Hello from Oregon

[oli700r]

Hello everyone. I am brand new to this, I have no pot yet and I have no mold but have a bunch of lead. My Grandpa was really into it and I decided it was time to carry on the tradition. I have learned a ton around here reading. I acquired the lead cleaning out Gramps garage. There is a lot of odds and end lead and one piece in a roughly 10”x10”x4” square. It looks like it was made to be stackable with others like its self and has a hole in each corner. I always thought it has to be pure lead because I honestly felt less than a man when I went to move it the first time….I lift weights and this thing felt every bit 80 pounds or more. Reading here I don’t know if it is pure lead or not as it seems kind of hard .Its been moved around a few times and there isn’t really any scratches on it and the corners aren’t rounded but I have been carful with it….amazed at the weight o such a small thing. Does any one know what this might be?...I know it isn’t steel/iron

Also I want to start with slug and 00 buck and get into boolits a little later. I have been tying to research pots, flux and ways to harden the lead for the 00 buck as we all know it patterns better. I have no tin but could probably buy some. I read a little in other sections mention water quenching but haven’t seen wrote about being used with 00 buck.

Thanks for the info, so far it has been a real eye opener, but I’m not scared I am really into melting Grandpas lead and taking him shooting.

[oli700r]

thanks, makes since.

[turbo1889]

Lead that is pure or close to pure can be scratched with your finger nail to the paint where you can leave a visible groove. This is because such is softer then your finger nail, but harder lead alloys are harder then your finger nails and are very difficult if not impossible to scratch with your finger nails. That is the tried and true quick and dirty method.

Yes, buckshot can be water quenched to harden it just like anything else and I use that method myself. Be aware though that only lead alloys that contain antimony and/or arsenic can be hardened by water drop quenching. Lead can be hardened by other additives such as tin but if you water drop those alloys all they do is get wet. Antimony and/or arsenic form crystal lattice structures in lead alloys they are added to which make them harder. Rapidly cooling the alloy "freezes" those crystal lattice structures in place instead of allowing them to degrade slightly as they do in with a slower air cooled process. It is very similar to the crystal lattice structures that carbon forms in steel that makes it so much stronger then plain old iron. Long story short, if you want to make hard buck shot by water drop quenching tin is not what you’re looking for as an additive. You need high antimony and/or arsenic lead alloys to add to "sweeten" the mix. Both antimony and arsenic are very dangerous to work with in their pure form so instead of looking for them directly you rather look for lead alloys that have a very large concentration of them to add to your mix rather then adding them directly. RotoMetals’ "Super Hard" is an excellent source since it is 30% antimony 70% lead and this is basically what it is intended for, that being a safe way to add antimony to your mix. Type metal is also an excellent source if you can find it for a reasonable price in sufficient quantity. Wheel Weights and hard magnum bird shot will also do you as sources but they only have enough antimony and/or arsenic in them to allow you to thin them 50/50 with softer lead and still get the water drop quenching process to work. Tin is still a good additive since it improves the cast-ability of your alloy and keeps the alloy from becoming too brittle but you only need 2-3% in your mix to accomplish that unless you are using an alloy with very high concentrations of antimony and/or arsenic which is unnecessary for buck shot and really only applicable to very high power rifle and "hand cannon" loads.

[oli700r]

Priceless, thank you sir.
I can not scratch it with my nail. That is why I was kind of suspicious. The other lead scrap really reminded me of what lead should be like….like salmon fishing weights. If this other block wasn’t so heavy I could talk myself out of it being lead…..It was with his lead supply though and he was real organized when it came to his casting and reloading.

[missionary5155]

Greetings & Welcome to the Big Bore Zone.
Something you might want to consider is shooting Round Ball out of that smooth bore. Much easier to cast and will easily out penetrate any hallow base slug.
Mike in Peru

[oli700r]

thanks Mike, I imagine accuracy is the same ? Would you maybe follow loading data for a Lee slug but just swap the slug for a round ball ? Smoothbore is right. These will be shot out of a mossberg 500 20" with a cyl.choke. I am trying to get some STS hulls, probably going to use HS6 powder.

[chambers]

Try the Lyman sabot slug with winchester wad, great results with rifled 12 gauge barrel.

[Box13]

Greetings oli700r,I to am from Oregon...Beavercreek area...Robin

[oli700r]

Greetings oli700r,I to am from Oregon...Beavercreek area...Robin

cool, I'm about 20 miles out of Medford

[johnly]

Another Castboolits person from SW Portland area. Welcome aboard..

John

[lylejb]

Welcome aboard. Greetings from Canby, OR, near Oregon City.

[krag35]

This is a great place to hang out and feed your future addiction, From Prineville.

[oli700r]

thanks everyone !

[woody1]

Welcome from Merrill, OR.

[oli700r]

Well, I have come a long way since this. The block turned out to be pure lead. Since this post I have accumulated around 300+ lbs of lead and have started casting 00 buck from the Lee 18 cavity mold.
I have tumbled my first batch with some pencil lead and loaded some of it up in Fed top gun hulls using data from the Lyman shotshell manual. The wads are BPI unslit version so I loaded a bunch with different cuts to see what patterns best so I am testing this currently.

The only thing I am not satisfied with is the crimp of the Fed top gun hull. It seems the 00 my mold is throwing is slightly too big? and when I measure them they are sometimes out of round by a little bit. .029-.034 is the variation on some of the pellets and they weigh an average of 56 grains each.

The load I am using is a 10 pellet recipe and I like how they shoot but just a tad tight in the chamber and the crimp is not the greatest.

I have made one shell with the data for the Top Gun but I put it in Federal Gold Medal hull and it fit like a glove…I mean factory finish. I haven’t fired it yet. I know you’re not supposed to trade hulls on recipes but….I just can’t believe how nice it turned out. I don’t think it will hurt the gun but if anyone can tell me something about this scenario that spells doom please speak up.
Here are some pics , thanks for the help and great info

[turbo1889]

The Fed. "Top Gun" hull is a paper base wad hull that has slightly less internal capacity then a Fed. GM hull which explains why this improved the fit for your load since you had a load that was just a little too big to fit inside a particular hull nicely and you used load data intended for a hull with slightly smaller internal capacity so things evened out to make it fit nicely.

The potential problem is that paper base wad hulls use slightly higher powder charges to produce identical peak chamber pressure levels all other things held constant compared to a hull with a plastic base wad. Thus if you take a load intended for a paper base wad hull and put it in a plastic base wad hull peak chamber pressures increase. Whether this increase puts the load over safe pressure limits or not depends on the exact combination of components and charge levels.

Would you mind posting the exact combination of components and book pressure levels for the two loads? The load you have been using and the load intended for the Top Gun hull that you want to use inside the GM hulls. That would allow me to give you a better answer as to whether or not the substitution you have made puts you into dangerous territory or not. Of course I can't give you an absolute answer but it would allow me to give a much better response based upon my experience and my own load files.

[oli700r]

Yes, the load is 10 00 pellets, 1/4” felt, 17 grains of #47 buffer in a BP12 wad on top of a BPGC, 24.5 grains of Herco. 1275 fps….I don’t have my book but I want to say the psi is 9500 or so, might be a little more.
There is a similar load that uses a lot more Herco but no buffer.
I also have cut the felt in half and it fits a little better but the crimp still looks lumpy and it doesn’t fall into the chamber nice but it does cycle

I also tried this recipie with 8 pellets in the Top Gun hull , fit good and shot nice but I think the pattern was worse.

These are being shot through a Mossberg 500 with a Vang Comp barrel (back bored and forcing cone lengthened, ported) if that makes a difference to you

Thanks for the help, the final decision is mine and would not hold anyone responsible for my actions so give your opinion knowing I am responsible for myself

[oli700r]

Hopefully you were going to say give it a go because I did and it was fine. It shot and cycled well. I could tell it had a tad more recoil but nothing like some of the factory shells I have shot through it. Although I feel it was acceptable I might cut it down a grain and a half and try to get the pattern a little tighter.

Still interested in your opinion though.

[500cadillac]

recoil does not = pressure

[oli700r]

Oh, thanks. seems like it would be related. I shot ten today with 23 grains Herco. gun was fine, and I am still here. The patterns were good but could be better.