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I was casting some 200 grainers for my Garand today and pulled the lead from the wrong pile. I used melted down stick-on weights rather than melted down clip-on weights. They are going to be pretty soft. They are sized 0.003" over bore diameter and will have a gas check. I had intended to put them in front of 32.5 grains of IMR4895. Is there any chance that they will shoot well? What do you expect from a round fired as described?
Stick ons are going to be pretty soft. I'm assuming they are sized and lubed already so trying to heat treat is out. With the gas check on them they may have a chance though,but you may pick up some leading to deal with. The other problem with these soft slugs is feeding may bend deform them, the garand can be pretty rough on the feeding cycle. I would try a few watching for leading. Maybe make a few dummy rounds to cycle thru the action to check for deformation and or bending.
My suggestion is to powder coat them. You can put the gas checks on after.
The only thing I would do with those 200gr SOWW boolits is gallery loads in a bolt action or single shot rifle.
Remelt them back into ingots, easy fix.
Bingo!Quote:
Originally Posted by Dennis Eugene
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Stamp those little suckers when you make them...later you'll be glad.
You don't need a stamp set...use symbols to represent Plain Pb, COWW & et cetera.
I wish I had done this back at the beginning. I have too much of a stash to ever get them all marked now. I've had a few get mixed up over the years. 55 gallon buckets get brittle over time and split. I stack them in plastic milk crates now, so we'll see how well these hold up. A full milk crate is a heavy sucker though! I put a tag on the milk crate with a description and the date that the ingots were cast on.
As to the original post, I would probably remelt the soft bullets. I'm thinking its less work than cleaning lead out of a barrel.
crates and buckets will get brittle also. I have made crates out of wood pallets which seem to hold up a long long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by lightman
Its hard to keep track of alloys unless you mark them. Even a simple marking process will do. I have a really large Philips screw driver that I use to mark all my " good enough" for rifle alloy. just hit it once and done.
I would either put these soft bullets aside or run them...
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If you are like me regarding Pb, we didn't know as much about blending it until we came here amongst the connoisseurs...it just wasn't so well defined as now.Quote:
Originally Posted by lightman
My system has had to change too of storing but I have only a thousand pounds at any one time, never let it get too out of hand as far as keeping it blended into ingots. Without an XRF gizmo we really don't know whats the content and BHN has to suffice along with 'assuming' a lot from source Pb.
Anyway, I'll pour into muffin type ingots, only process two or three 40 lb. pots at any one session...when the ingots are ready, I'll stack them in rows representng batches, test the one in the front of the row and stamp it. It may look OCD but it pays off in trying to blend something we can use in the future.
I keep the Lyman #2, lino, pewter, Sn & soft Pb separate and use it to do the final blending for boolit batches...that seems to work well.
I'm with you on using those boolits....send them back to the pot, nothing but a little time lost there.
I smelt into a Lil Mac mold. Makes about a 2.5 lbs double ingot, which stacks very well inside 2x4's. I mark them all with their BHN.
I use a Lee Pro bottom pour, and can put 3 of these in easily, so I can mix in the pot as well.
Attachment 200253
This is the top of my bench. There are 700+ lbs below it.
Attachment 200256