Whiskey tango foxtrot

[mdi]

So, you've got 1,000 mini ingots of nearly pure lead. I enjoy casting, and 1,000 do overs would irritate me, but I'd just melt/alloy/recast...

[sutherpride59]

Well dusty bannister made a good point it is probably made from stick on WW which explains the softness of the alloy. No worries I melted them down this morning and added more tin for some 45 hollow points.

[Wayne Smith]

I have one suggestion - buy a 30-30!

[Eddie Southgate]

Hmmm...so what happens when they are fired down a barrel which certainly squeezes them much more than a sizer does.

Nothing.

[Eddie Southgate]

I spent 3 hours the other night casting some 30 cal boolits about 1,000 with some WW lead the wife bought me for Christmas. I water quenched them about 30 min ago, set them out to dry and went to test the hardness with my Lee hardness tester. I just cast 1,000 30 cal boolits with pure lead + 2% sn. The hell do I do with all I've them now? Mouse fart loads? This would be great if my air rifle had a 30 cal barrel and power mod.

You are kidding ,.....Right ?

[sutherpride59]

Kidding about what? The fact that I tried to water quench pure lead boolits or that some guys have 30cal air rifles that are capable of pushing boolits like this cuz both are definitely a thing. It's cool though I already melted them down and cast some 45hollow points for chutin thangs.

[Outpost75]

Why do you need hard bullets anyway? That is BS. Just load them with 6 grains of any pistol or shotgun powder, anything you can sweep up off the floor and shoot them. No big deal.

[sutherpride59]

For shooting out to 100yards with my Garand? Why not pistol powder? Maybe because I want to work up a good load for shooting out past 100 for hunting and target shooting. From my understanding of things they need to be pretty hard to push out of a 30-06 pretty fast without leading which is what I'm aiming for. I'll play with mouse farts when I have a house with some land and enough time to just play around, for the time being I would rather develop a round for hunting deer or target shooting at distance.

[paul h]

So, you've got 1,000 mini ingots of nearly pure lead. I enjoy casting, and 1,000 do overs would irritate me, but I'd just melt/alloy/recast...

We have a winner!

I've never hesitated to melt down bullets I've cast that for some reason don't work for my uses.

I can understand the frustration, but hey, lesson learned. Hardness test any lead or alloy that you don't know the source of. I'd just order some type cast and mix as required to get the alloy you want.

[sutherpride59]

We have a winner!

I've never hesitated to melt down bullets I've cast that for some reason don't work for my uses.

I can understand the frustration, but hey, lesson learned. Hardness test any lead or alloy that you don't know the source of. I'd just order some type cast and mix as required to get the alloy you want.

Yup already melted down into 45 hp's. I'll get some clip on WW's and try again when I get some time, work is kicking my butt on time again.

[rsrocket1]

Someone did not read Fryxell's "From Ingot to Target". For effective water quenching, you need Antimony in the mix. Real wheel weights have about 5% Antimony and 1/2% Tin. 1/20% to 1/2% Arsenic helps, but shouldn't be added, some WW's actually have Arsenic in the mix and it only helps.

You could mix in chilled shotgun shot to the mix to raise the antimony level. I get my shot as reclaimed and it costs be $1/# so most of the time, I simply melt down the shot for my casting. The tin hardens the mix a tiny bit, but mostly aids in castability of the melt.

http://www.lasc.us/FryxellCommentsCBAlloys.htm

You can also download the entire book in PDF form from the lasc site.