Old bullet questions

[metricmonkeywrench]

Couple of questions, in a lot deal I got about 250 of these bullets, they came along with a lot of Herters stuff. They are sized to .358 and weigh an average of 159g.

A. Has anyone seen bullets delivered in wooden boxes, from the markings inside and out and it seems like original packaging.

B. Can anyone ID the mould/bullet?

C. They are all about the same condition as what’s pictured. Given the general condition load and shoot or sent to the pot to become ingots?

Thanks..



238192

238193

[Chainsaw.]

No idea on source or age, but why not just shoot em?

[Starvnhuntr]

shoot em up

[Guesser]

Ideal 358311, best 38 Special bullet ever.

[DeputyDuke]

When I get some old cast bullets with dried out lube I tumble lube them with BLL and shoot 'em up.
Duke

[RED BEAR]

At first i thought you were asking about loaded ammo which i am very leary of but cast bullets load them up and shoot away.

[metricmonkeywrench]

Duke, forgive my ignorance... BLL?

I'm in the process of cleaning up a Lyman 45 and was considering running these through it for a fresh coat of lube.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

BLL
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?259285-NEW-!-!-T-L-Liquid-Lube

My 2¢
The lube on them old boolits looks dried out, might be OK, might not be ok ?
I'd attempt to heat the boolits to melt off the lube, or boil them?
then run them through your Lyman 45.

[45workhorse]

Load and shoot, you don't need to push them to fast. You will be amazed how accurate they are.

[Eddie17]

I agree with DeputyDuke tumble lube load an shoot!
Done it with given to me old cast boolits. No problems!

[lightman]

I don't see a wrong answer here. Shoot them if you want to. Personally it don't bother me to melt bullets down and cast what I want out of them. But, I don't see anything about those pictured that would keep me from shooting them as is.

[FredBuddy]

A long time ago, I used to go to a small gun show
at a place along the highway between Charles Town WV
and Frederick MD. I bought boolits packaged exactly
like that from a vendor there several times.
They were well made and shot well, too!

[WardT]

boil and pc

[bedbugbilly]

Lyman/Ideal 358311 as Guesser stated. I cast and use this traditional design quite a bit in 38 special - good shooting boolit. I'd just shoot 'em - if you're worried about the lube - tumble lube them and then let 'em fly.

[condorjohn]

Shoot em, or sell them to me and I'll shoot em.

[country gent]

I believe I would test a random sampling of them for hardness to see what they are and then tumble lube and shoot them according to how hard they were. Cast boolits can be in a wide hardness range the test would give an Idea of loads.

[rking22]

Tumble and shoot!

[CPC24]

If you load a caliber that they fit, why melt them? Load up a few and see how they do. If they’re junk, then melt them.

[stubshaft]

Shoot em up.

[Walter Laich]

IF the lube is not gritty from sitting around forever--shoot them

if you get into the boiling and etc then I'm fine melting them down.

actually it would depend on my mood when I got them

[Winger Ed.]

I do something to use them as they are. Boil & PC, tumble lube, etc.
I wouldn't re-melt them.


A bit of Airwinger wisdom:
Don't make extra work for yourself, there's plenty of other people who will gladly do that for ya.

[Walks]

Like others have said, if the lube is smooth, then shoot them.
I've seen bullets sold in a wooden box, I have bought some myself from 2 different outfits. But that was almost 30yrs ago, and they were Cowboy Bullets. But they were .44's & .45's. Sold at End of Trail in 1990 or 1991, just that one year. Didn't see the guy again. But they were good bullets. Had that hard blue lube. And they were Hard bullets too. But they shot ok with very little leading.
Really nice little "crate boxes" too.

[JBinMN]

:Fire:

:guntootsmiley:

;)

[metricmonkeywrench]

Range update, based on the feedback I loaded up a box of .38 and a box of .357 and finally got to the range today. The dependable S&W Model 10 merrily munched thu the box with no issues. I haven’t cleaned up the gun but don’t see any signs of heavy leading. So that’s a load and go again.

The wheels fell of the buss right off the bat with the .357 SAA, the first cylinder locked up the gun while loading. I pulled the base pin out and was able to get the cylinder out. A second attempt netted the same result. It appears that several of the rounds OAL is too long for the cylinder.

I don’t think I can re-seat the bullets any deeper so rather than breaking them down, I’ll just kiss the nose of the bullet with a rasp to get the OAL down to an acceptable level. Apparently there is a lot of variation to the length of the bullet from the crimp groove as the brass was all trimmed to length. So for my .357 for these bullets are likely not going to be used again.