Powder coating soft lead for 44 mag?

[derek45]

Friend gave me a bunch of tele-cable sheath

I want to cast 44mag, and 38sp,..... and HF powder coat

with the powder coat, will they work OK, or do I need to mix in some tin and antimony ?

The lead seems pretty soft

Thanks

[RED333]

Why not save it for muzzle load? Trade it for WW? Mix a bit with WW then PC.

[Grmps]

You may want something a little harder for those rounds.
As for powder coating, I coat pure lead to foundry with no problems.
Save yourself some anguish and get some powder from Smoke, a vendor on this forum.
His powders work much better than HF powders.

[MyFlatline]

AS Grmps said, you can coat any hardness lead. I coat 7/8 BHN for the 45 acp but think the 44 should be a touch harder.

The Harbor Freight powders are not the top of the line but the red is the best and I have used many pounds of it for spraying. Smokes powder is said to be very good, I tried some from "Powder by the Pound" and have been very pleased. I'm sure there are many others out there. I told Smoke I would try his next, just need to use up this 20 pounds first.

[Tripplebeards]

These mushrooms are 7-7.5 BH that were PC and GC 44 mag devastators. My mix was pure lead(lead flooring sheets) and 6% pewter. My pure lead started out between 5-6 BH and the pewter didn't harden it much. I chronied them at 1675fps at 15 yards out of my 77/44. No leading what so ever but after the boolit expanded the PC shedded. You can barely see the dark blue PC under the mushrooms. I didn't get tons of penatration, caught one of my boolits in a milk jug after it went through only three Gatorade bottles and shedded most of its weight. Didn't weigh them but they mushroomed and shedded most their weight. Probably would make a good self defence load and not pass through a wall but after much thought I wouldn't use them for anything bigger than coyotes. My next batch will be 50/50 COWW and pure mix with some pewter so I get more weight retention and penatration. I tried the same velocity with COWW AC with a BH of 14.3. I penatrated and passed through 8 milk jugs and it kept going. I want a middle of the road BH between the two. I were you I would mix it 50/50 with COWW and and some tin, 2% if you have some.

206001206002206003206004

[derek45]

I've used up all my supply of WW

I've seen smoke's thread, and may buy some after my HF powder runs dry. HF PC is working for now

Had not thought of trading, might post something at my gun club.

was thinking about buying some antimony and tin, but not sure.

thanks for the replies, so far.
Derek
.

[jeepyj]

For some reason I am thinking tele-lead was somewhere around a 10 BHN. Did you test it? I wouldn't blink an eye for the 38s and for the 44s I would start with something that is a somewhat light and work up checking for possable leading. Maybe 30-40 rounds each should give some real indication. I use HF red with a HF sprayer with extremely good luck. That being said I don't want to leave out Smokes powdercoat especially if your using the shake and bake method.

[Lloyd Smale]

Powder coating will probably prevent leading with that soft alloy but at 44 mag pressures a harder alloy will no doubt outshoot your soft bullets. PC does nothing to offset bullets deforming under pressure.

[tsubaki]

I also would expect the hardness to be nearer 10.
Send a piece to someone here that will volunteer to test it or get some pencils and try your hand at testing it yourself.
These are some TL430-240-SWC HF red powder coated fired at 1410fps into a dirt pile. Hardness was BH11.
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1604/13750646/24755939/413102326.jpg
These are some of the same BH11 HF red powder coated but from a TL358-158-SWC at 1175fps.
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1604/13750646/24755939/413103264.jpg

[murf205]

You may want something a little harder for those rounds.
As for powder coating, I coat pure lead to foundry with no problems.
Save yourself some anguish and get some powder from Smoke, a vendor on this forum.
His powders work much better than HF powders.
+1 for Smokes powder. It is a LOT easier to get good results with than HF.

[Tripplebeards]

I'm guessing my 50/50 mix of ACCOWW and pure lead mixed with 2% pewter is gong to be around 10 BH. The COWW tested around 14.3. I used th mix the other day for Lee 200g for my 35 rem and some 255 g for my 45 colt. Going to use it for my 44 mag devistators as well with velocities around 1850 out of my rifle. If your lead has a BH of 10 you will be fine with PC. You will get boolit expansion and energy transfer with 10 BH at normal velocities. Start casting, PC, and shoot. If you don't have a tester fill up about 8 or more milk jugs and see how many it penatrated. Then check your mushroom compared to mine and the 11 BH shown and you'll have a ruff idea how hard your lead is. With my 7 BH I made it to about 4 jugs and the base was litteraly flattened to the mushroom. I'm guessing they weigh a 100g tops. My 14.3 BH made it through all 8 jugs I set up and kept going. Looks like the 11 BH above is the ticket...or a little harder. I might try 3/4 ACCOWW 1/4 pure and 2% pewter for my devistators at rifle velocities over 1600 fps.

[mdi]

The cable sheathing I used was nearly pure lead (courtesy of LADWP), very soft and I'd guess it was lower than 10 BHN. prolly 8. I have used range scrap (BHN around 10-12) with magnum loads in my .44s and when PCed, have had no problems...

[fredj338]

Depends on your vel needs, but as noted, PC is not a substitute for proper alloy vs pressures/velocities. I would use pure lead to 1000fps or so then after that, start looking to alloy with tin &/or antimony.

[Grmps]

If you can find some pewter at a thrift store (pewter is mostly tin) you can smelt that and add it as tin.

Here is a link to a calculator that can help with alloys

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=112871&d=1407425452

And a cheaper way to test hardness
Testing hardness with pencils
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...s-with-pencils
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...=1#post3554910

HF red works (not as well), I only used it on shotgun slugs after I got smokes

Tripplebeards was using gas-checks which also allows you to go softer.

You never mentioned how hard you were going to push them.

If you stay sub-sonic and use gas checks that's a different story

[runfiverun]

back in the old days they used tin with their lead.
I would bet 25 or 30-1 would be more than enough with the P/C applied.
I realize a pound of tin would only make like 5-600 boolits.

[derek45]

I want to make the 38's about 850fps, and the 44's, about 900-1100. I have plane base, and gas checkmolds, and would rather skip the GC.

Thinking if I mix about 35-40lbs of this stuff with a bar of

Super Hard Alloy Metal - 5 pounds (30%-Antimony, 70%-Lead)

https://www.rotometals.com/super-hard-alloy-metal-5-pounds-30-antimony-70-lead/

It should be near 12brinell . . . did I calculate that about right ?

[mdi]

An aside, what's the downside of using soft lead, 9-10 BHN, and PC for bullets? PC removes the leading, so perhaps bullet skidding?

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Powder coating will probably prevent leading with that soft alloy but at 44 mag pressures a harder alloy will no doubt outshoot your soft bullets. PC does nothing to offset bullets deforming under pressure.

I totally agree.

and I'll add, a deformed boolit will still be accurate enough at short range. But once you start shooting past 25 yards the poor accuracy will be obvious.

[runfiverun]

I'd take the lead amount up 50 lbs would get you to about 3% antimony.
a little tin and you'd be right near ww or isotope core alloy.
me being me I would take it even further 70 lbs of lead and 5 lbs of the 30% alloy would be closer to what I'm using anyway.

[derek45]

ok cool how much tin should I add to 50lbs ?

2% ?

[RED333]

ok cool how much tin should I add to 50lbs ?

2% ?

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?105952-Lead-alloy-calculators

[Lloyd Smale]

adding tin to get higher bhn isn't economically feasible. To get to about what air cooled ww is your going to have to go somewhere around 10-1 to 15-1 and at 10 bucks a lb for lead it gets expensive fast. 2 percent tin to pure lead isn't going to hardly bump the hardness level. What you need is antimony or get hardness. Or if water dropping antimony or arsenic. Even if a guy does a small amount of antimony and water drops you can get substantialy harder bullets. If you want to spend some money spend it on lineotype and alloy with that. It has tin and antimony in it and is around 2 bucks a lb vs 10 for tin. The main use for tin in bullet casting is fillout of your mold and bullet quality. that said you if you know what your doing you can make perfectly fine looking bullets out of pure lead with no tin. Id say try just adding antimony but its a real bugger to get melted and alloyed into your lead. Lineotype is hands down the easiest route to go. Even adding 10 percent lineotype and water dropping will get you some pretty hard bullets. Want my honest opinion (and many here will argue). Ive been casting for 40 years or more and in my opinion tin in your alloy is one of the most overrated things you will get advice on on a site like this. Yes it might help bullet fillout but it sure isn't necessary for fillout if your temp is correct and you keep your mold at the right temp. Over 2 percent tin doesn't add much of anything to quality bullets and using it to get hardness your going to go broke fast. the telephone and power cable sheathing Ive gotten in the past had enough antimony in it to get results water dropping. Most of it has at least 1 percent antimony in it. f I were you before I bought anything id try water dropping some as is and see if you get hard enough bullets.

[kbstenberg]

2% of 100lbs. is 2lbs. So if you have 50lbs of lead and want 2% added tin you need 1lb. of sn (pewter) I think.

[Tripplebeards]

I added 16% pewter...1 lb to 16 lbs of pure lead and it went from 5 to 6 BH to 7 to 7.5 BH. If I were you I'd go to all your auto shops and pick up a pale of COWW to add. Cheap or free and will make your lead harder in the end.

[derek45]

adding tin to get higher bhn isn't economically feasible. To get to about what air cooled ww is your going to have to go somewhere around 10-1 to 15-1 and at 10 bucks a lb for lead it gets expensive fast..........

I was asking about tin for the fill-out, not hardness

i ordered a 5lb. SUPERHARD (70% LEAD, 30% ANTIMONY) BULLET CASTING BAR from brownells

guessing it's the same as rotometals but brownells is a lot closer to me

.

[Lloyd Smale]

Like I said ive casted THOUSANDS of good bullets out of ww and even pure lead with no tin and if you have you lead temp and mold temp right you don't need any tin. By the way I don't know if you plan on casting with that super hard alloy or using it to raise hardness alloying it with pure or ww but that's WAY to much antimony as is to make bullets even for the highest velocitys and is going to no doubt get you bullets that are so brittle they fracture on impact. Even straight linotype that has 12 percent antimony is right on the border of being to brittle. I like an alloy with about 5 percent antimony for most mag handgun and rifle loads. what I would try is to add your superhard between 6-1 and 10-1 with pure and see how it casts. Or 10-1 to 15-1 to ww to make an alloy that will hold up to mag velocitys. If you want to add tin to these alloys add maybe 1-2 percent. It might make your alloy a bit for ductile and any more is just a waste of money and fillout will not improve. Really with ww alloy ive never seen where adding tin did a thing. Enough in it as is. but if it makes you feel better go for it. I used to put tin in all my alloys. Why? because I got it free from a saw mill that used it for blade guides. they went out of business and to be honest if I had 10 bucks to buy a lb of tin id take that 10 bucks to the tire shop and and see if theyd sell me some ww's. 50lbs of ww is alot more valuable to me then a lb of tin.

[derek45]

my plan is to smelt 50-70lbs of mostly pure lead, with the 5lbs 70%
antimony / 30%lead....and maybe 1lb of 95/5 tin solder

goal is 12-18 brinell for casting 44magnum bullets

(I have exhausted my supply of WW.)

[Grmps]

70# lead + 5# 70% antimony = apr. 11.6 BHN, add 2% tin/pewter to that and you'll have a great alloy.

I don't know how to calculate the hardness but when you alloy equal parts tin and antimony you get an alloy harder than the sum of each together and great fill out.
Look at 94-3-3 or 90-5-5

[galaxy]

Loads of Bacon has a fantastic series ongoing at present on the subject with PC'd boolits for his 38 and 44. I would highly recommend watching most, if not all the series (not complete yet). He recovers his loads from gel at different BHN, style of casts and at different speeds. The findings are fully tabulated (link in his comments).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Biwb7vAYZfI&list=PLvRSDQ2n-bR04coYo1m2jR2KOgzC3oiVJ

[Lloyd Smale]

mixing it with 70lbs wont get you 18bhn without water dropping but it will about put you in ww territory. Even at ww hardness if your gun is built right that alloy should shoot fine. 50lb mix might be closer.
my plan is to smelt 50-70lbs of mostly pure lead, with the 5lbs 70%
antimony / 30%lead....and maybe 1lb of 95/5 tin solder

goal is 12-18 brinell for casting 44magnum bullets

(I have exhausted my supply of WW.)