Zamac bullets.

[S.R.Custom]

What with the increasing concern of finding zinc in our precious buckets of wheel weights, I got to thinking-- why not just cast bullets using zinc? And knowing that there really isn't anything new under the sun, I did a search and found this:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5535495.html
(scroll about halfway down for the description)

It all seems pretty do-able for the home bullet caster, except for the bit about 3000 psi injection molding. :-? So I got to wondering, why couldn't you do a pour with a simple bottom-pour pot? Seems to me you should be able to get some kind of bullet if your mould is hot enough...

Thoughts?

[redgum]

Well I for one would be interested to know how to make use of it.....

[Bret4207]

I have some info on zinc boolits someplace. I'll see what I can find.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive dont it. If you keep your pot wide open and your molds real hot you can make decent bullets. I got quite a few rejects though. Problem is the bullets are very brittle and very light. I forget the exact weights but they were around half the weight of lead bullets. I dont think a 150 grain 44 would be much of a penetrator if it did hold together. Sizing was a bitch. I ended up tumblelubing them and using lee sizers on an O frame press and then running them through the star to lube them. the star would never have handled it alone. Then when your done you have clean up. I ended up having to have the inside of my pot sandblasted to get all the residue out and molds, ladles, about anything that touches it needs to be throughly cleaned before going back to lead. the mold i use casted like crap until after many cleanings. Then when it was all said and done the bullets shot like crap. I only shot them in one gun. A bisley 44 but its allways been one of my more accurate handguns. I didnt try a thousand loads but did probably try about a half a dozen some light plinking loads and some full loads. At least full loads for the normal wieght of the bulllets. dont think i saw anything under 4 inches at 25 out of them. Overal i found it to be nothing but a headache. I gave the remaining zinc i had to felix and a buddy of mine. the buddy has never done anything with it and i dont know if felix tried it or not. If it comes down to casting with zinc i think ill either quit shooting or buy bullets.

[Harry O]

What with the increasing concern of finding zinc in our precious buckets of wheel weights, I got to thinking-- why not just cast bullets using zinc? Thoughts?

I posted here some time ago about an article I found in one of my old Handloading yearbooks. It was cast zinc bullets. They guy cast them, but had to have specialized equipment, including a specially made mould from Veral. The most important thing was you have to have the mould EXACTLY the right size. They cannot be sized. Other than that, they were lightweight for the bore and could be pushed to higher velocities. No gaschecks needed. No leading (or zincing, I guess).

[S.R.Custom]

Harry-- I found that post here:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=14176

I've been doing more searching on this matter, and it's kind of interesting. The overwhelming majority of difficulty w/ casting zinc bullets seems to be the typical-- bad mould fill-out, difficulty with alloy temps, issues with contamination, sizing difficulties, etc. And it sounds exactly like the difficulties most of us had when we cast lead bullets for the first time. Hmmm.... Could it be the orneriness noted by those who have casted with zinc be more related to the unfamiliarity with material than any shortcoming of the material itself?

To be sure, zinc is very different in terms of those qualities that we associate with lead. It has only 60% the density, and has a BHN of something like 82. But instead of dismissing it wholesale, maybe we should look at the defining qualities and figure out what a zinc bullet would be good for. To wit:

(1) It's lighter. It would make a bad long distance rifle bullet, but would have certain merits as a pistol bullet where ballistic coeficient is seldom considered. It could be driven a lot faster. A good thing in short barreled carry weapons.

(2) It's harder. More challenging in the sense that sizing is more critical. But lube grooves would be unnecessary--bullet moulds would be dirt simple. Feeding deformation in auto-loaders would be non-existent. Rifling wouldn't have to be as deep as it is in a lead bullet gun. Hell, it probably shouldn't be.

(3) It's cheaper. And relatively speaking, will probably become more so. Perfect for handguns, where compared to rifles a LOT of ammo gets burned.

(4) It's non-toxic.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not advocating zinc bullets as the end-all be-all of our cast bullet future. But as economic situations force our hands, maybe our choice of ballistic material becomes more... specialized. And maybe zinc wouldn't be such a bad material if we took the time to learn it and its idiosyncrasies in the same way we have done with lead.

[jhalcott]

about 20 years ago, when I worked in the steel mill ,I tried to cast some zinc bullets. I used a Oxy/Acetylene torch to heat the stuff in a 10" pipe end. The molds were steel and heated to a high temperature. The 240 grain .44 bullet mold came out at around ~150 grains. They would often fracture on firing!? Accuracy was non existant and erratic at best. After a few shots the bore HAD to be cleaned as it would appear to be smooth bored. Many lubes were tried ,with little luck. A 185 grain .30 caliber mold threw 110-115 grain bullets that would NOT accept gas checks!? A" card" wad was used made from milk jugs after the first firings with out checks. Accuracy was not achieved with these bullets either. An alloy of zinc /aluminum used to coat "tin plate" for cans was tried. There was a LOT of problems with this alloy ,UNTIL low end jacketed velocity was sought. In other words velocities in the range of 2500 to 2700 fps in the 30-06. The gas check problem had been fixed also. Other molds were in different calibers were tried with fair to DISMAL results. About 1 in 10 bullets were returned to the pot. They were VERY hard,and went thru some goat carcasses with out much damage. A single shot was fired at a LIVE animal after 1/2 hour the animal was killed by a lethal injection. The autopsy showed little damage to the lungs and other organs.
I wouldn't do this much work again without getting paid!

[DeanoBeanCounter]

I'm far from an expert. I haven't even cast a boolet yet. I'm collecting stuff though. BUT, does anyone know what the hardness of copper and brass are?
AND, since zinc is becoming so common now let's not give up yet. Maybe someone could come up with a lead coated zinc bullet or something.
Myself, I do nothing but plinking and target shooting so the cheaper I can shoot for the better.
Keep coming up with ideas and somebody just might hit on something.
Deano

[Leftoverdj]

Sure, there are some solutions. They just are not in the reach of the individual and don't give particularly good results. Zinc bullets had a brief vogue, but it took about 100 rounds to condition the bores to give good results, and just short of forever to get the zinc out of the bore to shoot conventional bullets.

If one were minded to, it would be simple enough to cast in a 9mm mould to get bullets shootable as cast in a .38 or .357. You'd have a legal cheat around the "armor piercing bullets" ban, but I can't think of other practical uses.

Years ago, there were nylon jacketed bullets on the market. They worked fairly well and there is no reason the core could not be made of zinc. Unfortunately, zinc is only about 2/3 the density of lead, and the length of bullets is limited by twist rate and magazine design.

[Trez Hensley]

Zinc bullets/bullet pieces in range scrap..........bummer:cry::cry: There goes the cheap lead source.

[jim4065]

Guess I've missed something. If our problem is that zinc goes into solution with the lead then can't an alloy be found with a "castable" ratio of zinc to lead? If the main problem is fill-out, then why not eliminate the lube grooves and use liquid alox?

Seems like it would be a chance for "Micro-Groove" rifling to really shine. :)

[Ricochet]

Avoiding zinc contamination in the scrap calls for using a lead thermometer and keeping the temp down so the zinc won't melt. Around 600-625 F should be safe.

[leftiye]

Rocks are cheaper yet. They used to shoot stone balls out of cannon. Zinc costs more than rocks, so let's go with stone balls.

[Ricochet]

Steer clear of brass balls. Winter's coming.

[Misfire99]

Rocks are cheaper yet. They used to shoot stone balls out of cannon. Zinc costs more than rocks, so let's go with stone balls.

I've got stone balls but I don't want to shoot them.

[S.R.Custom]

Well, judging from some of the responses here, a few of you are huge fans of "that's the way we've always done it." I would suggest not reading any further. Your jobs at the buggy-whip factory await you first thing in the morning, and since business is slow, I know you have a lot on your mind. I don't want to take up any more of your precious time, so hit your "back" button. For the rest of you actually interested in this intellectual exercise...


...I tried to cast some zinc bullets.... The 240 grain .44 bullet mold came out at around ~150 grains. They would often fracture on firing!? Accuracy was non existant and erratic at best. After a few shots the bore HAD to be cleaned as it would appear to be smooth bored.

Do you recall the specific alloy you used? The patent info referred to in my earlier post indicates that the Zamac alloy might actually be viable. This is all sales rhetoric, of course, offered to support the claim in the patent, but I was curious if anyone has actually experimented with that particular alloy. (What if it really worked?)

I think part of the fouling and accuracy problems associated with zinc bullets stems from the fact that they are being cast with what would be considered lead-only moulds. Considering that zinc bullets are 2-3 times as hard as lead alloy, and only weigh .6 as much, you would need a lot less bearing surface. A LOT less. If one were to cook up a zinc bullet for the .45 ACP, it might very well look like this:

http://www.salmonriverdesign.com/STUFF/Zinc45.JPG

That's not a lube groove--although it could be. The center portion of the bullet merely rides the rifling of the bore. The narrow driving bands fore and aft are actually all that would be needed to spin the bullet. You would not want any more bearing surface, as that would only elevate pressures and probably exacerbate fouling.

And the mould itself is not real busy. I should be fairly easy to cast.

As for weight, the pictured bullet would weigh 235 grs if it were cast in WW. (I know this, as this design was cooked up on MM's bullet design software.) Cast in zinc, it would weigh 141 grains or so... What if you could drive this bullet at 1150 fps or so from a 1911 pattern .45ACP? Momentum and KE figures would be virtually identical to 230 gr. lead hardball specs...

[Ricochet]

Sounds interesting. I think experimentation's in order.

[leftiye]

Doesn't zinc cost more than lead? How much is a complete new casting setup going to cost (so that you don't contaminate your lead casting equipment)? Wasn't this already done before decades ago? Didn't it not work worth goobers back then? If you're set upon doing the zinc bullet thing, enjoy. If you wanted opinions as to whether or not it was a good idea, or if it would work, that's what you got.

[S.R.Custom]

As a commodity material, zinc is currently running about 2/3 the price of lead by weight. Which considering its density, means less than half the cost of lead per bullet...
http://www.basemetals.com/popularcharts.aspx
...as a salvage material, I'm betting you could get it for next to free.

Considering the fact that a whole industry exists for the sole purpose of casting zinc (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-46,GGLJ:en&q=zinc+casting), I'm not buying into the statement "It doesn't work worth goobers." It's just that historically, lead has been cheap and plentiful, so zinc hasn't been worth a serious look. It's my assertion that this will not always be the case.

In terms of equipment investment for experimentation, I'm thinking pretty minimal. A virgin Lee Bottom-poor pot, and a custom mould. The biggest challenge, I think, is going to be the hitting upon the right alloy, and that's certainly no different from lead casting. From everything I've read, it would appear that Zamac #3 is the place to start...

[DeanoBeanCounter]

I'm with you SuperMag. I for one am glad Thomas Edison didn't give up on the electric light bulb. What was it? Over 1300 tries? I honestly don't think big industry has tried everything (and they don't give all out their information anyway). Amateurs has done more for advancement than people think. As an example. Professional astronomers rely on amateurs to find NEOs (near earth objects).

Not everything has been tried.

It seems to me one could start out with a number 5 steel can, an old spoon that SWMBO has throne out and two blocks of metal clamped together with a hole drilled at the seam. Drill bits can be purchased in any size. Doesn't paper patching solve any metal build up in the barrel?

It looks like the alloy needs to be worked on first. What metals can be alloyed with zinc? Copper? Tin? Antimony? Arsenic? Aluminum? Uranium? How about hydrogen?

Here's some rambling. Rome wasn't built in a day. Amateurs lade the ground work for electricity and electronics. Thomas Edison was pure amateur in electricity, he knew less than each of us do. The Barns X bullet made of all copper was not made overnight, it took a long time to design that bullet. Thank amateur radio operators for all of our communications. There are things that we accept as fact that are really old wifes tails. Case in point. Setting a car battery on the ground or on concrete does NOT discharge it. How long did it take copper jacked bullets to catch on?

It's impossible to say everything. Just look for possibilities.

Deano

PS Wider tires do NOT give your car more traction. They cause more float. Case in point, hydroplaning.

[mike in co]

i use zamac in my smle ..........the butt plate is cast from it..........

[S.R.Custom]

Aha! It was cast! How's the mould fill-out? :mrgreen:

[JIMinPHX]

I read somewhere a few years ago about somebody using zinc washers as gas checks with good results. I'll have to see if I can find that info again.

[Ricochet]

That was the old Harvey Prot-X-Bore system. Used to be commercially sold and somewhat popular as an alternative to brass or copper gas checks.

[floodgate]

JIMinPHX:

There's been a lot of discussion here of these; search "Zinc", "Harvey", "Prot-X-Bore". The consensus is, they were fussy, had to be matched perfectly to groove diameter, and really didn't work very well. The Corbin website has a "Handbook of Bullet Swaging", 8th edition, posted on pdf (196 pages), pp. 68-74 disusses these and their own "Base Gard" version. I have some of the moulds, swages and washers but have not tried them out as yet. The idea is an old one and goes back at least as far as the "Williams Bore Scraper" rifle-musket balls issued in the Civil War.

floodgate

[shooter575]

Supermag,Go for it. Can it be made to work...I bet it can. Is it worth it....Dont know.
But if you want to play with it do it and post you results.There are a few good minds here that will help ya out.
The great minds here have killed and buried many a myth and wives tale.

My .02 worth. A homemade centerfuge caster machine would be the way to go. I have seen small ones for doing dental work.Works with gold,Bet it would work with zinc

[Ricochet]

Gold might make great boolits.

There are lots of alloy variations to play with, too.

Dunno how it heat treats.