Two Lead Hardness and Melting questions

[David LaPell]

I am just getting into this wonderful art of smelting and casting bullets so bear with me. My first question is this, I am being given 15 pounds of reclaimed lead, recovered .22 lead bullets, Federal to be exact. What do I have to add and how much to get me to around a BHN of 15-16 for some hard cast .357 bullets?
My second question is, when I start smelting wheelweights, what do I add to that to get to a BHN of 15-16? Does that go by pound as well?

[Charlie Two Tracks]

Hi David. Your 15 lbs. of .22 bullets will be very soft. If it was me. I would wait and get a little more lead before smelting. That way you can have some ingots of lead that will be same instead of a bunch of lead of different composition. Try a search for smelting. You will find a vast amount of info. Finding out what your throats and barrels diameter is, is very important. I really recommend reading as much as you can from the posts on this site. Try reading the stickies. Lead can vary in BHN. The WW that I get average 12 BHN. This is from a store that caters mostly to large trucks. Another may get 9 or 10. Lyman's Cast book #4 is a great help.
I had to read, read and read some more before I began casting.

[badbob454]

I am just getting into this wonderful art of smelting and casting bullets so bear with me. My first question is this, I am being given 15 pounds of reclaimed lead, recovered .22 lead bullets, Federal to be exact. What do I have to add and how much to get me to around a BHN of 15-16 for some hard cast .357 bullets?
My second question is, when I start smelting wheelweights, what do I add to that to get to a BHN of 15-16? Does that go by pound as well?

the wheel weights will be good enough for the 357 mag cast your ww lead bullets and water drop in a bucket of cold water with a soft terrycloth towel on the bottom this will water drop harden the bullets, good for for hot 357 loads , good enough for ''elmer keith '' , but use the clip on weights only and no zinc weights go in the melting pot ..............then save the stick on lead only weights and add to the ''22'' lead add 30 % linotype to this mix for 357 bullet hardness enjoy

[runfiverun]

most 22's are swaged and have about 1.5% antimony in them.
blending of alloys is something you're gonna have to do, keeping the lead you get separated and marked till you can alloy it together is important.
it's either that or buy foundry lead.
get what you can lino,ww's and others are good to have.
learning how to guess at what they are is an important tool in saving money.
a while ago i picked through the scrap lead bin at the recycler and was able to get 30 lbs of linotype for 40 cents a lb.
they were type spacers but the workers there didn't know what they were.
they were mixed in with battery plates[ which you don't want], battery posts and cable ends, along with some lead pipe,and cable sheathing.

[Charlie Two Tracks]

Check this link out David.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=105952