I too rendered down some only this was range scrap from an indoor range. This was all fractured pcs. that was collected and put into a drum. Once again I found this stuff to be very dirty. Just a quick check on a bathroom scale and it looks as if this is about 60/40, lead to scrap.
Loaded a few test rounds of 41 Magnum: Lee 208 gr. WC over 5.5 gr. Red Dot. MV should be around 850 fps and am hoping for impact where the sights settle down. The test vehicle for this trial run is a Taurus model 415 (SS) wearing a 2 1/2" ported barrel with 5-shot cylinder.
I’m planning on making some ingot molds today out of angle iron. See question in casting equipment. (It’ll take me a min to post the question).
Just knowing enough to do it, is not enough to do it right! -Taz
Just finished up rendering down a small box of SOWW's that I had sorted for a full bucket of mixed. Looks like I'll end up with somewhere around 15#. This actually went pretty quickly. So now I have 3 piles of ingots with COWW's, SOWW's and Range. For now all I have left is a big box of scrap roofing flashing, which I'm not sure what to do with..
Today-------- We finished smelting last years calumniation of lead. Those pole top pins were really slow to work with and used up a big part of the day yesterday. Today was wheel weights and roofing lead. We had about 1100 ingots at the end of the day. We usually do that in a day. I think I'll pop a hand full of Aleve and grab a hot shower. I expect Biggin is planning to do the same thing! We didn't have enough time or ambition left to stamp them so that will be an evenings project sometime this week.
loaded 6 9mm steel cases for giggles. Wanting to see what they do. Just a basic loading of Power Pistol.
Sized a few hundred 223 cases in my alternate reloading room (might have a press at work )
"Yes or no will almost always suffice as the answer"
Cast some Lee 148 gr .38 wad cutters with my new 6 cavity mould , pitched the first 40 or so back into the Master Pot and made 116 to try it out in about 15 minutes, they way I like to do it with multi cavity pistol bullet moulds , glad I made my casting bench set up last summer just needed to dust it off and flux the pot and cast in my garage . Warm today in Virginia about 55 F and sunny the garage has a 220V electric heater so I was good to go
Now to let them sit a couple days then lube the bottom groove only on the Star with Red Carnauba lube from Glenn Larsen . The Lee works great like all the Lee moulds I have Don't know why two pics are posted tried to take one off sorry
My friend and I fired up the casting pot and turned some ingots into some smaller more manageable pieces of lead.
Lyman 358627 215 grain gas check semi wadcutter.
I have two seated in a 38 special case. One seated long and one short. I don’t know if the long seated one will chamber but I’m going to try it out.
Load data is scarce for this bullet but LASC has some info. Up to 700 FPS in a 38 and up to 1100 FPS for a 357.
The second bullet is the esteemed Hensley & Gibbs #68 The 200 grain SWC
This was THE bullet for 45 bullseye shooting. My friendhappened to score brand new old stock 4 cavity mould recently. I have worked with a lot of different Moulds from custom to cheap lee and I’ve never worked with such a well made mould. This thing was an absolute joy to cast with. The bullets literally just fell out as soon as the mould was opened.
I can see why these Moulds are among the most expensive out there.
Finished sizing, primer pocket swaging, trimming, deburring, and chamfering 1000 pieces of 223 brass. I'm getting a WFT for all this 223 brass.
Consolidating 2 batches of rifle brass. It's all the same headstamp; so I am annealing, sizing, length trimming, and then weight sorting.
This dang PPU brass is making me crazy. The primer pockets are deeper then SAAMI specs right from the factory, and the weight spreads are wider than I think it should be.
I may have to break down and buy some Lapua brass. It's 3 times the cost of PPU. I wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze.
Just loaded 100 357 Mag over 5.6 grs of Unique using up some Berrys Plated Target Hollow Points.
I Am Descended From Men Who Would Not Be Ruled
Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum
Have not done much lately. This morning I prepped some 223 cases for my Grandson and sorted through a double hand full of wheel weights. They were road rescues from earlier in the week. Some of these can be dirty and I use a dental pick to get the dirt and gravel out from under the clip. Thinking about moisture!
I smelted 65 lbs of dirt covered range lead and recovered 51 lbs of bead rail ingots. I only have one mold right now, but will make another soon. It will speed up the process. 78% recovery is not too bad, imo. I’ve got another bucket of 85lbs to wash and smelt. We’ll see what the recovery rate is on that load. I made the bed rail mold about 8.5 inches long to fit in sfrb. They should be able to fill the box nicely. Not that I’m planning on selling, but thought about using the box to store and label.
Just knowing enough to do it, is not enough to do it right! -Taz
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |