So I don't have wheel weights available...

[chutestrate]

I've got all kinds of garages, but they don't have ww's available to give away. So, I'm going to be ordering off of ebay. In case I don't find any I'll order some alloys from rotometal.

I started my question in another thread, but I'm still not following the advice very well. As a new caster am I better off sticking to wheel weights to harden or can I use the alloy percentages from the Lyman book?

A lot of you are so experienced at this that your explanations are easy for yourselves, but not so clear to me.

I have to slug my barrels and test the hardness of my slugs, but I know I am going to want to start experimenting with different bhn hardnesses to find what works best for me.

thanks for all of the advice

[frankenfab]

I think The Captain is about to have WW ingots back in stock, if you're interested. She still has range lead now.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=63886

[fryboy]

actually it's easier than ur letting urself believe (trust me ) sizing is much more important than hardness ( for the most part) godawful hard is more of a marketing ploy that sadly many fall victim to,tho i do caution about lead on evil bay .one never knows what one gets until u get it .... i cant recall from ur other thread what cartridges u'll be loading for but for simplicity pick one and use that until u get the hang of it ( simplify !!! or not ur choice ...) let's say u pick something easy like a 38 caliber ...loaded to target velocities u wont need hard lead ,in fact air cooled ww's work great ! now for example u dont know what ur bore measures ..no worries , slugging is easy but u could just opt to buy a sizing die in either .357 or .358 - either should work but i'd be tempted to go for the bigger size but i'll let u pick the one cartridge to start with and i bet u'll get feedback more in line towards that one round ,trust me most of us are here to learn and help

btw ? the capt.'s range lead should work ( after all it's all been fired in a gun before and only needs recast n lubed to do so again ) muddy creek sam is selling isotope cores ,these would work as well for pistols for sure ,altho mag velocities could stand a lil more antimony ...

[thenaaks]

don't buy ingots on ebay...you can't be sure of what you're getting.
check with this sites "vendor sponsors"
i have purchased ingots from the captain (kathie) before...they're a great product at a good price...
and there's always the swappin and sellin section....

[thenaaks]

bullet hardness depends on what you're shooting.
ww's work for everything i shoot (no rifle)
air cooled they're soft enough...water quenching would harden them if i needed it.

[chutestrate]

thanks guys. I asked Kathy to put me on the waiting list for 2 boxes of ww's. Guess I'll start with those and what I already have. I spent time learning how to use the equipment so I now I need to spend some time testing and mixing with ww's to get the hang of it.

I think I'll eventually order some alloys from rotometal to have it on hand to harden things up if I want to. I always get into some kind of project prematurely.

[canyon-ghost]

Just a thought, wheelweight that I dropped from the mold into a 5 gal bucket of water is hard enough to shoot 1900 fps and above. These were 7mm 135 grain bullets, and water quench hardened them to the point you could hit them with a hammer and not deform them a lot. Wheelweight has enough antimony to harden up for rifle use.
I tried some linotype alloying, it's different. You have to mix up a huge batch to the same consistency, not one casting potful at a time. It's more work to get a hard alloy that way.
Ron

[fryboy]

lolz like that last statement ,how'd the old sayin go ? "study long study wrong" ? it applies amigo more than we'd care to admit but new ventures always seem to need studying ,ww's dont need anything usually except maybe quenched and thaz as easy as filling a 5 gallon bucket 3/4 full of water wrap an old t-shirt around it secure with a bungy cord cut a small hole in the middle for the boolit to fall thru and cast , drop from the mold onto the tshirt ( saves splashes) and it falls into the water ...what i would do however is if u dont need hard hard cut the ww's with lead up to 50% .works great for 45 acp's etc ( air cooled )