scrap bullets. what to do?

[ebb]

I have a 2 gallon bucket full of bullets that are too dirty to shoot, and I am going to melt them and recast into some thing i can use. There are some .452 bullets and some .308 bullets and some thing that looks like a cross between a bullet and a wall anchor. It measures .355 and I had a friend test it and it is 98.7% lead. the bullets look to be factory made, can I assume that they have enough of some thing in them that they will cast well and be harder than soft lead, or do I need to add some tin(pewter)??

[Dusty Bannister]

Try casting them as they are. Then if you have a bullet from that same mold with a known alloy, let it age a few weeks and compress them base to base in a vise and see which is longer. That one is a harder alloy. If they fill out well, and are not particularly softer or harder, use the alloy as is. You could also mic and weigh them if you like.

[Huskerguy]

I have collected pretty much intact bullets from a berm. Just melted them, poured into ingots and finally bullets. I tracked them when making bullets and they were fine. I admit I do not worry much about hardness.

[GregLaROCHE]

If they are factory made, they are probably a hard lead with some tin. Most factory Boolits are made of hard lead, if for no other reason, than to not get all dinged up during transport.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Judging by the question, it's sounds like you are new to casting.
I'd recommend just using what you know is bullets for casting new boolits, no sense adding a unknown factor into your casting when you are starting out. No need to add tin or anything.

As for your wall anchors and other other scrap alloy you might have, I'd save it for later, when you've grown comfortable casting, maybe you'll acquire some other unknown scrap alloys ...then you can blend them all together...maybe you'll have acquired a lead hardness tester by then.
Good Luck.

[ebb]

Finally got an evening cool enough to cast some bullets. Had a 20 lb lee furnace totally full of 20 parts soft lead and 1+ part pewter. It cast like a dream compared to my first tries with 100% soft lead. I added a hot plate to pre heat the mold, and the bullets had almost no wrinkles and were shinny. On my alloy the sprue turned frosty almost instantly, but i had some trouble getting the bullets out of the mold. Next I cast another coffee can of the same 38/158 truncated cone bullets as with my alloy but used the dirty bullets mentioned above. Who ever devised this alloy is WAY smarter than i his alloy came out perfect, almost fell out of the mold and looked like chrome, with no wrinkles. I have a friend that has access to a machine to test and I will find out his alloy as it is superior. i even tried the 6 cavity 9MM mold I bought from a member here and had real good results with that. You guys said so but I was unsure, but you were right my bullets have improved.

[ebb]

I think what I called wall anchors are some type of wad cutter and are 98.7 % lead so when the time comes they will get pewter. Maybe more than 20 to 1.5.

[fredj338]

IMO, too many over think bullet alloy. What are you going to shoot them in? For the vast majority of handgun shooting, just about any alloy harder than pure lead will work if sized properly. So mystery metal, I would mix it all up & start casting bullets with it. Go shoot them, then decide if you need to adjust anything. Though I get by quite nicely with range scrap that tests 9-10bhn.

[RogerDat]

If they are factory made, they are probably a hard lead with some tin. Most factory Boolits are made of hard lead, if for no other reason, than to not get all dinged up during transport.

The commercial alloy I have heard mentioned most often is "Hardball" which is 6% Sb (antimony) and 2% Sn (tin). Commercial outfits use it because all that Sb makes it hard, the 2% Sn makes it cast well and be somewhat ductile so that the high amount of Sb doesn't make a bullet that shatters. At 16 BHN about the same hardness as Lyman #2 at 15 BHN but has a lot less of the expensive tin with as previous poster said a harder bullet.

Cheaper alloy and better traveling during shipping, what's not to love for an ammo/bullet making company? :-)

Bullets from the range berm or "berm mining" I think produces a use "as-is" alloy for pistols. With exceptions for range that might be full of soft lead shotgun slugs or some other high volume odd alloy use of the range.