Suitability of range lead for rifle bullets? [Archive]

PCB115

10-14-2015, 11:11 PM

I would like to start casting my own bullets soon. To this end I am slowly starting to accumulate lead. I currently have about 70lbs of lead water pipe and a 60lb Federated lead ingot. At this time I only shoot rifle so I was wondering if range lead would be considered hard enough for the older military calibers. I am intending to load on the light side for range use.
Any suggestions on how to best use or harden my current lead would be appreciated.

Yodogsandman

10-15-2015, 04:59 PM

Range lead will work fine! It will probably average about 8-9 BHN hardness but, it depends on what and how many bullets the alloy matrix is made from. Range scrap lead that contains antimony can be heat treated and used to high velocities.

Check in the "Special Projects" section for a thread on " Testing the 30XCB" to see some fine shooting with range scrap lead up to almost 3,000 FPS. Of course, it's not just the lead. It's a specialized test that sometimes used range scrap lead for the alloy.

There's an alloy calculator in the stickies at the top of the page to figure out what you can make with the alloys that you have.

Here's a great read on hardening your lead...

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

farmerjim

10-15-2015, 05:04 PM

Buy superhard ( 30% antimony) from Rotometals for hardening the high pressure loads. 38 sp and 45 acp do not have to be very hard.
Just saw you are in Canada, I don't know how difficult it is for you to get heavy packages. When I lived in Montreal, I had things shipped to a friend on the US side of the border and picked them up when I went down.

PCB115

10-15-2015, 05:57 PM

Thanks Gentlemen for the info and suggested readings. I'm fortunate in that I live 20 minutes from Detroit and have access to a US mailing address so heavy packages won't be a problem. The exchange rate on the other hand........
With my level of inexperience, which forums should I start reading through. I have a lot to learn, in fact I'm not even sure I know the right questions to ask.

GhostHawk

10-15-2015, 09:45 PM

I started with just range lead and it works fine. Make sure the boolit is 2 thousands larger than the rifle grooves and remember when looking at molds that if you want to go over 1400 fps you are going to want a gas check on that, so buy a mold designed for gas checks.

I do shoot some.224 bator boolits without checks but I keep the speed down below 1400 fps.

bangerjim

10-15-2015, 10:38 PM

If you are not going for full house rifle loads, 8-9 will work. I personally shoot 14 in all my rifles. But I have many hundreds of pounds of hardball and other Sb-rich alloys to mix.

If you are staying sub-sonic, you should be OK, but adding some COWW's or hard alloy + Sn for fill-out would be really advisable.

Also take a look at powder coating, as it allows you to eliminate the use of grease lubes and shoot softer lead. Many many hundreds of us on here are doing it! Check out the alt coatings thread for info on PC'ing. No grease smoke.....no leading!

Download the free alloy calculator spreadsheet on here to let you play "what if" with your mixes and to know what you may need to buy.

Good luck finding what you need.

bangerjim

leadbutt

10-15-2015, 11:24 PM

I'm fortunate in that I live 20 minutes from Detroit.

I feel fortunate that I live days away from Det-riot. Talk about a HUGE shooting range. lol

L. Bottoms

Hannibal

10-16-2015, 02:47 AM

I have purchased range lead from a forum member here that air cools to 15-16 BHN and water drops 21 BHN and higher.

I suppose the answer is, it depends upon the range and what is being recovered from it.

Lloyd Smale

10-16-2015, 07:06 AM

Like Hannibal hinted toward range lead can vary from almost pure to real hard depending on who shot what there. Most of what I get is in the 9-11 range. Fine for most handgun use but Id water drop the bullets if they were for a rifle.

PCB115

10-16-2015, 03:08 PM

Thanks, I'll get reading and figure out what hardness range I should be aiming for. I appreciate the replies.

williamwaco

10-16-2015, 05:23 PM

What you have will work fine. Just be sure to size 2 to 3 thousandths over groove diameter.

PCB115

10-16-2015, 06:54 PM

What you have will work fine. Just be sure to size 2 to 3 thousandths over groove diameter.

Ok, to size 2-3 thousandths over groove diameter I will need to slug the bore. I've watched a couple of youtube videos on how to do this and everyone seems to use egg sinkers. I'm having trouble finding pure lead sinkers. Around here they all seem very hard and shinny. Anybody have suggestions for alternatives or do I purchase a sinker mold and learn on sinkers before I start casting bullets?

Yodogsandman

10-16-2015, 08:02 PM

Use some of that water pipe, it should be close to pure lead. Any cast joints might have antimony and tin.

Fill a case to about 1/8" of the top with lead. Place a slug or cast bullet on top and run it into your chamber. Use a steel rod to pound the slug or cast bullet till it makes a ringing sound. Remove and measure the resulting pound cast. This will show the chamber freebore diameter and also the bore size and land diameters. Size bullets to within .0005" of the freebore diameter for best accuracy. The freebore area is between the end of the case neck and the beginning of the lands.

Here's a sticky on how to do this...

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?218414-FYI-This-is-how-I-do-a-pound-cast

Nose Dive

10-19-2015, 11:34 AM

PCB: Welcome buddy! Your at the right place to learn boolit casting!

One suggestion. At this location on this site there are several, lengthy 'stickies'. My suggestion before you start smelting and casting, is spend the time and read each one in it entirety. yep...time consuming at least, time well spent.

There is a wealth of tips, trick and SAFETY STEPS in there and all are worth their weight in gold.

If your not aware and careful...you can get into trouble with this hobby!

Read. Remember,,,"it ain't fun if your hurtin'....

Nose Dive

Cheap, Fast, Good. Kindly pick two.

PCB115

10-19-2015, 12:46 PM

Thanks Nose Dive, that's exactly what I have started on. Lots of info there.
Paul

PCB: Welcome buddy! Your at the right place to learn boolit casting!

One suggestion. At this location on this site there are several, lengthy 'stickies'. My suggestion before you start smelting and casting, is spend the time and read each one in it entirety. yep...time consuming at least, time well spent.

There is a wealth of tips, trick and SAFETY STEPS in there and all are worth their weight in gold.

If your not aware and careful...you can get into trouble with this hobby!

Read. Remember,,,"it ain't fun if your hurtin'....

Nose Dive

Cheap, Fast, Good. Kindly pick two.

berksglh

10-19-2015, 01:29 PM

Clip on wheel weights are a great source for rifle loads. The rest I save for pistol. Use the downloadable calculator and spike your range scrap and your good. Or do what i did.

I spent some time in my travels as a field service tech for work running around my state. Ended up tossing a bathroom scale, 3 5gall buckets in my truck and alway have 40-100 bucks on hand.

Id keep my eye open for tire/auto repair shops when out of town and pop in and offer to purchase their scrap wheel weights. After a mont or so of this, i had 1000 lbs.

Some shops cant sell to you unless your registered recycling service, but i found most are happy to see them go for fair scrap price and they don't have to haul them off. I was paying $0.20/lb last year. Offer $20 a pail and most were glad to see it gone without weighing them, but having the scale and a calculator made several guys happy to sell to me on the spot and be gone.

Lead based wheel weights are being phased out, so stock up now.....

PCB115

10-19-2015, 06:42 PM

Great idea! I'll try it.

Clip on wheel weights are a great source for rifle loads. The rest I save for pistol. Use the downloadable calculator and spike your range scrap and your good. Or do what i did.

I spent some time in my travels as a field service tech for work running around my state. Ended up tossing a bathroom scale, 3 5gall buckets in my truck and alway have 40-100 bucks on hand.

Id keep my eye open for tire/auto repair shops when out of town and pop in and offer to purchase their scrap wheel weights. After a mont or so of this, i had 1000 lbs.

Some shops cant sell to you unless your registered recycling service, but i found most are happy to see them go for fair scrap price and they don't have to haul them off. I was paying $0.20/lb last year. Offer $20 a pail and most were glad to see it gone without weighing them, but having the scale and a calculator made several guys happy to sell to me on the spot and be gone.

Lead based wheel weights are being phased out, so stock up now.....

higgins

10-26-2015, 08:33 PM

I used to get quite a bit of range scrap from action pistol bays. Since I have too much time on my hands and I sometimes get overly persnickety (sp?) about such things, I sorted the bullets into cast, jacketed, and plated prior to smelting. As you would expect, the jacketed bullet core metal is softest, the cast bullets are noticeably harder, and plated bullets are somewhere in the middle. I did this with the expectation of casting rifle bullets from the cast bullet metal which is overwhelmingly from commercial (too) hard cast pistol bullets. I have used the soft jacketed bullet core metal for muzzleloader bullets and low velocity .45 Colt loads. I have cast good gas-check rifle bullets from ACWW and have never gotten around to using the cast bullet metal.