Beginning caster with a few questions

[Cherokee]

You have received lots of good advise...so I'll just say welcome to casting.

[mrcvs]

I was planning on beginning with a larger calibre bullet such as .44 or .45. Definitely not .270. I planned on fluxing with sawdust...the product of my lathe. Really difficult to justify purchasing lead when I have at least 6 large buckets in the garage that contain wheel weights.

[lightman]

Well, first of all, Welcome to the Hobby! Or the madness!

I recommend not getting too hung up with BHN. Anything from about 10 to 12 will work ok on most handguns. 15 is ok but harder than you really need except maybe for rifle bullets. The correct bullet size is more important than hardness. I cast for years without a hardness tester and mostly just use it to help me guess at any mystery lead that I scrounge. The same goes for a thermometer, although both are nice to have.

For a beginning caster, nice new clean alloy from a foundry would make the learning curve easier. But, wheel weights or isotope lead will make perfectly good bullets.

Anything like Brake Cleaner, Carburetor Cleaner, Electrical Contact Cleaner and a tooth brush can be used to clean a steel mold. A solution of Dawn Dish Soap is a favorite for an aluminum mold. Read the sticky on mold lube before you cast.

Recommending a place to smelt is a tough one! Having to load and haul all of the required gear is going to add a good bit of time and work to your operation. Do you have a Friend or Relative that lives in a more suitable place? Or a hunting or fishing camp located in the rural? A dead end timber company road on your deer lease? A Family farm or ranch not too far away?

You will be facing a decision on what method to use for sizing and lubing your bullets. Spend some time browsing through the site about bullet lube and casting equipment. You can spend about as much or as little as you want on this. The same goes for a casting pot.

Good Luck and feel free to ask questions!

[headednorth]

OP, I'm new so not much to add regarding bhn, but if you belong to a club I would imagine they would.be ok with it as long as you're not bothering any of the other members.

[SkookumJeff]

I live in a little yuppie neighbourhood (not desirable, don't try this at home, boys & girls!), so, given that huge weight on my shoulders, how would you go about making ingots from wheel weights?

If it's that big of a deal, smelt after dark when everyone else is inside and the smoke will not be noticed. I did quite a bit of this last summer, it does stink. Assuming you're discreet, I doubt you'll do so much smelting that it becomes a problem where you live.

Skook

[Grmps]

Take your smelting gear to a park, set it in a BBQ area and smelt there
Generally, the faster you push a bullet the harder you need to make it
“When smelting the most odors fumes will come when fluxing and that only last a few minutes.”
Actually, I find smelting dirty lead COWW puts off some interesting fumes also.
If you flux with sawdust, it’s no worse than a BBQ. Just light it on fire when it starts to char.
What wakes your neighbors up is when you flux with sulfur or copper sulfide to get zinc out or add elastomeric qualities to your alloy.

[Wm Cook]

Just an add on to the mold cleaning process; I had a mold and used all of the above (multiple times) and still got wrinkles on one particular mold. I did a search on the subject here and came across the suggestion of using the above plus a final good scrubbing with boiling water, Comet and a tooth brush. I repeated that process twice and it erased the wrinkle problems for me. That's my go to cleaning process now. Good luck. Bill.

Ps. Don't use the boiling water, Comet and a tooth brush at the same time. Boil the mold, pick it out of the pan with a pliers, set it in the sink and scrub it with Comet and the toothbrush when it is cool enough to handle. Rinse with hot water and repeat the process.