Streamlining Softnose Production

[BruceB]

Those who followed my cast-softnose thread of last year may recall that I used a dipper made from a .40 S&W case to meter the molten pure lead into the mould.

A fortunate friend has drawn an Arizona bull-elk tag in a very good area, and is taking his Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun as the backup/bad weather rifle, understudying for his M700 in .338. He's asked me to make the bullets for this rifle.

It seems that my SAECO 021, a pointy 420-grain design, may be the best of my available designs for this purpose WITH A FLATNOSE ADDED. Its accuracy is great, and the weight is just right for a modern .45-70 load. His "design intention" is to load it to about the 1800-fps mark, which is reasonable.

Instead of messing with dipper and lead-pot-in-the-furnace, I decided to use some .490" round balls as donors for the pure lead, and it worked perfectly. With the furnace full to the top and heated to its max of 870 degrees, I placed the 2-cavity mould on the melt with the sprue plate open. A .490 ball was positioned on each cavity, and I just watched until the balls melted and ran into the mould. A couple minutes later, I closed the sprue plate and filled the cavities from the furnace.

PERFECT! This is a primo way to obtain a precise amount of lead in an easy to handle package. The balls weigh 172 grains, which amounts to about 40% of the total bullet weight of 420 grains ....just about right.

The pointed pure-lead nose is easily formed into a flatpoint for the tubular magazine, simply by using a flat top punch in the lubesizer and a judicious amount of pressure on the handle. The amount of pressure, of course, controls the amount of flattening which takes place. There is no measureable expansion of the bullet at the front bore-engaging surfaces.

I am tickled to see this working so well.

[BruceB]

These oh-dark-thirty hours sometimes stimulate some thought.

Since I already had the pot up to temp, I decided to cast some pure-lead smaller-diameter boolits for lead donors, instead of the oversize .490s which just sat on top of the cavities until they decided to melt.

I stuck the little pot of pure lead into the RCBS furnace, and it melted very quickly. Using a single-cavity Lee .30-180, I cast a dozen or so ugly, wrinkly bullets out of the pure lead.

Pure-lead boolits which drop right into the cavities work MUCH better for making softpoints, and it's quicker as well. The finished .458 softnoses clearly show a golden hue right back to the crimp groove, which would seem to prove that there's very little mixing of metals going on.

Incidentally, I'm forming a flat nose on these which is just barely larger than a Large Rifle primer. Should be safe enough, I think.

[garandsrus]

Bruce,

Great idea on getting a consistent nose and bullet weight!

John

[AZ-Stew]

Nice post. Great tip!

Is there enough "soldering" between the two alloys to prevent nose separation?

Regards,

Stew

[9.3X62AL]

Bruce--this bit will get a try-out real soon in the 9.3mm mold.

[ben1025]

BruceB: I described that method 4 or 5 years ago on Shooters. The only difference was I melted the ball in the mould on a hot plate. I brought a bunch of
358 and 458 to one of your shoots and gave them out. Don't remember to who.
They were suppose to shoot them and let me know how they worked. Never heard from them. I had numerous combination of hardness. I think the title was 2 alloy bullets. I think I also did 3 alloys. Although I did a bunch of them I never shot one.

[chunkum]

BruceB,
Good creative thinking! Thanks for sharing your update on this process. Gotta try it imminently!
c.

[MT Gianni]

Bruce, I tried it with 32 cal rb in 357's and found the need to keep the mould perfectly level or the pure lead wouuld set up at an angle. Gianni.

[BruceB]

Gents;

In carrying-out this process, I MUST stress that heat (HIGH heat) is our friend. Why? Because it buys a crucial element, and that element is time, lots of time. Abandon your normal casting temps for this particular job, and your results will be more-certain.

When the mould is floated on the melt in the furnace, it reaches temps fairly-close to that of the molten alloy. Place the mould in there and wait at least a couple of minutes, and then drop in the pure-lead donor bullet. This bullet will melt in VERY short order, even if it's stone-cold when inserted into the cavity. Allow the newly-melted pure lead to heat up in the mould for a minute or two, as well.

When the high-temp alloy from the furnace is added to the cavity, the high temperature allows us at least a minute or more to mess around before the new softpoint bullet even STARTS to solidify. This is the answer to Gianni's concern about off-level conditions of the softpoint, and also Stew's question about "soldering".

THERE IS NO "JOINT" between the metals!!!!

Perfect fusion is achieved, and the only visual indication of the two hardnesses is a color variation on some bullets. It does no harm to strive for a perfectly-level mould while cooling on the pad, but it's also not at all critical. CRANK UP THE HEAT!

Having poured the harder shank material and created a nice generous sprue, the whole mess stays LIQUID for several minutes if not artificially-cooled on my wet cloth pad. Even then, it takes over a half-minute with the mould on the wet pad to START the freezing of the sprue. Once the sprue appears solid, wait a bit longer, perhaps ten seconds or more, before inverting the mould to cool the sprue on the wet pad. I say this because I've had an apparently-solid sprue rip off the bullet base just from its own weight and fall free, as soon as the mould was turned upside down. Cool the sprue itself for at least ten seconds on the pad before cutting it.

It's a very good idea to tape the handles in the closed position, or to place a strong elastic around the handles while doing this casting of softpoints. I used a strip of plastic electrical tape, securely attached on one handle and with about six inches hanging free to whip across the other handle before it all goes to sit on the molten alloy.

I've used a lot of aluminum moulds over the years at this high temperature of 870 degrees, and never had a problem with any of them.

Those .490 balls were cast many years ago, and they were so heavily oxidized that they looked like black marbles, and I mean BLACK. Naturally, the oxide flowed into the cavities with the rest of the balls and the bullets produced were U-G-L-Y, with big bits of black crud all over the noses.

If I wanted to take care of forseeable needs for future cast softpoints, I'd cast a number of pure-lead boolits of various diameters and weights for storage. My thinking is that, rather than worrying too much about a certain weight percentage of pure lead in the finished softpoint, I'm more interested in how much of the LENGTH of the bullet is made of pure lead, because I'm coming to believe that about 1/2 to 2/3 of the length should be made of the harder metal, to guarantee a strong shank which will hold together and penetrate even if the softnose is destroyed after impact.

This requires some study of the bullet proposed for use as a hunting softpoint, in order to decide how heavy the donor pure-lead bullet should be. A 90-grain .25 or 6.5 bullet should work well for a 311284 (210 grains), for example, or a 120-grain .30 donor for a .338-250 or 300 bullet. It's when we get into large bores that the choices become almost infinite, and much easier..... my donors for the .45-70 came from a Lee .30-180. Again, the donor bullets don't need to look at all like our normal-production boolits in which we take so much pride. They can look like California raisins, and still work just fine.

The oxidation is a worry if we're going to store pure-lead bullets for long periods, such as several years. I'm inclined to say that some spray wax on the boolits, along with storage in airtight baggies, would be a very good idea. Storing some donor bullets for future use means that just one short casting run with pure lead should last a hunter for years. Do an assortment which will span most of the calibers one intends to use.

Cast softpoints, in my book, take us back to the grand old hunting rounds of a century ago. A .30-40/220 cast softpoint can easily duplicate the original Krag factory speeds. So can a .30-30 170, or .32 Special 170, or .303 British with over-200 grains. Using the heaviest-possible cast bullet also brings the .30-06 very close to its root ballistics at speeds easily reachable with CAST bullets. We might not achieve present-day factory-ammo trajectories, but by George, we can surely approach their effectiveness on game! I know from personal experience that a .303 British is an utterly-deadly moose killer with 215s at 2100, and it will reach 200 yards, as well. Use the heaviest bullet you possibly can!

The secret to cast-softpoint successs is ...HEAT, more heat, LOTS of heat!

[9.3X62AL]

Bruce--

That answered all but one of my questions. "Heat is our friend".......OK, so it sounds like the nose portion is still liquid when you pour in the shank portion--izzat right? If so, the two metals don't blend readily due to differential specific gravities/densities? They just bond?

Maybe I should just TRY THIS OUT and see for myself.

[44man]

No, it will freeze before the hard lead is added. You do not want the metal to mix. The hard alloy will only melt the surface of the soft lead and solder together at the joint.

[BruceB]

NO, no, NO!

The metals are both liquid when the second alloy is added, and they STAY liquid for a long time if not cooled on the wet pad. This is the reason for the high heat, and also the reason that there is NO JOINT between the softer stuff and the harder shank alloy. The fusion is complete and again I holler, "THERE IS NO JOINT!!!"

There is only a bit of mixing at the contact point, and this is demonstrated by the color difference between soft and hard. Many of my softpoints clearly show the gold and blue colors on the nose all the way back to the crimp groove, the same colors we often see on the melt when melting PURE lead at high temps. The two alloys do not mix in the mould, in my experience. In smaller calibers than the .416 and .458s I've made to date, there is even less likelihood of mixing, due to the deeper and narrower "column" of molten lead in a smaller-diameter mould cavity. I'll try casting some .338-300s one of these days. I dunno if this stone-age computer will support posting of photos, but I'm gonna try. Those loooong boolits should clearly show the two alloys.

When adding a 180-grain softpoint to my 365-grain RCBS .416s, there is almost NO MEASUREABLE DIFFERENCE in overall weight, contrasted to a pure-wheelweight bullet. By this, I mean the softpoint bullet is within a measly grain or two of the weight of a straight-wheelweight bullet. To me, this means that a slight off-level condition of the contact AREA (not "joint"...there isn't one, remember?) is of no importance. Yes, it's probably desireable to keep the mould as level as possible during freezing, but it's not a problem if it's slightly 'off".

[45 2.1]

Take a pair of sidecutters and nip from the tip of the nose into the body at small intervals. that should prove whether they mixed or not.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I had a friend some years ago and he wanted to try thi, but didn't have any casting gear. We fashioned a dipper from an old case, your way seems much better. Throuble with mine was, I could not talk him out of using linotype for the shank. He used these on pigs and when he came back and saw me, he fessed up and said that the shank acted like a punch and rolled straight on through the nose cutting it like a cookie cutter. We did another batch and used ww for the shank and pure lead for the nose. I didn't do anymore for him as he didn't want to tak part, just wanted the boolits and wasn;t prepared to pay for it. I don't mind helping a guy, but when he just wants freebies with no other input, I'm not interested. I must try this again using your method. I have a small Lee furnace which I intended to use for pure lead anyway. Mick.

[jhalcott]

Okay bruce.I can understand MOST of that.What I don't get is why flatten the nose?? When I tried this I used linotype for the base metal and pure for the nose. What few I used on game performed great. I believe my problem with damaging the nose was the lino bases would cast almost .360 and I was sizing them to .3575 . I used a 40S&W case cut down to drop about 85 grains of pure. Then topped it off with the lino.I tried Lyman # 2 alloy bases but they were still larger then I wanted and required sizing. In the 4570 using a pointed NEI mold throwing 405's I did recover a "donut" from one bullet??? All the others were pass thrus. The nose of the 45-70 was about 125 grains and evidently opened up with in a couple inches of impact. I weighed the donut and got around 110 grains. It must have over expanded ,then sheared off.That shot was only about 20 yards. I bought the Lee sizer and had problems seating the gas checks with it. It sizes the 358's to .359 so there isn't much resistance there.

[BruceB]

[QUOTE=jhalcott] "What I don't get is why flatten the nose??"

jh, if you go back to the opening post in this thread, you'll see that I'm making these boolits for a pal to load for his elk hunt. They'll be carried in his back-up rifle, a Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun with tubular magazine. That tubular mag is the only reason for putting a flat point on these SAECO #021 boolits, which have quite sharp spitzer-style noses. See the illustration in the Midway catalog, if you have one.

Just this morning I fired a few of these (non-softpointed, though) in my Shiloh .45-70 over a variety of RE-7 charges. I was sorta looking for some recommendable loads for my pal. The speeds were up in the 1800-2000 fps range, and I was rather pleased to remember (after a forceful reminder!) that my preferred recipes for that rifle run more in the 1300-1450 area. I personally would not enjoy firing these loads in a 7-pound Marlin!!!!

[9.3X62AL]

Bruce--OK, you don't think much if any blending of the two liquid alloys occurs, the two just fuse. I hope my luck runs that well! I know what you refer to by the blue/gold coloring in unalloyed lead.

[1Shirt]

This is one of the best threads that I have seen posted in a long time. Words of wisdom that I will have to try.
1Shirt

[klausg]

Bruce, et. al.-
Very interesting, I will have to try this with my new, well new to me, 375 mould. I sure would like to smack a moose this season with something I cast. I have one slightly off-topic question; for our purposes, can stick-on wheelweights be considered pure lead? I think they will be soft enough for this application; but am I going to run into any unforeseen difficulties? I diligently culled all of the stick-ons from my smelts and currently have around 15-20 lbs of ingots that are looking for a good use. What about using the stuff to slug a barrel? Thanks for any help/advice you can give me.

-Klaus

[Shuz]

Klaus--A few years ago I did a test on hardness of stick-on type weights vs clip on weights. What I found out was that stick-on weights came out at Saeco 4 which is Bhn 7. Clip-on weights at that time gave me Saeco 6-7 or Bhn 9 to 11. In summary, I've found stick-ons to be softer than clip-ons, but not by much. Both "alloys" heat treated to Saeco 10, which is Bhn 22. When smelting ww's these days, I treat them all the same, but I just hold my nose a little more when stick-ons are evident. I am still vigilant tho for the dreaded zinc wheel weights, and if the weight has drilled holes and doesn't seem to wanna melt, it is discarded as a potential contaminate. For those of you without hardness testers, try the "ring test": drop an ingot on a cement floor and listen for the ring. You'll really notice a differance as the lead percentage goes up...more of a thud than a ring. Lino has a definate ring to it. The ring test is very crude, but, much better than just a visual guess, etc.