casting spent .22 rf bullets and air rifle pellets

[Doug Bowser]

I have 1500 pounds of spent .22 rf bullets. What degree of hardness do they have?

I also have 800 pounds of spent air rifle pellets. Are these pure lead or an alloy. How hard are they? Could they be used for .45-70 for black powder loads?

[docone31]

I suspect, they are either pure, or almost pure.
I bet your 45/70 will love those boolitts.

[Bullshop]

I picked up some scrap from a small bore indoor range. They shoot only match 22 ammo.
I tested the cleaned ingots at BHN-7. Pure lead will test about BHN-5. An alloy of about 40 to 1 lead to tin will test about BHN-7.
After casting this alloy I am certain it is not a lead/tin only alloy but does have a trace of antimony or something. An alloy with only lead and tin will give a perfectly smooth wiped sprue cut but an alloy with antimony will have some roughness to the sprue cut.
Sprues from the recovered 22 ammo show some roughness when cut.
Eley claims to have a special secret alloy for thier 22 ammo. No matter though it does work good for such things as BPC or any boolits that you would like some expansion with.
I like it for use with magnum handgun loads with gas check boolits.
BIC/BS

[Harry O]

I have gotten several pounds of spent .177 caliber pellet boolits and cast them into ingots. They came out at Bhn 5 which is the same as "pure" lead. Don't know about the .22LR boolits, but I would expect them to be very soft also.

[Ricochet]

Reportedly the .22 bullets contain between about 3/4 to 2% antimony.

[Shiloh]

I use range lead mined from a berm. There is just about everything there, .22 RF, shotgun slugs, cast and jacketed bullets. It is very soft but works fine for pistol boolits. If sweetened with wheelweights or Linotype and water quenched, it is fine for rifle boolits. No leading at 1700 fps which is as fast as I have gone.

Shiloh

[Larry Gibson]

The .22LR lead I've recovered also comes out 7-7.5 BHN. Ricochet's percentages are correct depending on the type of .22LR the bullet is intended for.

Most pellet lead is pure with a BHN of 5. However some of the newer pellets made for higher powered springers and scuba guns have some antimony in them also.

Larry Gibson

[Shiloh]

Sorry for the double post. Beats me wat happened !!


I use range lead mined from a berm. There is just about everything there, .22 RF, shotgun slugs, cast and jacketed bullets. It is very soft but works fine for pistol boolits. If sweetened with wheelweights or Linotype and water quenched, it is fine for rifle boolits. No leading at 1700 fps which is as fast as I have gone.

Shiloh