Casting old bathtub pan lead and old lead pipes for buckshot. Soft vs. Hard???

[PoorRichRichard]

Hello guys. Longtime on-and-off lurker, first time poster. I’m a longtime member over at CalGuns.net and Shotgunworld.com (same screen name at both).

So a good buddy of mine gave me a 200 pound piece of old bathtub pan lead, and about a hundred pounds of old lead pipes. I’ve started melting down and cleaning the pan lead, and I plan to work on some of the pipe lead this weekend.

Am I correct in assuming that the bathtub pan lead is very soft, and the lead pipe is a much harder lead? And if so, is there a good mixture of the two I can utilize to make some decent #4 buckshot, 00 buck, and possibly some slugs?

If needed I also have 3 five gallon buckets of unrefined spent bullets (both full metal jacket, and pure lead bullets) that I can add into the pot to achieve proper hardness for my buckshot?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
-rich

[frkelly74]

Both of those sources are probably very pure lead. If there are joints in the pipe those are solder. Chances are you will end up with a soft alloy even with the range lead. I would not hesitate to use soft lead for buck shot.

[Winger Ed.]

The pan is soft, if the other is probably pure/soft too, especially if its thin wall sewer/drain line stuff.
Scratch it, put a little acid on it, etc. There are other pretty easy tests to tell ya.

[rancher1913]

if your plan is to use a shot dropper then it wont work, you need harder to get it to run. if your plan is to cast it with a mold than it works just fine. remember soft shot can stick together when the gun goes bang and can get restricted causing over pressurization.

[PoorRichRichard]

Remember soft shot can stick together when the gun goes bang and can get restricted causing over pressurization.

Would using some shot buffer help combat this?

[BIGOX]

Hey bro, I know you from CG. Good info above. Yes both of those should be close to pure lead. You can use art pencils to test the hardness. I have some Lyman #2 Alloy if you want to trade a few #s. Also have some linotype that you can use to harden your lead.

[PoorRichRichard]

Hey bro, I know you from CG. Good info above. Yes both of those should be close to pure lead. You can use art pencils to test the hardness. I have some Lyman #2 Alloy if you want to trade a few #s. Also have some linotype that you can use to harden your lead.

Thanx man. I ill hit you up if I decide to go harder. For now I think I'm good because Im only casting buckshot, and possibly slugs.

[RMc]

The use of soft lead pellets, is the single greatest contributing factor to poor buckshot patterns .

[GregLaROCHE]

I agree that both the types of lead you have will be pretty close to pure soft lead.
I’ve always heard shot needed to be hard to function properly, that’s one of the reasons arsenic is added. Maybe that’s only true for small shot and soft lead will work for buckshot. Historically, they probably mostly used pure lead.

[jsizemore]

We add antimony and tin to harden the bullet or shot. If your intended target has a thick hide or heavy bone between you and the vitals, your alloy needs to be harder. Bird shot is intended to go through feather and hollow bone so the hardness doesn't need to be high. Hog shoulder is a different matter. Up close, that bird shot will cut a big wound channel.

If your pouring buckshot, the same principles apply as pouring bullets. If you want to pour at a lower alloy temp, and get good fillout, then a little tin helps. You can omit the tin if you cast at a high temp. You can crash the shoulder or hip with a harder alloy. I've seen softer buck shot hang up in ribs and saw a 00 buckshot pellet stuck in a whitetail antler at 15 yards (not me, but you can guess what the shooter was looking at. 12 point)

[FullTang]

I've always thought that one of the big advantages of casting your own buckshot was that you could make it nice and hard; commercial buckshot is swaged from soft lead, but hard cast give better patterns (less deformation) and better penetration, so why not?

[Blood Trail]

I've always thought that one of the big advantages of casting your own buckshot was that you could make it nice and hard; commercial buckshot is swaged from soft lead, but hard cast give better patterns (less deformation) and better penetration, so why not?

Hornady and BPI swage their buckshot from hardened lead.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RMc]

Unless something has changed recently, the BPI Super Buck line has pellets with sufficient antimony content to respond well to heat treating.*

* Heat to 450 deg. for one hour and cool water quench.

[Eddie Southgate]

Soft shot deforms and causes funky patterns with holes . I use chilled or magnum shot because it's hard enough to keep deformation to a minimum . Gotta think buck would be the same . Up close soft might be what you want to get a looser pattern but not at thirty or forty yards. I'd use the buffer if I only had soft buck , might help . Some Linotype added would be the way I'd go .

[PoorRichRichard]

Great info here. Thank you guys. Does dropping hot buck pellets right out of the mold into cold or ice water help harden shot?

[BIGOX]

Pure lead will not harden if water quenched. It needs antimony in it to harden. Also water quenching might harden you Alloy too much. You could try adding a small amount of the recovered lead bullets to your pure lead. That should add enough antimony and tin to harden when water or air quenched. Check out the lead countulator for more assistance.

[PoorRichRichard]

Awesome. Thanx again.

[centershot]

Richard,
The last time I cast a bunch of buckshot I mixed pure lead with lino, 50-50. I water dropped it right out of the mould, it yielded a BHN of 22. Lino is 84-12-4 so my alloy came out 6% antimony. See if you can get your hands on some linotype to mix with your lead.