A Melange of Recycled Airgun Pellets and Slugs for Casting Airgun Slugs?

[Ezana4CE]

First off, I’m new to the site and new to casting. I’ve never cast anything other than a fishing pole. I am an airgun hunter. I use pellet traps to capture the bulk of my pellets and slugs used for target practice. I uses various brands and I don’t know the lead composition of the various projectiles. My question is, if I begin casting slugs from my recycled airgun lead, should I be concerned about the variance of lead composition of my ingots from batch to batch? The scrap is composed of swaged and cast airgun projectiles. Keep in mind that I’m pretty green here. I’ve been reading threads, but there is plenty that I don’t know. Thanks in advance for your advice.

[schutzen-jager]

what do you intend on using it to load ? - melt up a batch + try casting it - if too soft [ most likely ] or too hard try blending it with other lead source -

[GhostHawk]

Most air rifle lead is pretty soft. The trick is going to be getting good fill on skirts. A little irreguarity there and I suspect you will have a flyer.

I have cast .22 round balls from a buckshot mold with good success. Round balls are easy to cast. And you can look down the line and see balls that are not filled/malformed and just recycle those. Slugs should be possible especially in the larger calibers.

You might want to consider adding 1% of tin or pewter to your remelts for better mold flow. They would still be fairly soft.

The round balls I cast in .22 were half clip on wheel weight and half range scrap. Fairly soft but with some tin and antimony.

Mostly I just wanted a system in place and tested as the cost of pellets continues to climb.

Mine were a smidge oversized, they had to be tapped into the breech with a plastic screwdriver handle.
The good news is the super snug swagged fit gave me better accuracy than my CPHP's which is my main pellet across the board.

Yes you can find pellets that shoot better but at near double the price. But that fine line is going to be different for each user.

[Ezana4CE]

@schutzen-jager I’m not sure I understand your question, “what do you intend to using it to load?” I don’t intend to load cartridges.. These are simply airgun slugs.

@ghosthawk Right now my intent is to cast these boattails. No skirts to worry about.

https://www.mp-molds.com/product/555...et-8-cav-mold/

[dverna]

You should be fine with melting reclaimed pellets and making new ones.

If you would be kind enough to post your results, it would be interesting. All the research I did two years ago was disappointing. The few who were casting pellets reported "good accuracy" but almost no data on group sizes. So, I concluded the groups sucked and that was why data was very sparce.

[Ezana4CE]

@dverna Looks like it’s going to be a big experiment. I’ll make it a point to keep this thread up to date on my progress.

[schutzen-jager]

@schutzen-jager I’m not sure I understand your question, “what do you intend to using it to load?” I don’t intend to load cartridges.. These are simply airgun slugs.

@ghosthawk Right now my intent is to cast these boattails. No skirts to worry about.

https://www.mp-molds.com/product/555...et-8-cav-mold/

sorry senior moment - iirc Beeman sold pellet molds made in England, but they did not prove very satisfactory results -

[ohen cepel]

Yes, please keep us posted. I think the pellet lead will be fine, but will be soft. I don't shoot airgun slugs so am not sure if they tend to be as soft as a pellet or not.

The mold link gave a diameter (IIRC) using wheel weight lead, not sure if that means they expect them to be used with wheel weights or not. Shouldn't be a deal breaker as you can always add a bit of other things to improve the alloy if needed.

[LenH]

I have watched a couple of videos of pellet manufacture and both used a lead/antimony alloy. they wouldn't give the ratios because of
industry secrets. Ther is supposed to be a bit of antimony in pellets.

[Rockindaddy]

Good idea recycling all those spent pellets. There is a great video on Utube of the German company H&N that makes pellets. I bought a couple thousand 25 cal pellets when I could for my PCP Beeman rifle that shoots like it has eyes. Most 177,22, and 25 cal pellets are stamped and swaged out of soft sheet lead. The pellets all have a skirt. However the 5mm pellets for the Sheridan rifles is a rather blunt nose solid pellet with a small skirt. Like a miniature artillery shell: the body rides the bore and the skirt engages the groove diameter. If you are going to cast your own recycled pellets, the lead has to be soft and your mould should cast a pellet like the 5mm Sheridan pellet. Soft round ball lead pellets that are the same diameter as the groove diameter of your airgun will work. That is going to be a tiny mould cavity. Maybe talk Lee into making a 6 cavity gang mould???

[dverna]

@dverna Looks like it’s going to be a big experiment. I’ll make it a point to keep this thread up to date on my progress.

BTW, you may want to try the Gateway to Airguns site. I spent a lot of time there when I looked into PCP's and casting pellets. Like I said, that was over two years ago and there may have been significant progress since then.

If I had not had such good results with the 14.3 gr CPHP's, I may have had more incentive to cast my own. The best pellets in my gun have been the JSB 15.89's and Air Arms 16.0's. They run $7/100 and $5/100 respectively. The CPHP's were under $2/100. I ended up buying 14k for $175.

Some last thoughts. You can produce a perfect pellet but your gun may not "like" it. I have had 'Match' pellets shoot like crap so it is something to consider. BTW it was another reason I was leery of casting my own. If the pellets you make do not work as well as you hope, you can send me a 100. I have two .22 cal PCP's I would test them in and would be happy to evaluate them for you. NOE makes sizing dies for pellets/slugs, (https://noebulletmolds.com/site/prod.../sizing-tools/) A difference of .001" can have a huge effect as to what your barrel likes. You may want to measure the commercial pellets/slugs that work the best in your gun and size to that dimension if the as cast pellets are not performing well. Also, I found that adding 20 drops of Ballistol to a tin of the CPHP's shrank groups by about 15%. Not sure if it will help slugs but cheap and easy to try.

I am a huge convert to PCP's. I love trigger time and accurate rifles. PCP's give me great accuracy and cheap trigger time while conserving primers and powder. I hate casting and am not a big fan of reloading. PCP's eliminate the "drudgery" needed to punch paper or shoot spinners. Plinking heaven for me!

Good luck.

[Ezana4CE]

The mold I have produces boattail slugs that have been proven to shoot well from one of my guns. I’ve purchased cast slugs and found the mold they supposedly came from. Now I want to cast my own.

[D-RIG]

What you need to know is that some pellets like H&N have tin and antimony in them
so mixing with pure lead will make the lead much harder and you can end up with a
BHN of 8-9 for a hardness , pellets like the GTOs are 100% tin and will make your batch
of pure lead much harder .

It would help to know what airgun you are casting for , that MP mold you are using is a
difficult mold to cast with and some tin like 1-2% will help fill out the small ribs on that mold

[Ezana4CE]

What you need to know is that some pellets like H&N have tin and antimony in them
so mixing with pure lead will make the lead much harder and you can end up with a
BHN of 8-9 for a hardness , pellets like the GTOs are 100% tin and will make your batch
of pure lead much harder .

It would help to know what airgun you are casting for , that MP mold you are using is a
difficult mold to cast with and some tin like 1-2% will help fill out the small ribs on that mold

@D-Rig This speaks more to what I’m concerned about. I don’t shoot GTO or any other lead alternative pellets. What makes this mold difficult to cast with? I’d like to cast for a Huben K1.

[Smoke4320]

NOE makes some good pellet molds. My FX Maverick 30 cal and FX impact 22 love em

[puddleglum]

I just posted a question about saving lead in a pellet trap, as I save all my pellets from airgun shooting as well. I mostly shoot JSB pellets, which I am under the impression are pure lead, but can't say that is certain. I am planning to save the lead for use in casting boolits for 35 Rem and 45 ACP, so I am sure I will need to harden up the mix.

What kind of trap do you use? I have been using a box full of rubber mulch, which will also stop 22LR so I may start using it for 22 target practice as well.

[dondiego]

I just posted a question about saving lead in a pellet trap, as I save all my pellets from airgun shooting as well. I mostly shoot JSB pellets, which I am under the impression are pure lead, but can't say that is certain. I am planning to save the lead for use in casting boolits for 35 Rem and 45 ACP, so I am sure I will need to harden up the mix.

What kind of trap do you use? I have been using a box full of rubber mulch, which will also stop 22LR so I may start using it for 22 target practice as well.

You won't need to harden it up too much for those calibers. Maybe 19 pounds of your pellet lead to one pound of pewter or solder. Adjust as needed for your mold to fill out. Make sure that your bullets are large enough to fill up your barrels.

[Ezana4CE]

I just posted a question about saving lead in a pellet trap, as I save all my pellets from airgun shooting as well. I mostly shoot JSB pellets, which I am under the impression are pure lead, but can't say that is certain. I am planning to save the lead for use in casting boolits for 35 Rem and 45 ACP, so I am sure I will need to harden up the mix.

What kind of trap do you use? I have been using a box full of rubber mulch, which will also stop 22LR so I may start using it for 22 target practice as well.

@puddlegum I mostly use cardboard boxes stuffed with old clothes, rags, and sea grass string (from hay rolls.)