Help with obtaining the tools

[barrysuperhawk]

Can a Noob get a bit of help here? [smilie=1:

I am wanting to start casting some boollets, and the mould I want to use is the Lee .459 500 GR 45/70 bullet. That bullet needs to survive around 1000 FPS.

As a secondary goal, I would like to cast some 7mm boollets that are suitable for use in a 7-30 waters out of a 14" contender.

I have a Lee bottom pour furnace and a metric ****-ton of mixed range lead. Up to this point, all I have cast is Shotgun Slugs, and with those, I never had to worry about alloy or hardness.

Here's my request:

Can I buy a set of Lee moulds that has already been modified or can I pay someone here to modify my new moulds. It's not that I couldn't do this myself, but I would like F up at least one set learning what I was doing, so it seems more cost effective to pay someone with experience to do it right the first time.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=30505

Second request:

I am going to need to figure out the whole alloy/hardness thing from scratch. Right now I have a potfull of unknown. Is the only way to rectify this to buy a hardness tester and have at it? Is there a quick and dirty way of getting a bead on hardness?

Failing that, if I need to buy a hardness tester, and a LEE tester is adequate, then I might as well get a press and a method of sizing & lubing bullets also. Lee Gear seems the simplest and the cheapest. Once y'all help me decide, I am going to ask that y'all help me decide exactly what part numbers to order and from where. My luck is I would order $500 worth of stuff and forget the $2 widget that makes it all work.

More importantly, once I figure out what hardness I have, how do I change it? I would rather not mail-order anything due to shipping costs, but it seems I am on a desert island here. I can get range lead. I can get pure lead. I cannot find linotype, monotype, or even anyplace that is willing to sell wheelweights. My local shooting range where I would normally buy all of my supplies has been particularly useless in this reguard. He doesen't know and doesent want to look, but if I bring the info to him, he would order it. heck, if I have the info, I will order myself if need be.

I am in Central Illinois and am more than willing to travel if there are resoursces that can help me.

So, can a Noob get some help?

[NSP64]

Buying lee is fine. I have a lot of lee stuff ,nothing that you are needing. Buy a lee press, 2 lee press through dies(they each come with LLA), 2 lee molds, and you should be fine. If you are using range lead just melt all the hard cast boolits together and all the jacketed/slugs together and you should be fine. I live in IL also and I have a lee tester, if you want, I can test a boolit for you. You can get what you need from Midway, or Graff&sons. Both Missouri companies and I usually get my order in 2 days.

www.midwayusa.com
www.grafs.com

I am not sure what you want to do to your molds?

[largom]

Lee equipment will do just fine to get started. I do suggest you get a hardness tester AND a thermometer that will read to 1000 Deg.
If you order everything from the same place on one order the shipping will be less painfull. I buy most of my reloading stuff from Midsouth Shooters Supply, they have a web site.
Larry

[HeavyMetal]

Sounds like your getting good advice already. Nice of NSP64 to offer you assitance with reguards to the hardness tester. I'd take him up on his offer!

Once you find out what the "hardness" of you current alloy is you can decide if you want to change it or not.

Some things to consider if you want to "customize" your alloy.

One: Tin is not a "hardner"! To many gun writers (?) have made this claim over the years and they are wrong! Tin helps the alloy flow which allows very good fillout of your mold. Tin is easy to get in rolls of solder at the local big box hardware store! Generally 1 or 2 % add by weight to the casting pot is all you'll need, when nessasary!

Second: Antimony is, for all intents and purposes, the alloy hardner you'll want. This is found in Wheel weights, the clip on type, and of course the print metals like Linotype.

I suspect you may be shooting the 45-70 boolit out of a contender as well?

If so then I think an alloy in the 14 to 18 BHN range, sized correctly for your bore will be just fine.

You can also water drop your castings and get an alloy with antimony in it to harden up into the 22 BHN range.

I will suggest you cast a few boolts out of an "average" selection of the alloy you have on hand and get them hardness tested. You may want to air cool some and water cool a second batch and send samples of both to NSP64.

Two or three of each sent in seperate baggies should let you know whats going on.

Then you can adjust your alloy as needed!

[Hip's Ax]

Welcome! I'm in the same boat as you. Not a very lead friendly area of the US. I've done very well with buying lino, mono and foundry type as well as wheel weight and pure lead ingots off of the trader forum on this site. Prices are good! God bless my mailman for bringing those heavy flat rate boxes to my door!

[jack19512]

Can I buy a set of Lee moulds that has already been modified or can I pay someone here to modify my new moulds. It's not that I couldn't do this myself, but I would like F up at least one set learning what I was doing, so it seems more cost effective to pay someone with experience to do it right the first time.







I'm not knocking your thinking or anything, I don't want you to take my question the wrong way, but why not try the Lee mold first before worrying about modifying it?

[barrysuperhawk]

What I want to do to my moulds is all of the modifications like the setscrew mod and whatever else makes my life easier and the moulds more durable... It occurs to me that these modifications are best made when the moulds are new. I have used Lee 12ga. moulds and have had one go back to the factory because of my inexperience and failure to lube and adjust them properly. If by "prepping" my new moulds, I can extend their usable life, I am all about it.

I know where Breese is, I installed a computer in the Caseys there a couple years back, and I will take you up on your offer, IM or Email me and we can work out the details. I can send you 44 cal round balls right now if they are easier to work with...

I have never done the water hardening thing, anyone have any pix of the setup that doesent splash water into the boiling lead pot, I am having a hard time envisioning that..

Part of my problem is I have ALOT of unknown lead, and it's all mixed, so my individual ingots could be anything.. My process for smelting was basically melt all of the junk togeather and pour ingots. These typically end up looking awful, all layered. Later, when I am actually casting slugs, I take breaks and pour pretty ingots, using the ugly ones to re-fill the pot. I have 3 ingot moulds, Lyman, RCBS, and Lee. The Lee works the best, but it pours the funky 1/2 pound pigs along with the 1lb'ers. The Lyman works ok and pours 4 1lb bars, but it is just a hair to big to be convenient with my LEE pot. The RCBS has no handle and I dislike it for that fact.

[HeavyMetal]

The water hardening thing is easy to set up.

All you need is a 5 gal. plastic bucket about half the three qtrs full of water.

I like to put an old towel or t shirt on the bottom of the bucket to for the first one's in to land on.

Then set the bucket on a good base so that the mouth is at about waist level. Set it up so you can make a comfortable 90 degree turn from where you pot is located.

The action is simple: fill, turn, cut the sprue, open the mold, dump into the water, turn back and refill! Works much smoother with two molds!

[454PB]

I always wonder why new casters are so worried about their alloy hardness. I started out with nothing but some scrap lead and wheelweights, a single cavity mould and dipper, and a 10 pound Lyman pot. A couple of 1 hour sessions experimenting with my technique and I had usable cast boolits. Within a few days of casting and hand lubing, I began seeing improvement in my boolits and their accuracy. I read everything I could find on the subject (which was a lot harder to find 37 years ago) and was gradually able to afford more moulds, sizers, and cast pots.

35 years latter, I bought my first hardness tester, and then a thermometer.

Nothing really changed. I'm still a happy caster, but my boolits did not miraculously improve. I learned that most of what I'd learned from reading about alloys and techniques was true.

My advice is to jump in! Start casting with whatever materials you have on hand, and maybe scrounge or buy some tin if your boolits don't look the way you think they should. Worry about proper diameters, lubrication, and pressure/velocity for the alloy you have.

All the other exotic alloy improvements will happen along eventually.

[94Doug]

I think it's the years of seeing the HARD CAST ads in all the magazines.

[BruceB]

...are flying VERY tight formation on this topic.

My list of intial "equipment" was a cast-iron frying pan on the kitchen stove, a tablespoon squashed to a workable shape for a "ladle" held in vise-grips, and a borrowed 310 Lyman hand-tool with a .452" sizer die. I made very nice 452374 round-noses with this gear, although I also commenced an early improvement campaign.

The alloy was about 50/50 cable sheathing and linotype, which still gives very useable bullets today if you have the ingredients.

This all started about 1966. I bought a micrometer a couple of years ago to back up my digital caliper, but I STILL have no intention of buying a hardness tester. (A thermometer might also catch me at a weak moment, but I've avoided one so far.)

The vast majority of information in print or on the 'net seems to address the LAST 10% of needed techniques and formulae. That is, as 454 also suggests, it is PERFECTLY POSSIBLE for a newcomer to happily cast excellent bullets without worrying about 90% of the "problems" on which so much time is spent.

Clean alloy in a decent pot, casting into a decent mold, sizing to an APPROPRIATE (not necessarily gnat's-ass precise) diameter, lubricated with a good lube, and either newcomer or veteran caster is in high clover. It is in the exceptions to the general methods that we find subjects for discussion.

What do I know? Many hundreds of thousands of cast bullets have gone down my barrrels, and I still find that the KISS principle serves me well, and in fact is getting applied more rigorously as time goes on. I don't need a hardness tester because ALL my casting is based on WW alloy or pure lead, with occasional minor excursions outside those limits. ALL my .44s are sized .431", ALL my .38/.357 bullets are sized .359", ALL my standard .30s are .311", and so on. At one time I water-dropped most of my WW rifle bullets, but now find the performance is just fine in as-cast WW up to 1900 fps or so. This eliminates the aggravation of considering age-softening of bullets in storage, as an extra benefit. I also use ONLY the maximum temperature on my RCBS furnace, 870 degrees, except in very rare circumstances.

454 is 100% correct. Do NOT concern yourself with anything beyond the sheer fun of starting to cast. Use what you have, think about what you're doing, and you can pick your own route in the hobby. If you become one of our wilder-eyed scientific mavens, more power to you. If you cast best over a hardwood fire in the light of a full moon while wearing buckskins, same thing. (One of our more-prominent members sports a Smokey Bear campaign hat, Cast Boolits thong, and huaraches for a casting "uniform"....but he's reputed to be VERY fast on his feet during spills, etc.)

Welcome, and enjoy.

[jack19512]

All you need is a 5 gal. plastic bucket about half the three qtrs full of water.







Where I use two cavity molds and don't worry about casting hundreds and hundreds of boolits at a time I use a medium sized bowl with water and a rag in the bottom. I use another small bowl and keep the boolits picked out of the water bowl with an old tablespoon. I water cool my boolits more for the reason of being able to handle and examine them more than anything else. I am a firm believer in the KISS way of thinking. I don't purchase anything extra that isn't necessary to get the job done.

[Kraschenbirn]

Barry...

Where ya'll at in "Central IL? I'm in the Champaign-Urbana area and, if you're anywhere nearby, will be glad to lend you a hand.

Bill

[Wayne Smith]

I am in complete agreement with BruceB and 454 but will add a couple of things. One, I notice you are now casting shotgun slugs and round balls. This assumes that you are familiar with the Lee molds, since you have sent one back already. Use them lightly and gently and they will last quite a while. Slam them around, closing them hard and pounding on them and they won't last.

Start with your 45-70. It's similar to what you are doing, a big boolit that nothing but lube is added to. You can shoot them in pure lead and harder. When you move to the 7mm you need to get something to size them and to install gas checks. You are moving into GC country with 7mm velocities.

Antimony is what you need to harden your boolits. Absent wws - and don't give up on them, ask around at garages and tire shops, the next most available source is chilled shot. You will need enough so that your boolits will water harden or oven harden - heat treat. Once you get an idea of your alloy through initial hardness and water dropped hardness you can ask several of the guys here how much ww or chilled shot you need per pound of your alloy.

So, what you have now is adequate for the 45-70. Add approximately known alloy and gas checks for the 7mm. Make sense to you?

[barrysuperhawk]

The reason I am so worried about the hardness in the .458 Bullets is they are going to be shot out of a .458 SOCOM AR, and I am a tad nervous about using too soft lead and having to figure out how to clean it out of my gas-tube.

[Mistered]

This thread brings back memories! I started with a Lee .440 RB mold, a .358 158 gr SWC mold, dipper and the steel pot you set on the stove and spent MANY a night casting 100's of bullets, pan lubing and using a cake cutter!. I had no real Idea what I was doing - all I knew was pure lead for the RB's and whatever I could find for the .38's. I must have got lucky because I had good results right out of the gate. Shot 1000's of .38 Special out of a S & W mod 19. Starting to get back into it but probably only for conicals for my BP guns

[boommer]

I don't know but I've found proper bore fit good lube w/w or around 1/20 mix is good up to 1400Fps so long as your bullet holds enough lube to the end of the barrel . Then if your going to push them harder put a gas check on them. I want them to bite into the rifling by bumping up to bore size and not skidding down the bore because there to hard .Temp wise, shinny wrinkly to cold, heavy frost too hot. is there more to this for starting out? Then you can venture out to the tech world. To hard of a bullet will give you more problems than a soft one to a point.

[Wayne Smith]

The reason I am so worried about the hardness in the .458 Bullets is they are going to be shot out of a .458 SOCOM AR, and I am a tad nervous about using too soft lead and having to figure out how to clean it out of my gas-tube.

AHH! That does change things, doesn't it? I have no idea what velocities you will be shooting out of your 458 SOCOM, but, as mentioned already, up to 1400fps a 1/20 tin/lead mix will work. Will this lead up a gas tube? I have no idea, having no gas powered guns. Come on guys, someone must also be shooting this combination.

[barrysuperhawk]

Well, the load data that I am looking at is 500gr boolit at around 1000fps above a charge of 2400. The exact charge to be worked up to slowly as I get a feel for the pressure and function.... The guys at the socom forums http://458socomforums.com/index.php have been super helpful, so I know the combination is at least in the ballpark, but I am here to learn more about the specifics of casting these 500gr monsters...