pure lead PP?

[pbbutz]

Newbie PP question-- I am assuming pure soft lead is OK for casting the boolit that will be patched or does it need to be harder? I would think that soft lead would be a positive in some cases, obturation and all that.

Butz

[docone31]

I suspect lots of patchers use pure lead only.
I use water dropped wheel weight, as it is what I have on hand and it works for me.

[eka]

I'm pretty new at this game myself, but from what I'm gathering. You can get away with soft lead up to a point. I think when you start trying to duplicate full house jacket loads you are going to need harder alloy.

Keith

[pdawg_shooter]

Soft or pure lead works fine for up to about 2200fps. Over that you need to harden up a bit. I can go to around 2600fps with a alloy of 12.0/12.5 BHN. Over 2600 I blend for 15.0/15.5 BHN

[idahoron]

Pure lead works great Paper patched in my muzzleloaders. Ron

[rhead]

Pure lead works fine paper patched in a full house 30 30 (lightly compressed load of H4350 under lee 150 flat point) and with all I want oads in my 45 70 405 grain lee HB at around 1475 fps. It sucks in my hornet at 2700 but w.d. wheel weights does fine. This data supports what pdawg shooter posted earlier.
I ususlly add 1% to 1.5% tin to get a better fillout It doesn't seem to affect performance.

[pbbutz]

It sucks in my hornet at 2700 but w.d. wheel weights does fine


22 Hornet??!! Man, that is some small rolling! I guess you could pp 223 or 222 with good results too?

[pdawg_shooter]

It sucks in my hornet at 2700 but w.d. wheel weights does fine


22 Hornet??!! Man, that is some small rolling! I guess you could pp 223 or 222 with good results too?

It will work fine, If you can stand to roll them. My old hands are bad enough I limit myself to 30cal and bigger.

[StrawHat]

rhead,

If you are really paper patching for the Hornet, bravo!

Let me know what mould you are using for the boolit as I have a 22 WCF that is giving me fits. If I can't get it to shoot soon, I will be getting a new cartridge and barrel for it.

[rhead]

I am patching the Lee Botor bullet. I size it to .224 patch well past the oglive with 2 wraps of Meade tracing paper and let it dry. lube with Jhonson's paste wax and let the dry again. Then I clip off the tails and size to .225. I seat to touch the lands WITH UNTOUCHED PAPER INSIDE THE RIFLING, over 12.8 grains of lil gun. I use a NEF and this probably won't feed through a magazine. 1.801 oal for my rifle. Accuracy is in the 1.25 1.5 in range at 100 yards, a little better than I can get from factory.
I can break 1 inch with the same bullet using a heat treated gas checked round but I have to heat treat the bullets standing on their bases in a wire basket with at least a half inch space between the bullet when they are quenched, This gets a bullet that is absolutely the same hardness all the way around which you would not get if they were stacked or otherwise touching each other.
If the leading edge of the paper touches the leading edge of the lands there is a potential for frustration. I havent trien the cigarette rollers. What is the brand name ?

[StrawHat]

rhead,

Thanks for the info. I'll have to give it a try, patching not the powder.

[catkiller45]

I was told that wheel weight lead was too hard for the use with paper patching???????????I was told that maybe a mix of 50 50 soft lead and wheel weight might even be too hard..My idea is to make the bullet about .450 diameter and patch it up to .458......Is this correct or was I told all wrong.....John

[catkiller45]

But then another thought came to mind...If using the above diameter bullet and patching up to .458 inch--WILL the bullet chamber and go into the rifling without tearing the patch off will traveling up the barrel? Maybe the bullet should be smaller in diameter then...Damn this is getting me too corn fused...John

[pdawg_shooter]

Size your bullets .001/.0015 over bore diameter. Patch as large as you can get into the chamber. If you run your patch forward till it is just past the start of the ogive it will not tear. If the bullet is just over bore diameter the rifling will slice it so it comes off at the muzzle. In my Marlin 1895g, I size to .4515, patch with 16# paper, lube with BAC and run through a .460 push through die.

[catkiller45]

sounds like a good idea there.It will be awhile yet befor I get all my stuff set up again after moving back into PA again...Can't wait till warmer weather as well...

[JDL]

Here's pure lead that been paperpatched for my .45/70:
http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k380/Joe1899/Jan1009006.jpg
from left:
510 grain pure lead slug, paper patched, loaded round, 2 slugs recovered from 2 elk shot broadside, the upper hit no bone, but the lower hit some ribs. Range was about 50 yards, load was 48 grains of 3031 running 1650 fps.
JDL

Forgot to say, the upper recovered slug expanded to .952" and the lower 1.054x.643", with penetration to under the skin on off side.

[montana_charlie]

Forgot to say, the upper recovered slug expanded to .952" and the lower 1.054x.643", with penetration to under the skin on off side.
That sounds like excellent performance, to me. But, some would say that, with no exit wound, it is rather poor.

They contend that a 'good blood trail' is a requirement.
CM

[JDL]

That sounds like excellent performance, to me. But, some would say that, with no exit wound, it is rather poor.

They contend that a 'good blood trail' is a requirement.
CM

Montana, I don't know how much better a "good blood trail" can get as it looked like someone had a 5 gallon can full of blood and dashed it on the ground to the carcass. Both fell within 20-30 yards so the blood trail is a moote point. Anyone that can find their way to the supper table, would have been able to track these 2. :-D I shot a young bull that was 125 yards away and did have an exit but, he didn't take a step so there wasn't a blood trail. That is probably the killingest boolit I have ever used on elk or deer but, I reduce the deer boolit to 310 grains and have never found one to photograph. Maybe, if I could line up 2 or 3, I could trap one for pix. :-)
JDL

[leftiye]

Thas boolit performance! Lloyd Smale and others spend a lot of time saying how a big hard boolit punching a hole through an animal is as good as it gets, and I can see where they're coming from (though I can't see any value in wasting all of that energy). But if you can get a boolit to expand like that AND penetrate all the way through (Just under the skin is seen by many as ideal with jacketed expanding bullets and for all purposes except blood trail IS all the way through), then you've expended all of the boolit's energy and undoubtedly done all of the damage that that boolit could do. If you want more, heavier and/or faster still makes it available.

I think that they're more looking at dependability - as in larger bore revolters getting both expansion and penetration is maybe quite iffy. And I think that these two examples point out that a rifle capable of supplying the extra energy that is necessary to continue to penetrate with an expanded boolit can make this concept work extremely well. This is why I personally think a .45 caliber anything is big enough.