Lead Pipe

[468]

Just aquired about 2,000 lbs of Pb pipe...fairly clean. Seems a bit softer after casting a few bars than the WW bars. Will I be able to Water Drop and harden, or do I need to add...what? I have/can get plenty of wheel weight. Should I blend the two ingots when actually casting bullets?

Obvious beginner here...:???: Plenty more questions coming...

[par0thead151]

i am.... jealous.
trade it to BP shooters for wheel weights.
or trade to a scrap yard for wheel weights but add 20% so 10# pipe gets you 12# of WW as you have lost weight in the clips and other crap in the WW mix

[lunicy]

Pure lead is going to be softer than WW. You can mix WW and pure for a decent pistol boolit. Pure lead is good for black powder guns, it's a little soft for pistols.

[Springfield]

I find 2 parts ww to 1 part pure makes for good BP bullets, or slower smokeless pistol bullets. Last I heard pure won't harden with water dropping as there is no antimony in it. Or is it Arsenic? No matter, it won't harden. Never water dropped myself, mostly a BP shooter.

[Trey45]

Try rotometals, their button is at the top of this page. But some antimony, and tin. Make your own lyman #2 ingots.

http://www.rotometals.com/Bullet-Casting-Alloys-s/5.htm

[Tom Herman]

or trade to a scrap yard for wheel weights but add 20% so 10# pipe gets you 12# of WW as you have lost weight in the clips and other crap in the WW mix

Definitely keep it and work it up! I use 50/50 scrap lead to WW plus 2% Tin. Works GREAT for all my revolvers through 850-900 FPS. Haven't tried it any higher than that.
As far as trading it, the local scrap yard here flat out refuses. They will buy is from you for maybe 5 cents a pound if you're lucky, then sell you wheel weights at 30-40 cents a pound.
Enjoy the pipe! I am envious at your good furtune as well... May we all be so lucky!

Happy Shootin'! -Tom

[SciFiJim]

Pure mixed 50/50 with WWs make a good alloy for pistol boolits. There is still enough antimony in the alloy that if you need harder you can water drop or oven heat treat. I air cool for my .45 and water drop for my .357

[Willbird]

Pure lead does not work in the 45 acp even for target loads, I fired some test bullets and recovered them and the rifling land marks were 25% wider than on the identical bullet cast in lino and fired with the same powder charge.

Even 1% Antimony may make it work though, I would take a load with known accuracy and substitute 98-1-1 and see how it shoots, if does not work try 97-2-1(2% antimony), 96-3-1 until you find the tipping point for accuracy.

The pure lead 45 bullets shot 3" at 50 yards from a machine rest, lino shot 1.25" to 1.5". The Pure lead loads did NOT lead the bore so with 4.0 of bullseye they would probably be fine for plinking loads.

38 full wadcutters may be more tolerant of pure lead because factory target 38 loads use pure lead swaged wadcutters, the bullet has a lot more bearing area than a 180 grain 45 acp bullet.

Bill

[dakotashooter2]

Another vote for 50/50.

[JIMinPHX]

Pipe is usually dead soft or pretty close to it. I say +1 on trading it to black powder shooters for WW ingots. I'd trade at least half of it, maybe 3/4.