Need help with Range lead and casting

[TonyN]

I have Range Lead and it's at 10 BHN with water dropped as I haven't checked after couple says so may harden couple. Anyways my glock 17 is slugged at .356 so I sized at .357 and smoothed bored within couple rounds. In using Red bullet lube that's for hi velocity rounds and very bad experience. Anyone know how to fix this issue? Iv tries Hi-Tel with horrable experience. Only lead I have is Range lead. I shot these also out of my Sig MPX with leading on the lands but nothing like my glock. Would this work ok in a glock 21 .45 acp?

[Rich/WIS]

Shot up about a 1/2 ton of range lead so far in 45, 9mm, 38/357 and 44. Did not have issues with leading in any of them but the loads were on the light side. In the 9mm had no trouble in a CZ 85 but the only Glock we used had a replacement barrel with regular rifling. Lube was either Alox 50/50 or Xlox 2500. Have read that Glocks do not do well with lead but no personal experience.

[TonyN]

I use lube in my Star sizer. I'm using Carnauba Red 2700+ as my lube. Keep the comments coming.

[Larry Gibson]

If you smelted your RL do you recall what kind if bullets you smelted; cast, jacketed or what combination?

Larry Gibson

[BK7saum]

What are your loads? High velocity? Might not be able to go that fast with range lead.

How are you expanding your brass? You probably need to use an expander at 0.356" and not just bell sized brass. 9mm brass is notoriously bad about sizing down boolits on the soft side and yours fall into that category.

Don't use the Lee factory crimp die. It can and usually does size down boolits inside the case.

[BK7saum]

The range lead should work well with the 45 acp as it is a lot lower pressure cartridge. At least better than the 9mm.

[TonyN]

I use the hornady dies. This lead is from a indoor range lead. Is there any way to harden the lead to like 15 BHN without spending much money?

[TonyN]

Yes these where at max on hogdon site with titegroup . I used 125 grain RN and I use Magma molds.

[GhostHawk]

Well there are a couple of ways you can start. One of the easiest would be to buy some clip on wheel weight ingots here, run them about half and half with your range lead.

And it would probably be a plus if you had some tin you could add. 1 or 2 % helps.
COWW are going to be mostly lead and antimony.

Next option would be to try sizing a size bigger, or even unsized if it is big enough as cast.

Generally speaking when it comes to problems, get the bullet fit right first. Then see where you are. From there you can look at lube, powder choice, load, etc.

I have shot a lot of range lead in my 9mm and like you I intitially had some issues with a couple of guns. Terribad keyholing, shotgun patterns.

For me the easy answer was use a larger mold it says .358 but it cast at .359 to .360.
I loaded them as cast with a moderate load of Red Dot and shazam, no more problems.

Fit first, what ever it takes is what I suggest. Only if you can not get a big enough bullet to chamber would i worry about significantly making your alloy harder.

But I am no rocket scientist either. YMMV.

Last, I have become a true believer in Ben's Liquid lube. Lee alox and originally Johnson's one step floor wax. Now that is off the market I think some are using a different wax with similar results. Or 45/45/10 is yet another in that family that is close.

Then you want to make sure you are flaring the mouth on those cases a bit, so as not to size the boolit down in loading. Be careful with your crimp for the same reason and be very careful if using a factory crimp die.

One step at a time, lots of notes.

[BK7saum]

You could alloy with some magnum shot or linotype, but thas not exactly cheap. How do your boolits test for BHN after a few days. I run a lot of range lead, which is about 10-11 BHN air cooled and about 20 BHN water dropped. Makes a big difference in BHN depending on source.

[BK7saum]

I think the biggest improvement would be to use a 38/357 expander instead of the 9mm expander in the die set. Do you have a 38 or 357 die set? Typically 9mm expanders are 0.352 or 0.353, maybe 0.354 and leave your brass about 0.001 smaller than the expander. Tough 9mm brass will swage down your boolits to the ID or close to the ID of your cases. This will allow blowby and cause major leading. The polygonal rifling of the glock doesn't help. If the boolit doesn't fit the barrel/chamber, it will lead no matter how hard the boolit.

Try seating your boolit in a dummy round, then pull it to check diameter after seating and before crimping.

[tazman]

I use the hornady dies. This lead is from a indoor range lead. Is there any way to harden the lead to like 15 BHN without spending much money?

I use a Lee 4-20 pot and use range scrap. I add in a 1lb ingot of linotype with every refill after emptying the pot. This adds enough tin and antimony to get hardness up near 20 bhn when water dropped since the range scrap already has some to start with.
It takes about 3-5 days to get fully hardened but is shootable after 2 days.
I use this alloy in everything I have with plain based boolits except the full house magnum loads in my 357 mag. I load for 9mm, 38 special, 357 mag, and 45 ACP and used to use it in 40S&W and 45 Colt.
I tumble lube with White Label X-Lox.
I do not own a Glock so cannot say how well this will work with that pistol but I don't have leading or accuracy issues with any of the 10 or so pistols I do have.

[TonyN]

My lead with my lee tester is at 10 BHN water dropped . it's been like 1 or 2 days since if casted these. I have the hornady expander that you put in the powder feeder. I think the die is called powder exspander die and it can bell the case mouth to where it won't crimp at all so I can really crimp it good. Is there any way for sure to shoot this lead or am I put of luck? I used to cast and water drop WW and those where 15 BHN after couple days.

[tazman]

15 BHN should be plenty hard for your usage. I have shot softer in my pistols but I don't have any polygonal rifling. This may cause issues I am unfamiliar with. Sorry. No experience.

[TonyN]

The only lead I have now is Range Lead and it's at 10 BHN.

[Dusty Bannister]

A low antimony alloy will take longer to reach max hardness even if quenched from the mold. Test after 7 days and again after 14 days and see where the hardness lies. Shooting a max cast bullet load is probably not a good plan. Let the bullets harden, then start with the suggested starting load.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...s-in-a-new-9mm

You may find most of your problem will be cleared up if you study the thread and follow the recommendations it contains. Dusty

[TonyN]

I have slugged the glock 17 at .356 and sized at .357 with bad results. I can try sizing at .358 and see how much it takes till it chambers then I'll pull the bullet to see if it will be at .358 still.

[Chihuahua Floyd]

You might want to try slowing down a little bit. It's cast, not jacketed. Are you using gas checks?
What velocity are you trying to hit?
CF

[BK7saum]

I think you need to verify what size your boolits are after seating. 0.357 might work well if they aren't being sized by the case. If you have a 0.358 size die, go ahead. But if you dont, I'd verify diameter on a 0.357 boolit before going further. You solution might lie with an expander of 0.356 or 0.357 diameter instead of a 0.358 boolit. If the expander size/brass toughness is the issue, a 0.358 boolit of soft alloy will get sized by the case just like a 0.357 boolit.

I typically use an expander that is the same size or slightly less than boolit diameter to minimize sizing down of soft boolits by the case. I use a 0.401 expander on my 0.4015 boolits and a 0.411 expander on my 0.411 boolits. Brass springback allows plenty of neck tension for my purposes even when expander is the same size as the boolits.

[Larry Gibson]

TonyN

Being from an indoor or outdoor range is not helping. Do you know whether the bullet alloy recovered was from cast, jacketed or a combination. Knowing that will give us a better idea of its antimony and tin content. Knowing that we can better answer you question of;

"Is there any way to harden the lead to like 15 BHN without spending much money?"

What load are you using; powder type and charge?

Do you have any Lee Liquid Alox, any NRA formula 50/50 lube or any White Label BAC lube?

Larry Gibson