Recipe to use up soft lead?

[Avery Arms]

Assuming a mild pistol load around 800fps, how can I mix my lead to use as much pure lead as possible without creating problems?

I have been collecting all the lead I can find free/cheap but I never use the soft stuff just wheel weights.

Would 50/50 work for .45 auto target loads? What about 75% soft if I water drop?

I only have a couple rolls of solder and I would like to save that for making .54 conicals-not hardening pistol bullets.


PP

[JeffinNZ]

It's a factor of pressure.

I am pushing very soft lead ( < 8 BHN ) in my .380 Rook at 1200fps on both BP and Green Dot and it shoots GREAT. Low pressures you see. The alloy is stick on wheel weight with a very small amount of tin.

Providing you keep you pressures below the tensile strength threshold of the alloy you will be fine pushing soft lead. You could go up to 13000 PSI.

[cohutt]

I use 1/4 ww 3/4 pure in 45-70 @ 1200fps, 440g over 15.1g unique, just a pinch of tin added

Have used 1/3 ww 2/3 pure in 45 acp, 44 mag and 9mm up to 900 fps

I water drop from the mold

lube = LLA or Lars Red depending on bullet.


I started out 60/40 ww/pure and have continued to back off the % WW without any issues. I'll probably try the 45 in 1/4 ww 3/4 pure.

[mike in co]

me thinks you dont need much ww for a 45acp 800 fps load.....

hope somebody wiht more alloying exper jumps in.....8 to 1......6 to 1


mike in co

[HeavyMetal]

At those presures it's more important to have the boolit sized right than to worry about hardness.

I think the suggested 1/4 WW to 3/4 pure lead will work fine if water dropped and sized .452.

Use the Lars red and you'll do fine!

[Heavy lead]

My regular straight mixture I use regularly for 41, 44, 45, and 475 is 2 parts pure and 1 part ww, I push these plain base boolits with BAC between 900 and 1200 with good results. I also use this for slugs. 357 and 45 acp I run 1 to 1 plain base. I size everything accordingly.

[Avery Arms]

Thanks I'll try slightly better than half pure and see what happens.

Just this morning a guy gave me a couple hundred pounds of dive belt weights and 5lb plumbers ingots:)


PP

[Tom Herman]

And I add 2% tin for better mold fillout. this works well for .45 Long Colt, .44 Special to at least 850 FPS.
I tried 2:1 lead to ww last weekend, and it didn't work as well as I had hoped. Accuracy was good, but cleanup was a disaster! The .45 Long Colt was almost as badly leaded as with dead soft commercial loads. Bah. Humbug. I'll stick with the 1:1...

Happy Shootin'! -Tom

[cajun shooter]

When shooting soft lead it's very important to shoot with a bullet sized over your bore measurement. If you shoot at 452 and your throats are 454, the trouble will show up in leaded bores. With your 45 ACP I would see if the bore is at 451 and then size at 452 for a good seal with the softer lead. Just had to send a 6 banger back to Lee. No matter the alloy, it was dropping 448-451 bullets for my Colts. Made a mess when I went to size and found my problem. I "assumed" the mold was dropping the correct size as it was a special order mold. 61 years and still trusting that people will do the correct thing. WRONG AGAIN

[GrizzLeeBear]

50/50 would make a very versitile alloy. Easily go from 800 to about 1200 in a plain base. Put a GC on it and go on up to 1800+ fps and make good hunting boolits. Like the others have said, with a good lube, boolit fit is usually more important than hardness.

[Wayne Smith]

Swaged lead bullets are pure, or close to it. 800fps is no problem out of a .38, why should it be out of a .45?

[redgum]

Most of my boolits are 50/50 , pure/ww
I shoot .38/357 & .45acp handguns & .45/70 rifle mostly loaded to 80% max.
I don't use many "pound-your-gun-to-death" type loads though.

I read a formula somewhere that went:
Alloy Hardness X 14** (cant remember the magic number) = minimum pressure required for obturation

[BD]

I'd just cast up some pure lead .45s size'em and shoot'em. IMHO pure lead is actually more forgiving of bore size than WW. I've shot hundreds of pounds of range scrap (mostly pure lead .22s) out of my 1911s with no problems at all. All sized to .451 I'd bet that Pepe Ray has too as we cleaned out the range together to get the scrap. I still have a pail or too left up in Maine and I'm planning to shoot that also "as is" when I get back.
BD

[Lloyd Smale]

pure will shoot at those velocitys if all the stars are aligned. But most guns wont do it without work. If it were me id start at about 5050 with ww and see if that works.

[twotoescharlie]

get a muzzle loader.

TTC

[Avery Arms]

get a muzzle loader.

TTC

I have four .44 cap n' ball wheelguns, a 28ga shotgun, a 12ga shotgun and rifles in .32, .50 and .54

But it takes a LONG time to put a few hundred pounds of lead through those things.


PP

[Seafarer12]

See if you can scrounge up some linotype, you don't need much.