lyman Super Moly and BAC left absolutely no leading at all. They left a perfect lube star, and the bores are shinier than I recall with any commercial cast or j-words. I've shot more than 50 from each bore and they look great.

However, the alloy expanded a bit, and I lost a few inches of penetration in wet phone books. I think I'm going to try hardening up a bit. Right now, I'm getting 17.5" penetration vs 24" with commercial hard cast- with the 4" Redhawk.

Coincidentally, I'm not as patient or forgiving as some.... I made one attempt at pan lubing... With the wax still on my hands, I ordered a 4500 2nd day air. Not a fan of pan lubing.
I've done it all. LLA, Pan lube, I use a lyman 450 and I also PC. it's just a matter of preference. There are still certain times I prefer good old LLA. You use what works. Glad to hear that your getting some good results.