melting Oregon Trail bullets

[Keith357]

I have one 10 year old Oregon Trail laser cast bullets that I haven't been using since I started casting my own.
It is my understanding that these are hard.
I would like to use these to cast some wadcutters so I guess I need to add some pure to the OT bullets
What do y'all suggest

[Winger Ed.]

For slow wadcutters, I'd start with pure Lead, and not add any more of those than it takes to get good fill out in the mold.
I'd try 10% of the hard cast for starters, have the pot a little on the hot side, and add a little more only if ya have to.
All the extra goodies that are in the hard cast are getting to be pretty pricey now days. I try not to waste 'em.

[rancher1913]

commercial boolits are made from hard lead so they can be shipped without damage, not because you need the hardness for shooting

[dverna]

If you have pure lead, you can mix them. But they will work as is.

[mdi]

First I'd suggest you find out how hard Oregon Trail bullets are, and go from there. I'd probably just add a few at a time to the pot of "pure" to get good fill out, as the fellers mentioned above you could probably use pure for slow wadcutters. "Hard Cast" is a relatively new term and commercial casters seem to give newer lead shooters what they want; "Harder is Better". Yes, many believe commercial casters produce bullets with better shipping lives and lube that will stay in place no matter what. I haven't given that much thought as IIRC, the last cast bullets I bought were in '88.

[fredj338]

A 50-50 mix should work just fine. They are hard but not that hard. Some people just over think this stuff.

[lightman]

I probably would cast them into ingots and go from there.

[bangerjim]

Treat them as "hard" (:veryconfu) lead. (14-16). As said above: all com-casters cast their products waaaaaaay harder than ever needed - - for protection in shipping. I have 35+# of those boolits and mix 50-50 with pure as stated above. Works great. Gives me 10-12 on my CERTIFIED(!) Cabine tester. add PC and I am good to go for just about any velocity up to uber-super-ultra-sonic[smilie=s:!

banger :guntootsmiley:


banger

[kevin c]

A common commercial cast bullet alloy is hardball (92-6-2, BHN 16). If the OregonTrail bullets are the same, one to one with pure would give you 96-3-1, pretty close to COWW plus tin, with a BHN of 11-12.

I've seen ad copy from Oregon Trail boasting that their alloy contained silver. Not suprising as many lead ores have silver in them. Never read how much silver was in the alloy, but I doubt it was much.

[pull the trigger]

Either shoot em or sell em.

[Don Purcell]

I sure wouldn't waste that hard stuff on wadcutters, a total waste. Cut it with pure lead and double your fun.

[Tatume]

Why not just shoot them?

[Larry Gibson]

For slow wadcutters, I'd start with pure Lead, and not add any more of those than it takes to get good fill out in the mold.
I'd try 10% of the hard cast for starters, have the pot a little on the hot side, and add a little more only if ya have to.
All the extra goodies that are in the hard cast are getting to be pretty pricey now days. I try not to waste 'em.

I've been using Oregon trail Laser Cast bullets for years and have used some as a base for other alloys. I agree with Ed. Add 10% initially of the bullets to lead, cast some bullets and see how they cast and shoot. I think for general WC use at target velocity they'll work fine.

[Froogal]

commercial boolits are made from hard lead so they can be shipped without damage, not because you need the hardness for shooting

Interesting concept. I hadn't thought of that. You may be on to something.

[fredj338]

Interesting concept. I hadn't thought of that. You may be on to something.

That plus many think a harder bullet shoots better without leading, marketing. We know diff, but the none casting reloader doesn't really know.

[kreuzlover]

I had a box of .357 Oregon trail bullets, and I've sold all my .357's, so I melted them down and cast a bunch of RCBS mold .44 mag silhouette bullets to shoot in my Ruger Super Blackhawk 10.5" silhouette revolver. I dropped them in water to quench and harden them. Only problem was that hard lube they put on them. Really stinks when melting. I relubed with my own concoction of high temp bearing grease, bees wax, and a couple of other secret ingredients! LOL! The high temp grease is Valvoline synthetic high temp grease, 14 oz tube, one pound of yellow beeswax, heaping tablespoon of Vaseline, and two 4 oz tubes of Lyman Super Moly. The load I'm shooting out of that Ruger chronographs at 1496 fps, average. The bullets come out of the mold at 255 grains, sized to .430 diameter.