I did a little reading here on the forum and ended up ordering a postal scale and it will be here tomorrow. It is good up to 100# and will also read metric.
I did a little reading here on the forum and ended up ordering a postal scale and it will be here tomorrow. It is good up to 100# and will also read metric.
Well I finally have everything and grabbed my lee 6 cavity mold and the locking handel snapped off so looks like I'll have to wait. I emailed lee and I'm sure they will take care of it but I think I will order either a NOE or Accurate mold so something like this doesn't screw me in the future. Always good to have a backup. I'm going to mix my Linotype and lead and make some ingots.
Do do I need to wait more than an hour to do a hardness test on the ingots?
pure lead is generally worth more then alloyed stuff like wheel weights (clip on). i really wish he was next to me because i don't shoot black powder and all the lead i find seems to be pure outside of a couple of buckets of wheel weights.
with powder coating and even before i powder coated i just mix pure lead and Clip on wheel weights 1:1 for all my handgun needs. 9mm, 38spl, 45acp, 357mag, and 500mag. the last 2 being loaded to max loads more often then not. i don't see the point of shooting them with reduced loads accept for the 500mag. i have had some leading from the 500mag, but for the rest not enough that it's ever been an issue. i clean my guns ever 500-1000 rounds so if leading was an issue it would have become an issue. i use a lubesizer with ben's red lube.
if i was casting for rifle (which i do a bit, but i don't shoot them often due to my location) i would very likely run into more issues, although i suspect powder coating would solve that.
Gotcha. Pure lead is used by black powder shooters. Thanks for for clearing that up.
If I was superstitious I would stop casting after today. First my mold handle broke yesterday. Today my cast iron pot sprung a leak at a casting button on the bottom with around 15lbs of alloy in it so I figured I would finish with my RCBS bottom pour pot and guess what. It has a short and keeps popping my GFI so looks like I will have to send that back also.
If I was reading this I would think that the guy posting it must be an idiot and operator error was the reason but that is not the case. This was the second time using the casting pot and it has never had alloy heated over 750 in it and I never wack it with my ladle or spoon. This was the first time attempting to use the RCBS pot and the only thing I did was flip the switch and turn it to its lowest setting. The mold handle broke showing it to my nephew. I opened it then attempted to close it with no force at all and it snapped.
looks like I'll be shooting my rainier lead safes this weekend.
On a positive note. I ended up with 40# of ingots that measured 14BHN an hour after casting them. I also traded a friend 25# of lead that measures around 11BHM for some reloading tools that I don't use anymore. The lead I got is in corn cob form so measuring it was a little challenging. The pours on them were very inconsistent and lumpy.
Be wary of "lead" that has ANY resemblance to oatmeal. You could be looking at zinc contamination. ALWAYS test mystery lead with muriatic (pool) acid. Reject any "lead" that bubbles = zinc contamination.
Just plug it into a non GFI outlet. It is a very common thing.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...o-melt-running
KE4GWE - - - - - - Colt 1860, it just feels right.
Only in muzzle loading rifles and percussion cap revolvers. Black powder cartridge rifle reload alloys run from 1:10 to 1:16Pure lead is used by black powder shooters.
Regards
John
Gee seems real hard to try dropping the bullets from the mold into a 5 gallon pail of water. How hard is that?? Needs to much research Gee this is not rocket science.
Harbor Freight has a digital scale that weighs to 50# for around $30.00 or so.
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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 |