Substituting Lead in Swaged Bullets

[Ihsarah]

I've had an idea rattling around in my gourd for a while and wanted to get your guys' take on it. With the current trend of banning lead in hunting rounds (I live in Texas so I doubt that'll be coming here soon, but I still like to tinker) I was thinking about trying to substitute the lead in swaged bullets out for zinc or tin. The obvious issue would be the fact that the slug will be significantly lighter than lead but I was thinking that using brass casings or copper tubing would add to the weight and keep the form of the filler material better than on its own. If you've got any points on this matter I'd love to hear an outside perspective on it. Let me know and I'll keep you posted on the project.

[uncle dino]

I would think tin would be cost prohibitive at $12 to $20 per pound.

[ReloaderFred]

My concern would be the difficulty in swaging tin or zinc. It would take tremendous pressure and really large swaging dies to contain the pressure.

If you had some way of casting the cores to the finished contour, and then using the cores inside copper tubing jackets, that may work, but you'd basically have a light metal piercing bullet when you got done.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Prospector Howard]

Sorry, but it's not going to work IMO, and I wouldn't even consider it. Lead works the best because it is malleable. In the core seating process, pressure is put on the lead to expand the bullet up in size. Then in the point form die the same thing happens and the size is increased to the final diameter. With a harder metal like zinc or tin this wouldn't work. Also, your expensive dies would take a beating do the hardness of the core if you tried.

[BT Sniper]

Yep... as already stated, you got to watch how hard the cores are or risk damage to expensive dies. The day lead core bullets are no longer offered by the big bullets companies is the day us little guys making bullets will still be able to ........ fill in the blank here :)

BT

[Wolftracker]

You can use powdered metals in a jacket, like bismuth or powdered copper. It's messy though, and requires a drop tube and special punch to get enough weight. Overall, a pain in the arrears! And you will be in arrears by the time you buy all of the stuff. I think I'd rather buy a lathe and make solid copper or brass bullets that way.

[runfiverun]

after thinking about it for a minute I'm sure there is a reason why manufacturers die cast zinc and melt and pour tin into the various objects made from it.
I don't know how much pressure it would take to extrude zinc or tin but it would be some impressive equipment to say the least.

[vzerone]

If you could swage another metal that's not lead I don't think you'll need a jacket. Think zinc, no need to put a jacket on it.