Boolit alloy?

[scattershot]

Hi... I'm new here, after lurking awhile. I took a 20 year hiatus from casting my own, and back then the " harder is better" school prevailed. I have cast pure lead for my muzzleloaders sporadically, and I was wondering if pure Pb would work for pistol bullets, given the proper diameter. Seems like expansion would be good for hunting.

Any thoughts?

[kbstenberg]

Hello Scattershot an welcome to the friendliest website around. grab a cup of coffee an join in.
Your first stop should be the stickies. There is a whole section about Alloys an there use.
Kevin

[slide]

You might take a look at the archives. Lot of good stuff in there too. If you don't find what you are needing to know,just ask,somebody will know the answer. The problem with research is the brain overload.especially when the smoke starts coming out of your ears!

[ku4hx]

Hi... I'm new here, after lurking awhile. I took a 20 year hiatus from casting my own, and back then the " harder is better" school prevailed. I have cast pure lead for my muzzleloaders sporadically, and I was wondering if pure Pb would work for pistol bullets, given the proper diameter. Seems like expansion would be good for hunting.

Any thoughts?

Excellent information here:
http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

[williamwaco]

Welcome Scattershot.

The answer to your question is no. Pure lead will not make good pistol bullets.
You need an alloy of at least 8 BNH up to 15 BNH. This is not to say you can't use harder, just that it serves no useful purpose.

If you are just restarting to cast and are low on supplies, you cannot do better than plain old clip-on wheel weights.

since you have been away that long, you are probably not aware of stick on wheel weights. They are pure lead and are good for softening alloys but not good by themselves. Also be ABSOLUTELY SURE you do not get any zinc wheel weights mixed in with your clipons.

See

http://www.reloadingtips.com/pages/exp_110818a_tin_in_alloy.htm

for a visual description of what happens with an alloy with no tin.

[Bret4207]

Well, not to rain on anyones parade or anything, but I'm going to say maybe on the pure lead. The pure roofers lead I have comes in at about 6-7 Bhn which is awful close to 8. So if Bhn was the determining factor then maybe pure would work. Pure sure works on BP revolvers, single shots, low pressure cartridge guns. I think it's possible pure would work if the fit was right and the gun was cast friendly. Most of us add at least a little tin for ease of fillout, and that brings the Bhn up past the 8-9 range if you hit 3-5%. It would also depend on if you want to shoot a 44 Special or 45 Colt or a 9mm or 40 S+W. Revolvers would tend to be more friendly to softer alloys.

Myself, I'd save my pure for BP or alloying and get ahold of a mess of WW. The stick on's I've seen are harder than pure and don't act like pure. I don;t think the WW industry uses anything but the cheapest alloy they can get, and I doubt that's pure lead.

Every single time someone says, "Nope, it won't work." some one else here comes along and gives an example where whatever it was did work. I'm not ruling much of anything out anymore.

[scattershot]

Thanks for the info. WW are what I'm used to, but I don't have a lot on hand. I do have pure lead and linotype, so I'm sure I can cobble something up. When I asked the question, I was thinking primarily of big bore revolvers like .45 Colt.

Thanks for the references, too. I'll get on that right away.

[Bret4207]

IF you have pure and lino you have the makings of some great alloys. There are lots of posts here on mixing the two to usable alloys.

[Dutch4122]

50% pure lead and 50% wheelweights, air cooled, is an excellent alloy for standard pressure handgun loads such as .38 Spec., .44 spec., .45 Colt, .45 acp, etc. The higher pressure loads do seem to favor harder boolits; but, I think the trick is to not get carried away with the hardness. A favorite .357 Magnum alloy of mine is 2/3 pure lead to 1/3 wheelweights, water dropped. They end up a little softer than Lyman #2 alloy. Accuracy is way better than my meager skills with a handgun.

Hope this helps, :D

[williamwaco]

50% pure lead and 50% wheelweights, air cooled, is an excellent alloy for standard pressure handgun loads such as .38 Spec., .44 spec., .45 Colt, .45 acp, etc. The higher pressure loads do seem to favor harder boolits; but, I think the trick is to not get carried away with the hardness. A favorite .357 Magnum alloy of mine is 2/3 pure lead to 1/3 wheelweights, water dropped. They end up a little softer than Lyman #2 alloy. Accuracy is way better than my meager skills with a handgun.

Hope this helps, :D


Yeah to all that. Especially the don't get carried away with hardness. part. I use BNH 15 a lot because it is easy to make, but it is harder than necessary for any handgun load.

[prs]

Well I'm a damn fool for stick'n my nose in here and disagreeing. Pure lead makes a fine hunting load for medium size thin skinned game -- its hard to beat as it expands and hold together pretty well, putting all the energy into the critter. It can play heck on your barrel due to leading and accuracy at high pressures can be poor; but a big old slug of soft lead at modest velocity will flatten most game. If you get too hard an alloy it will shoot through such game and waste all that energy; but leading may be better controlled given a good fit. Unclilled wheel weight should be fine and chilled alloy of 1/2 to 2/3 soft lead plus wheel weight should be good. Like your muzzelloader experience, mass means much at lower velocities and a good lube is a good thing.

prs

[44man]

Well I'm a damn fool for stick'n my nose in here and disagreeing. Pure lead makes a fine hunting load for medium size thin skinned game -- its hard to beat as it expands and hold together pretty well, putting all the energy into the critter. It can play heck on your barrel due to leading and accuracy at high pressures can be poor; but a big old slug of soft lead at modest velocity will flatten most game. If you get too hard an alloy it will shoot through such game and waste all that energy; but leading may be better controlled given a good fit. Unclilled wheel weight should be fine and chilled alloy of 1/2 to 2/3 soft lead plus wheel weight should be good. Like your muzzelloader experience, mass means much at lower velocities and a good lube is a good thing.

prs
Some is true, pure is great but smokeless is not kind to it.
Energy is not "LOST" with penetration as long as the boolit did the work.
Leading can not be controlled by any means when a pure boolit is thumped with early pressure. Accuracy limits distance to very short ranges.
Pure belongs with BP and the lower, slower pressures. BP acts as a filler, wad to the boolits.
If anyone thinks a revolver can do better then a pure round ball from a muzzle loader, they are mistaken but you can't go the other way unless you use BP. Capacity will limit velocity and twist rates must be right in the revolver for BP.

[Jim]

This is Waksupi's signature.

The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"

[44man]

This is Waksupi's signature.

The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
That is true and I love pure lead but you need to read that statement.
"WITH THE METAL BASE THAT IS ESSENTIAL!"
Nothing, but nothing works better then pure for hunting but the question is always "CAN YOU SHOOT IT?"
Remember Taylor was long ago with different powders and big bores. I tend to agree with him but in all the years I have been here and on other sites, not a single person has shown what pure does with high intensity cartridges, modern smokeless and high pressures. Good for 2 shots and then go buy all the Curly Kate scrubbers the store has.

[Bret4207]

If you want to use the "metal base" part, then use all of it- "With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid. Many people, myself included, have been using pure lead swaged boolits for years with complete success and very. very soft cast boolits in the same types of shooting. Very few people make a practice of shooting 2000 fps handgun loads or even 1500 fps handgun loads. In the low and slow arena squishy soft alloys work very nicely in a gun that likes them. Not everything involves .475's at 1500 fps Jim.

[MikeS]

Well, I could be way off base here, but it would seem to me that the alloy used depends a lot on what kind of shooting you're going to be doing. If you're going to be target shooting all day, then having an alloy that doesn't lead is important. OTOH if you're going to be hunting, you can get by with a much softer alloy, as most hunters don't usually shoot more than 1 or 2 shots (or at least they shouldn't ), and so if the alloy used tends to lead a bit, it shouldn't be as much of a concern. I forget where I was reading this, but it made sense to me, if you're using an alloy that can be heat treated (or water dropped) to get much harder, you can do that for all your sighting in shots, etc. and then load up some soft ones to do the actual hunting, as they will shoot to the same point of aim as the harder ones (assuming the alloy is the same, and the only difference is the heat treating).

Having said that, I have not gone hunting in about 35 years or so, so perhaps it's different now than it was then, but back then shooting much more than 2 or 3 shots all season was a lot.