A boolit question

[Beekeeper]

OK all you boys and gals I have a question about boolits for you.

Today I was at the recyclers (checking for lead ) and found the the following in the lead barrel.
Was in street clothes so did not get them all but brought home 160 lbs of cast boolits,( Left another 160 lb there to be picked up another day.)
I have looked in my catalogs of moulds and have found none of them.
So should I just melt them down to ingots or maybe find them a new home


Jim

[Doby45]

Melt them down..

[Blammer]

the only one I'd think about saving would be the .452 dia one, looks to be a good 45acp boolit, the rest look too small (undersized) or oversized.

I'd melt them down SEPERATELY from my other lead and see how the alloy does, hate to ruin good alloy with zinc or something else.

[Mk42gunner]

You could shoot them if they are the correct diameter, (or are able to size them to the correct diameter).

The bad thing about that is what if you find the stupendous, never to be improved load, (Yeah right) and can't find the mold number??? That would be very frustrating.

The good thing about melting them is that you probably wouldn't have to flux the melt.

Robert

[buck1]

Melt them down +1

[fryboy]

hmmm puzzles ... i really dont have a clue ( good lead tho !!! ) a missing piece of the puzzle mite help a few folks , the weight , the 452 one reminds me of the old remington boollit but is a lil smaller than those

[docone31]

If I do not cast them, I do not shoot them.

[Beekeeper]

I don't know it just seemed so strange to see a couple of hundred pounds of perfectly good cast boolits in the recyclers bin.
Said some young man brought them in in seperate buckets and sold the lot for $0.10 a pound.
What got me was most of them are lubed and a lit are gas checked and lubed.
Seems strange someone would go to all that trouble and then scrap them.

Was also about 20 lbs of cupcake ingots ,professional type with" pure lead" and a "CU" embossed on each ingot.

Guess I will melt them down and add to my stache.

Jim

[uncle joe]

what Blammer said, and if you don't mind how much were they per pound. I think my local scrap yard gets .10 / lb and I would like to get some lead from them.

[Beekeeper]

Uncle Joe<
The scrapper here pays $0.10 a pound and sells it to me for $0.20 a pound.
It doesn't matter what kind of lead it is it is all $0.20 a pound.
I bought 165 pounds of pure from him a couple of weeks ago (in ingot form) same price.

Good luck.


Jim

[sagacious]

Great score. I'd melt 'em, to eliminate the risk of running any grit through my lubrisizer.

[tuckerdog]

melt em down cast your own

[Buckshot]

.................Well if you had a use for'em that .362" SWC could be shot in a 38 S&W as is, or sized to .359/.360 for a 38 Special, and the .452" RN looks like it'd be useable in 45 ACP, or 45 Colt. What the heck, load up 25 of'em and see what happens?

Several years back our rangemaster asked me if I'd be interested in seven 25 lb shot bags full of cast lead slugs for $20. I bought them figureing I'd just melt'em down. I did end up melting almost a full bag, but in the process got a good look at them and decided to load up a few. They were commercial swaged type 158gr SWC's. Had the 2 rolled in knurled grooves and a crimp groove and had that dark grayish, bluish black flood type lube. While not match grade they were for sure practice/plinking worthy and I had a BUNCH of'em, so now they pretty much fill two 3 lb coffee cans.

..................Buckshot

[sturf]

A little hard to tell from the picture, but try these:

Top: Lyman 358271
2: Lyman 429215
3: Lyman 429421
4: Lyman 452400
5: Lyman 429360

[casterofboolits]

Melt 'em down, flux 'em and cast in one of your moulds to get an idea of the alloy.

I usually use a Lyman 358477 38-150-SWCPB that drops 150 grains from my alloy.

Once you establish a base, then adjust alloy to your requirement. I'm doing the same right now with about 50 pounds of what appear to be 45-70 boolits I took in a lead trade.

[RayinNH]

If you have a firearm to use them in and they are the right size or larger use them. Just boil them to get the old lube and dirt out of them and re-lube...Ray