lead shot as lead source

[MGK3]

Devers454

I give that a try and see what I end up with. Lead shot around here is going for $23 /25lb, up 15% in a month

BigSlick
Road Trip for WW? It's a thought. Last time I had a road trip it had nothing to do with "Bullet Casting" :0

MGK3

[carpetman]

Back in the 60's enroute to Alaska with a goal of taking up reloading after I got settled in,I read a couple of books. One of the books was the Lyman manual and what they had to say about casting perked my interest and created some questions. They gave their formula for Lyman #2 using wheelweights as the basis in some of the recipes. My thought was how can you take an unknown and mix precise,weighed,sorted,amounts of stuff and come out with an exact? Back then I figured wheel weights were made out of whatever they could get their hands on that would melt. I did read on one of these boards a few years ago that wheelweights for some reason or the other do adhere to more critical standards than that????????? Maybe so???? So with that notion(possibly warped) that if it melted it made wheel weights so the same was true with bullets. Everything was good for well over a quarter of a century,even as Ol Abe would say,over three scores. Then everyone in the world it seemed, told me to get good fill out on .22 cal bullets,I needed to add tin. Now we are making it rocket science. Before,if it melted,it got shot. Besides rocket science,we are spending money. So I (cry)bought some solder for the tin. First and only time I ever bought casting material. I had always found free sources. I could tell a difference adding the tin. My wallet wasn't as fat---well ok it was even closer if possible to malnutrition than it had been. Only difference of any kind whatsoever I could detect. But who am I to say,I have no thermometer and no lead hardness tester--so my observations would be greatly deprived of having any real basis. Has my bullet performance suffered? I don't know. I have only shot at one big animal with cast bullets and that was a Texas whitetail spike buck. This was using a .243 and I was shooting the cast bullet at same velocity I shoot the jacketed bullets(and the jacketed work fine). Not a drop of blood was found. The spike ran off. Was the problem too small a caliber or was it too hard a bullet or both? We'll never know--I hunt with jacketed bullets and my cast bullets will be made out of something that melts.

[MGK3]

Carpetman

As I have done research on "Bullet Casting", it is amazing the conflicting info that is out there or the opinions that are put forth as fact when the components used are of unknown material content. I consider the source on all advise given to me. The caliber of the thoughts and opinions put forth on this web site are definitely better than the average website. The advise given here seems to be from people whom know what they are doing from experience and who actually love doing it.

As a guy I used to work with was fond of saying "Paralysis through analysis", you think the thing to death and never accomplish anything. Ultimately I am sure that I will just melt it & Shoot it

MGK3

[StarMetal]

Carpetman,

Well I know that a newcomer reading this forum thoroughly would get the drift that one really shouldn't go smaller then a 30 caliber cast bullet for hunting deer. Yes a few have taken them with smaller rounds, like Waksupi and his 6.5. I would imagine if you shot that deer in the head with your 243 it would have gone down pretty quickly. There's probably no doubt that he did died, but like you said no blood trail makes for very hard tracking.

I think alot of us started like you did. I melted anything that would melt and got some really fine bullets that shot pretty darn good too. I was always on the outlook for sources of lead, like old water pipes, stock of lead ingots my Dad had for making sinkers, railroad babbit, and wheel weights. They I learned that by varying the alloys you could make bullets of different diameters, weights, and hardness. I do agree with you that too many here make it rocket science.

Joe

[MGK3]

UPDATE

For grins I took 30 of the .452 255 LSWC that I was having heavy leading from and occasional keyholes from and I coated them with LEE ALOX. Loaded up in 454 Casull Starline cases with 11 grs of titegroup and went to the range. Got resonable accuracy and most important of all: No Keyholing and much lighter barel leading. Amazing what a different lube will do. The commercial caster had applied Magma Hard Blue lube. Quite a difference.

[Old Jim]

I have just started casting round balls for cowboy pistol shooting. My main source is some #12 shot that I traded for. If it has any alloying material I can't tell it. The metal (after doing some voodoo) melts rapidly at a "cool" temp. Must be hot to fill a mold and the resulting balls are dead soft. A 36 cal ball dropped from 6' onto a concrete floor does not bounce.