Found out why I had such a "strange day at the range...."

[oldracer]

Took the Gibbs to the range yesterday to see if it was the weather, my nerves, ETC, ETC and last night as I was drifting off into sleep it dawned on me that that had happened before! Sooooo this morning I did a search and sure enough it had and the cure was re-casting the bullets as they had hardened up a bunch from sitting so a new cast with soft pure lead cured the issue. I pulled out my Lee hardness tester which seems to be pretty accurate and the next bullet in line I was going to shoot had a hardness of 14.5 which is pretty hard. My pure lead bullets freshly cast usually run about harness of 8.0 to 8.2. So it appears I will do a bit of casting tomorrow since the weather is supposed to be nice and only cast 50 or so bullets and NOT let them sit for so long. There are several posts that talks about this which were started by me if you want to look.
John

[BK7saum]

Pure lead should never harden to 14. Must have had some mystery alloy or wheelweights. I suspect you previous boolits were not pure or lead tin alloy.

[GrizzLeeBear]

Pure lead has a hardness of 5 -6. If yours actually measures 8 or more, it is not pure lead, it is an alloy of some kind. Depending on what is hardening it (antimony maybe), it very well could harden over time.

[bedbugbilly]

Glad you found the problem.

"Pure Lead" should never "harden" regardless of what form it is in. I have a batch of .58 minie balls the a fellow gave me over 50 years ago - just never used them up as I cast and I've kept them on the shelf as a kind of a remembrance of him (he passed away many years ago). They are just as soft as the day they were cast.

I usually buy my lead for various ones that advertise it in the WTS section here. It usually works out fine, BUT, I have purchased what is supposed to be "pure lead" and it has not always turned out that way.

[Edward]

Pure lead has a hardness of 5 -6. If yours actually measures 8 or more, it is not pure lead, it is an alloy of some kind. Depending on what is hardening it (antimony maybe), it very well could harden over time.

Absolutely not the Lee tester reads different ,at least my 2 do ! Pure on either reads 8 BHN .Remember it is a benchmark (no more no less) and a cabintree is totally different BHN wise . I can get certified pure and either Lee says 8 ,the paper work on a Lee only goes to 8 if that"s a clue . It is a cheaper measure but it has got me by for 30+yrs , don't discount it as it works/Ed

[Edward]

not a mystery ,just maybe a little tin !

[oldracer]

If I remember and it has been quite a while since I made my ingots, I think I added some linotype that I had gotten really, really cheap. I have a bunch of sailboat ballast and other roofing lead sheets so I'll use that for the bullets and the remaining ingots for round balls as they have a piece of pillow ticking engaging the rifling so no problem. I have to get out the axe and the sledge hammer to slice up those ingots. They weight about 50# each if I remember? My Lee hardness tester can read out to 9 so I did some calculating to get past the 8.0 that their little instruction sheet shows.
John

[charlie b]

I thought I was the only one who used an axe to cut lead :)

[oldracer]

I bought a couple hundred pounds of sail boat ballast in two very large chunks and a triple bagged bunch of the lead pieces that resulted when the fellow cut the one huge piece into and he used a "Skill" type of saw and had the bags set to catch the pellets? I generally use an axe and I have a 20# sledge that I swing on the axe. The last time I cut ant was probably 8 years ago or so?
John

[Nobade]

I have had that happen to me with the rifled musket. Fresh cast minie' bullets worked just fine, let them sit for a few months and they're completely useless. Guess that's why they say to use only pure lead!

[oldracer]

Well I brought out the big cast iron pot and burner and melted about 80# of pure lead ingots. I tested one of the first ones and it shows a hardness of 6.2 BNH which is pretty good. I setup in the driveway and use a couple of old towels soaked well with water to cool the Lee ingot molds quickly and thin 30 seconds or so plop them onto the second towel. I marked the old ingots as alloy and the new ones pure. If I just cast bullets, the 540 grain or 520 grain I can over a thousand from this batch and if I shoot 10 shots each time at the range, that's over 100 range days with the slug guns!
John