Casting tips for soft/pure lead

I’ll admit my search skills are weak. I looked at the stinkies at the top of the section.

I’m looking for tips for casting with soft lead and doing it cheaply. My stash is some lead cable sheathing. I haven’t found pewter and want to try what I have on hand.

I’d like to try a round ball mold, because I hear pure lead is like peas in a pod with muzzleloaders.

I’d also like to make some pistol/revolver boolets. Are there mold traits to avoid or designs that are beneficial? Say a tumble lube design for example. And is there anything to watch for when I try them in plastic muzzleloader sabots?

I appreciate everyone’s desire to be helpful. But. I’m specifically looking for information on the liquid lead to creating a filled out consistent and usable boolet phase.
I’d like to keep the thread from getting filled with subject matter not about the topic please.

Thanks!

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...ting+pure+lead

"Advanced Search" works really well. "Stinkies"?

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Originally Posted by Dusty Bannister

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...ting+pure+lead

"Advanced Search" works really well. "Stinkies"?

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Maybe I missed it. Where did it talk about using pure lead instead of turning it into an alloy with wheel weights or solder joints or other sources of tin?

Pure lead should only be used for muzzleloaders and shotgun slugs. Everything else need to be hardened some (or a lot). All of my alloys contain at least 2% tin but you can harden the lead a lot more using Antimony. Wheel weights work great but IMO still need a little tin / pewter if punching more than paper. Surplus letterpress like linotype, monotype and Foundry type do a much better job since they already have a good bit if tin and are surprisingly cheap compared to even range scrap.

Ugh

I don’t want information on making an alloy. I want information on using lead as it is. The searches are full of how to alloy lead.

Post five in the link said to run the pot hot. That was useful information. Thank you

Pure lead will work for round balls without an issue.

To cast bullets of pure lead, you want a bullet with less detail. Pressure casting would be the best technique, if you're able to do it without having fins on the bullets.

Something like this would cast fairly easily.

https://cdn.bulletmatch.com/0o30qd7n...uuoqrcvo83ouay

Something like this would be quite difficult.

https://cdn.bulletmatch.com/ckv2k1hk...14kllyctu8s3ga

Thanks for the tips!

I found those photos on your website. Signed up for the newsletter while I was there.

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Originally Posted by Barry54

Thanks for the tips!

I found those photos on your website. Signed up for the newsletter while I was there.

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Glad to help any way I can.

Nice, thank you.

Pure lead casts smaller than any other alloy. So, having a mould that drops right at the needed size with another alloy will likely be too small with pure.

Casting temperature affects diameter, with a lower temperature giving the largest diameter.

I don't cast with a lot of pure lead but I don't really do anything different than if I were casting with an alloy. Try casting a few first and then experiment as needed with running the temperature a little hotter.

I was doing some casting of regular rifle and pistol bullets a while ago using pure lead since I wanted to use them for slugging the barrels and although I could have used wrinkled ones I just wanted to see what it would take to make pure work. Once I got the temp to 750 I was making decent bullets. But as has been pointed out hot and pure will give smaller than advertised bullets. In a round ball this should not be an issue because you are patching them anyway.

Hot melt and hot mold. Pour fast. I cast round ball and Minnie balls with plain lead.

For casting sabot rounds since the sabot rides the rifling one can use lead. I use lead plus a couple percent tin for easier casting fillout. The added tin does lower the melting temperature a bit. I've been casting 41 mag bullets with a lot of lube grooves that looked pretty good. I'm sizing that to .40 to fit a sabot for a 45 inline muzzle loader.

Here are some ideas. First, you can cast some hollow points, PC them and you won't get leading issues. To keep your costs down, buy some PC from a local PC business. He might have some colors he doesn't want and will sell them to you cheap. Then look on Craigslist for a Free or $5 toaster oven, then find some #5 plastic containers (yogurt) and styro-foam from the $1 store or garbage can. Then load some light .38 loads. To shoot hotter bullets, I'd suggest casting a bullet that takes a gas check.

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Originally Posted by BJung

Here are some ideas. First, you can cast some hollow points, PC them and you won't get leading issues. To keep your costs down, buy some PC from a local PC business. He might have some colors he doesn't want and will sell them to you cheap. Then look on Craigslist for a Free or $5 toaster oven, then find some #5 plastic containers (yogurt) and styro-foam from the $1 store or garbage can. Then load some light .38 loads. To shoot hotter bullets, I'd suggest casting a bullet that takes a gas check.

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Have you cast hollow points from pure/soft lead? Pointers on how you did it is exactly what I’m looking for with this thread.
Thanks

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Originally Posted by Barry54

Have you cast hollow points from pure/soft lead? Pointers on how you did it is exactly what I’m looking for with this thread.
Thanks

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Here’s some pure lead bullets I cast last week using an old single cavity Lee mould. RogerDat is correct, a hot mould and hot mix are your “friends” with pure lead. I don’t powder coat but my friend Txcowboy52 is going to powder coat these for us to test. I have a S&W 637 that needs to be fed.

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Originally Posted by txbirdman

Here’s some pure lead bullets I cast last week using an old single cavity Lee mould. RogerDat is correct, a hot mould and hot mix are your “friends” with pure lead. I don’t powder coat but my friend Txcowboy52 is going to powder coat these for us to test. I have a S&W 637 that needs to be fed.

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That’s quite the accomplishment! I have one of those Lee hollow point molds. I didn’t have great results with it. When I finally got it to cast with a good fill-out, I had more rejects due to the hollow point pin causing the nose to crack or rip on one side.

I have not cast with pure lead yet. I'm currently casting 9mm, .38, .40, and .45 hp bullets using .22lr, pellet, and FMJ core lead and with various percentages of tin: 40:1, 30:1, 20:1. I've been thinking about adding gas checks so I can add more pressure without losing accuracy. There are gas checks you can press onto a flat base bullets. Another option might be a wax check. Use your casing to stamp out of a waxed gas check sheet. You'll have to ask around from them. I've only read about them. BP shooters are best known to use them. I don't know if either suggestion will help. You'll have to test them.

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Originally Posted by txbirdman

Here’s some pure lead bullets I cast last week using an old single cavity Lee mould. RogerDat is correct, a hot mould and hot mix are your “friends” with pure lead. I don’t powder coat but my friend Txcowboy52 is going to powder coat these for us to test. I have a S&W 637 that needs to be fed.

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No offense meant, but there appears to be a lot with rounded bands - IE rejects.

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Originally Posted by Bazoo

No offense meant, but there appears to be a lot with rounded bands - IE rejects.

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You are absolutely right about the rounded bands but that’s what I got with pure lead. I don’t consider them rejects (yet). What I did get is a .359 bullet with a good hollow point ( for the most part). After sizing to .358 and powder coating we’ll see how they perform in my snubby. That’s when I’ll know about the rejects.

Rounded bands was why I was using some tin for the 41 mag bullets, they had several lube grooves. I can get decent fill out in the 58 caliber Minnie bullets and they have a broad shallow groove, or two.

On getting pins to release try some graphite. Either buy a small bottle and apply with a Q tip or just take a soft pencil and "color" the pin to try it out. Seems to help a lot with HP and hollow base molds I have. That and a hot plate to get that pin nice and hot, followed by some fast casting to keep it hot.

I think it would be harder to cast HP with plain lead and great fill out because the pin is going to lose some of the heat and make it hard to keep the mold hot enough for plain lead to flow crisply. That and HP don't seem to drop out as rapidly meaning more cool down between casts.

Good luck with your efforts txbirdman. I'm sure if they are good enough to hit the milk jug, the milk jug won't notice the lube grooves. If not it gives one an excuse to make more and try again and that ain't all bad. More casting, more shooting, can't see a down side to that.

For the OP it takes very little tin to make a lot of difference in how the alloy casts in terms of fill out while tin does make the bullets just a bit harder at a low percentage not enough to matter much except for round ball where you want dead soft. So for in a sabot I would add a touch of tin. If nothing else it opens up the possibility for bullets from molds that would be hard to cast in with plain lead.

Easy route to get some tin is lead free solder. Not the cheapest source. Ebay or the swapping and selling forum here with a WTB would be cheaper but you can get lead free solder at any big box lumber store or most hardware stores, or probably Walmart. Members have reported as little as 0.5 percent makes a significant difference, with more than 2 percent being wasted unless your making Lyman #2 alloy.

Tin is pricey. Maybe look on Craigslist for some pewter.

What kind of pistol/revolver are you going to use? I use and 1858 with a conversion cylinder and pure lead bullets. They work great, but it has deeper rifling because its a cap and ball gun. Its my favorite pistol and I can hit a pie plant all day at 40 yards with the 8" barrel.

Modern revolvers like my Glocks or P365 don't throw lead bullets past ten yards accurately. The rifling is shallow and the same is with new inline muzzy rifles. I have done a lot testing with cast pistol hollow point bullets.

Lead 10 yards at most
Wheel weight alloy - good shooting but doesn't expand as it could
1/2 and 1/2 Wheel weight and pure lead - Make a 8 hardness and group fair enough at 20 yards and expands awesomely.

here is expansion for pure lead and Wheel weights https://archeryrob1.wordpress.com/20...hollow-points/
Here is expansion for the half and half alloy. https://archeryrob1.wordpress.com/20...hollow-points/

There is supposed to be replacement barrels for semi pistols like Glocks to shoot cast, but I don't know enough about them to speak on them. Mine shoots them fine IF they are harder than Pb lead

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Originally Posted by Delkal

Pure lead should only be used for muzzleloaders and shotgun slugs. Everything else need to be hardened some (or a lot). All of my alloys contain at least 2% tin but you can harden the lead a lot more using Antimony. Wheel weights work great but IMO still need a little tin / pewter if punching more than paper. Surplus letterpress like linotype, monotype and Foundry type do a much better job since they already have a good bit if tin and are surprisingly cheap compared to even range scrap.

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You can use pure lead in pistol calibers if you're going to PC. I've done it a few times at normal 9mm and 38spl velocities without any issues. Haven't tried it with 357mag yet, but I'm assuming worse case you'd need a gas check. PCing really does wonders to fixing leading problems. A couple of users have reported using pure Pb for rifle loads when PC'd, but I don't know how well they performed. They seemed to like them though...

That said, adding a little tin does help fill out. I like to add about 2%, which doesn't do squat for hardening, but does help with fill out a little. But again, pure does cast smaller than alloy, and needs to be

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Originally Posted by BJung

Here are some ideas. First, you can cast some hollow points, PC them and you won't get leading issues. To keep your costs down, buy some PC from a local PC business. He might have some colors he doesn't want and will sell them to you cheap. Then look on Craigslist for a Free or $5 toaster oven, then find some #5 plastic containers (yogurt) and styro-foam from the $1 store or garbage can. Then load some light .38 loads. To shoot hotter bullets, I'd suggest casting a bullet that takes a gas check.

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^^^ Good advice. Again, PCing solves so many problems common to non-PC'd bullets. You can shoot just about any alloy with it without problems so long as you get the PCing part down.

Immediately following fluxing with beeswax, for the first couple of casts, it seems that the melt flows better. Might, try that to get better fill out. even if you have to flux every 2-3 times to get the benefit.

Attachment 326562

Well, I did it! Thank you all for the helpful tips!!!

I started at kindergarten level though. Lee Mold was running great! One of those sessions that you hate to stop because it’s working so well.

Observations: The spilled over the side liquid from the sprue is gummy or wire like vs the hard alloy I was casting previously for tri-ball use.

They are shiny! Wasn’t expecting that.

They are heavier, which I was expecting. About a 5% difference.

Next attempt will be a real mold instead of a simple ball. But I’m happy for tonight’s success!

You got the mold and alloy temp right. When it starts to crumble instead of wire like, you've got things too hot. But it looks like you got it right. I've got some that are a few(?) years old and still shiny. Some in the open and some in sealed bags. Both look the same.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Barry54

Ugh

I don’t want information on making an alloy. I want information on using lead as it is. The searches are full of how to alloy lead.

Post five in the link said to run the pot hot. That was useful information. Thank you

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if you are just casting round ball, then let-r rip. use it as it is. Just know, that "tin" will help fill out immensely.

Attachment 326713

Increased the difficulty level. Got a lot of what I would normally cull. A few have sharp bands. I’m waiting for the brown truck to bring my Harvester/Claybuster smokeless sabots. I’m looking forward to some expansion testing!

As always, testing the culls might be worth the time as that will show how important appearance might be. Perhaps also test by matching the bullet weights since the sabot contains the bullet which never touches the barrel.