Curious as to which alloy for casting #4 buck
would str8 lead be the choice or a harder alloy be more in line
Curious as to which alloy for casting #4 buck
would str8 lead be the choice or a harder alloy be more in line
Hit em'hard
hit em'often
I use what ever lead I that will fill out the mold well. The mold is a Sharp Shooter Mold that cast both #4 and 00. The mold has to be very hot to work. I heat the mold with a bottle propane torch and use heavy welding gloves with this mold. A little tin helps with the mold fill out.
I coat the shot with Hi-Tech coating after casting, the coating keeps lead out of the barrel.
The lead is usually 92-6-2 allot since I have an Automated Master Caster to cast large volumes of common pistol bullets but some times I have another alloy in the Lee bottom pour pot used with the Sharp Shooter mold. A little hard lead seems to work best for the #4 buck shot.
My grand son has a single shot 410 and I load 444 Marlin brass with the #4 buck shot for him to shoot.
1-1.5% antimony would be pretty close to what the factory's use.
I just use ww/soft alloy and drop them on the table from about a foot up to break everything apart.
Chilled shot is around 2% and Magnum Shot is 4 to 5%
range lead here.
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -- H.L. Mencken
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.― H.L. Mencken
I use COWW and water drop my 00 out of my Lee mold. Makes them real hard.
I just cast 8 lbs of 00 using a SS 00/# 4 combo mold and my alloy is COWW.
I also use 45-45-10 to lube them to prevent oxidation.
Hard is best, minimizes distortion of pellets. My best have been with this high antimony lead from a vendor here with a little buffer. Great stuff.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...shipping-12-10)
"My main ambition in life is to be on the devil's most wanted list."
Leonard Ravenhill
To each his own . I cast a bunch of 0000 and 00000 all water quenched WW's . They both patterned well enough for my needs and the 00000 certainly laid the smack down on the one deer i fired it at this past season .
Parker's , 6.5mm's and my family in the Philippines
My preference is a final product of roughly 16 BHN
An alloy/BHN chart can be found here:
http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletAlloy.htm
Last edited by RMc; 03-12-2017 at 04:25 AM.
I had a pot full of zinc contaminated wheel weights. Wouldn't cast bullets worth a darn , so I tried it on a Sharpshooter 00 buck mold. I worked pretty good. The cavities filled out well, and the pellets were very hard, and only about 1.5 gr lighter than pure lead. They patterned great. After shooting them through plywood and recovering them from the dirt bank, they were not deformed one bit. I definitely believe hard pellets are the way to go now.
may have to mix a bit of lino into the alloy
like 50/50 lino ww water dropped
Hit em'hard
hit em'often
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 |