How do you cast your scrap lead into ingots

[BJung]

My cast range scrap ingots use to vary in hardness. Cast ingots happened to be from lots of either jacketed bullets, large lead pieces and hardcast bullets, or small range pieces that remained after I washed the debri from it. Ingots were separated in groups by hardness and I used the softest for .38 and .45. The harder ingots were saved for 9mm, .357, and 40cal. Then this week I read that factory jacketed 9mm, 40cal, and 45 jacketed bullets use 3% antinomy while .22lr has 1.2% antinomy. Has anyone tested jacketed factory bullets and found the average bhn to be uniquely the same than just melting everything together? I'm sorting a recently retrieved batch of range lead now.

[Whiterabbit]

Cast 100 lb at a time. Turkey fryer and 12” dutch oven. Ladle into molds. 100 lb batch keeps the uniformity decent.

[414gates]

If you powder coat and for handgun calibers, there is no need to worry about lead hardness.

Sorting ingots by harness is more useful for casting rile bullets.

[Czech_too]

I do batches, in a 5 quart Dutch oven, of between 40 to 60 lbs. This range lead is primarily from pistol bullets, and I've found no noticible difference in hardness, using the pencil test, 11-12BHN. I have found this suitable for both pistol and rifle, but I am not pushing the velocity.

[Land Owner]

Has anyone tested jacketed factory bullets and found the average bhn to be uniquely the same than just melting everything together?

IDK. They probably are not the same as one Mfg. is about as closed in its ingredient's formula as another.

"Certifiable" chemical analysis of lead alloys is, imo, much to do about nothing. I cannot chemically test an alloy myself. For most of us, it is "closest to the pin" when formulating an alloy - a Best Guess. To have someone else continually testing alloys is a costly non-starter. The Pencil Test for approximate BHN is as sophisticated and cheap as I intend to go.

I melt nuclear shielding lead (~49% by weight), with COWW's (~49%), and Tin (~2%). This Pb-WW-Sn alloy is ~12 BHN and "works" really well. Someone researched the Net for COWW constituents, and a host of other chemicals in alloys of lead and put them in a spreadsheet, which is linked to this site.

[Sasquatch-1]

When I use to sort, true jacketed bullets cast out to about 6 to 8 bhn, cast were anywhere from 18 to 22 (a lot of hard cast pistol bullets) and plated were thrown in with the jacketed. The last few buckets I did I threw everything together and still came out at 18 or above.

I was always under the impression that true commercial jacketed bullets were swaged from soft lead.

[OS OK]

Here's a couple charts that might help?

[ascast]

I wish charts above were bigger-readable-prntable. I'm not sure I can add much to this. I short by bullet type,i.e. jacketed are swagged, so soft, near pure. Lots of factory stuff ( non jacketed) is so hard it survives rock backstops. It also survives UPS truck etc. Mixing large lots is the route I go, as others have stated. You will never get truly repeatable results from free lead. I used to process 40 pounds batches, and then take 2 ingots from each pile to mix for my bullets. This was rifle for 200 to 600 yd work. I was never able to see any difference that I could absolutely blame on bullet hardness. Be careful not to run too far down a road that goes nowhere. good luck

[Rickf1985]

I have a thread running now in this forum showing where I bought a large lot of lead that came from the estate of a reloader and was all good lead but the young man the bought the estate to sell it ( the seller I bought it from is the person that actually bought it from the estate) did not know at the time what it was besides it was lead so he just mixed it all up. I am sure it was separated and marked when he got it. I have been testing for hardness on the bigger pieces as best I can and keeping them separated by range of hardness. 10-14, 6-10, 14-16, 16-20 and 20 on up. The 20 on up range I am not doing anything with until it is tested so I know what I have and it is not zinc or antimony. The rest are getting tossed into the 250 lb. pot as their respective group and blended together and once cooled and rested for a couple weeks I will test hardness of each group. If two groups end up real close to each other they will be blended together into one group. Once I have distinct groups I will then send in a sample of each group so I know what is in each in case I or more likely a buyer or whomever gets it after I die wants to know or blend it they do not have to go through what I went through. Selling lead is much easier when you have a paper that tells you exactly what you have and it is not "unknown" lead.

[243winxb]

Bullet leads analyzed from CCI, Federal, Remington, and Winchester have contained up to 0.42 percent arsenic, 6.8 percent antimony, 2.5 percent tin, 0.2 percent bismuth, 0.22 percent copper, 0.031 percent silver, and 0.011 percent cadmium

From- The Basis for Compositional Bullet Lead Comparisons. By Charles A. Peters. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-li...ad-comparisons

Old 2002 info. I bet scrap content has changed by now?

[243winxb]

Sierra makes the core of the bullet from four lead alloys: 6% antimony-4% tin, 6% antimony, 3% antimony, 1 1/2% antimony and pure lead. (Its on their website)

22lr have from zero antimony to 2%. Some will have an antimony coating or a special lube coating over pure lead.

[Kraschenbirn]

I salvaged lead from from the berms of our club range for over twenty years and hardness, after fluxing and pouring into ingots, was always fairly consistent in the range of 8-10 Bhn. Haven't done any berm mining for several years because all berms were redone as part of major range upgrade project (berms not sufficiently 'saturated' for salvage without considerable digging) but I imagine results would be about the same now as they were then. Oh yeah, I still have one or two stacks of ingots stamped 'RS' (range scrap) from the old berms; at least enough to keep me going 'til after my 80th birthday.

Bill

[lightman]

I melt my scrap, mostly clip-on wheelweights, in batches of 350-400 pounds. Most of the casters on here seem to do the same, only differing in the amounts. I've seen from 40# to 2000#. A cut off propane tank is a favorite melting pot.

I haven't used range scrap in a long time and have not had any tested. My wheelweights come out between 11 and 13 bhn.

[BJung]

Doesn't the BHN affect accuracy?

[Rickf1985]

Hardness itself has nothing to do with accuracy. What hardness does have to do with is leading of the barrels and how well the bullet seals the barrel. And THOSE two things have everything to do with accuracy. I keep seeing all this hoopla about how with powder coating you no longer need to use harder lead for higher velocities. I do not believe that for a minute. With a soft bullet and high pressure you are going to squeeze that bullet so tight in the barrel the powder coat will burn right off and become part of the problem followed a few inches down the barrel by the sloughed off lead. I have no proof of this and I never will, I will continue to do what has worked for 100 years!!! Ya can't change physics.

[243winxb]

Doesn't the BHN affect accuracy?

Yes , soft alloy bullets skid & slump. Loads like near maximum H110/ W296 in 44 magnums need harder alloy.

Photos of skid and slum, saved from castboolits.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.ph...ts.310/&page=2

I match bullet diameter to groove diameter + .0005" Not cylinder throats.

[BLAHUT]

[ How do you cast your scrap lead into ingots ]
I use a propane turkey fryer with a Dutch oven, use a mushroom can on a piece of conduit for a dipper and a browney tin for a mold. Keep it simple.

[Dave W.]

Like several others I use a Dutch oven on a propane turkey fryer. Lead gets sorted into 4 types, clip on wheel weights, stick on wheel wights, used jacketed bullets and used cast bullets. Each type is melted separately and cast into a uniquely shaped ingot. This way it is easy to identity the type of lead, by the shape of the ingot. To a degree, the hardness can be varied by mixing the different types. Hardness is not something I get to concerned about, close is good enough.

[Net]

Yes , soft alloy bullets skid & slump. Loads like near maximum H110/ W296 in 44 magnums need harder alloy.

Photos of skid and slum, saved from castboolits.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.ph...ts.310/&page=2

I match bullet diameter to groove diameter + .0005" Not cylinder throats.

Neat pictures with that info. Thanks for sharing.

[BJung]

My problem is that I can only cast my ingots in small batches. I then blend parts of ingots of the same bhn when I cast bullets. Does anyone try this?