Scrap Range Lead Experiment

[Roundball]

I'm trying to play catch up on making usable alloy. The range scrap from our pistol range has a high proportion of hard commercial cast bullets. That plus the antimony in bullet cores make for a shootable alloy. The downfall here is there is no reliable method here for testing hardness. I am convinced it's necessary to find out what the scrap is before adding anything to harden. Of late some experiments have been done with Super Hard. Perhaps a better use of time would be to find a source for scrap other than from the range. One bias here is not to buy or get anything in ingots. Ingots show up where zinc wheel weights are in the mix. That does not work. I did not read about this in a book but being peeing on the electric fence. Also, I need to get an accurate way of testing lead for hardness.

[imashooter2]

I'm trying to play catch up on making usable alloy. The range scrap from our pistol range has a high proportion of hard commercial cast bullets. That plus the antimony in bullet cores make for a shootable alloy. The downfall here is there is no reliable method here for testing hardness. I am convinced it's necessary to find out what the scrap is before adding anything to harden. Of late some experiments have been done with Super Hard. Perhaps a better use of time would be to find a source for scrap other than from the range. One bias here is not to buy or get anything in ingots. Ingots show up where zinc wheel weights are in the mix. That does not work. I did not read about this in a book but being peeing on the electric fence. Also, I need to get an accurate way of testing lead for hardness.

Buy a Lee hardness tester or look into the pencil tests that are on a sticky thread.

[Soundguy]

Agreed. A lee hardness tester gives you decent useable ball park hardness . won't tell you alloy..but..if you can weigh the lead and calculate the volume.. And know approx hardness..you can make some educated guestamints. Remember.. The more tin and antimony a mix has..the harder it is.. But it also weighs less. Ie..drop a slug of pure lead vs allow from a mold..the hard lead weighs less..

[Sasquatch-1]

Personally, I went with the Cabine Tree tester. I have also used the LBT and would recommend that also.

[243winxb]

Sierra makes the core of the bullet from four lead alloys: 6% antimony-4% tin, 6% antimony, 3% antimony, 1 1/2% antimony and pure lead.

[SteveM54]

I lived on at the school gun range when I went to Trinidad, CO gunsmithing. Mined the berms for over a year, lots of work but well worth the effort.

[Bigslug]

You may find this helpful: https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...ed+range+scrap

My first post, with it's edits, pretty much outlines the Odyssey, but should help advance your knowledge of what's in your cookie dough.

[facetious]

I did a big batch of range scrap last year. It was collected over many years and was mostly jacketed. After some reading on here I added 2 % pewter . I cast some test boolits , I air cooled some and WD'ed some. After aging I found the WD'ed ones to be about as hard as air cooled WW's. This was done by putting them in a vice with a WW boolit.