Alternatives to lead and other components

[dtknowles]

I would use the Lead-free alloy that Rotometals sell.

https://www.artfulbullet.com/index.p...ee-alloy.5627/

Did you read the link, they suggest you wait at least 20 seconds and up to as much as 3 minutes between casting and cutting the sprue. You are going to need multiple moulds to get any reasonable production rate.

Tim

[mnewcomb59]

Agreed, if you have one bullet mold. Two metals. The lower density metal will make lower BC bullets than the higher density metal.

This is will not always be true - "different molds that cast the same weight bullet in different metals. If they had the same ogive, like I said above, the denser bullet will always have a better BC. The additional length of bearing surface on low density bullets will always cause more drag than a denser, shorter bullet with the same ogive." I have run models in a wind tunnel and lengthening the projectile reduced the drag up until the L/D exceeded 3. What you claim only is valid if the denser bullet is not short also if you are going to have a longer bullet why not choose a more optimal shape instead of just using the short bullet's blunt ogive and why not add a boattail.

Why would "A longer bullet mold to cast a 150 grain zinc bullet will likely have more lube grooves than a shorter bullet mold that casts a 150 grain lead bullet." The zinc bullet mould does not even need lube grooves, zinc bullets don't need lube. I expect that you are speaking of using traditional moulds designed for lead and not moulds that don't have grooves like some use with powder coat or paper patch. I also would be easy to modify lube groove molds to eliminate or make the grooves shallower. Could use a design like the Lee Tumble Lube bullets.

Now if we are talking about BC we must be thinking about bullets for longer range shooting. Shooting targets at ranges less than 100 yards the BC almost does not matter.

Zinc pistol bullets I think the biggest issue is going to be powder volume. Some pistol cases have very limited case volume so you will not be able to use slower powders and have factory type velocities.

Clearly lead is better but in some cases the difference will not matter, zinc bullets will work fine and should be cheaper. Not sure why the manufactures don't use them is some ammo.

Tim

Tim try this thought experiment. Design your most aerodynamic bullet possible with your 3:1 ratio, efficient ogive and efficient boat tail in your densest metal. Once you have enough metal for the efficient shape at the desired diameter, then start changing bearing length so your zinc bullet is the same weight but keep the good ogive and boat tail. Remeber there are magazine length restrictions and action length restrictions, so you can't just indefinitely increase the COAL.

You will find that YES, a zinc bullet can be more aerodynamic than a lead round ball of equal weight, but once your lead bullet is heavy-enough-for-caliber to make an efficient shape, no other metal with lower density can match the BC.

[dtknowles]

Tim try this thought experiment. Design your most aerodynamic bullet possible with your 3:1 ratio, efficient ogive and efficient boat tail in your densest metal. Once you have enough metal for the efficient shape at the desired diameter, then start changing bearing length so your zinc bullet is the same weight but keep the good ogive and boat tail. Remeber there are magazine length restrictions and action length restrictions, so you can't just indefinitely increase the COAL.

You will find that YES, a zinc bullet can be more aerodynamic than a lead round ball of equal weight, but once your lead bullet is heavy-enough-for-caliber to make an efficient shape, no other metal with lower density can match the BC.

So, there you go, you answered the question. The low density of zinc or copper start being a penalty on BC when your bullet gets to the "heavy-enough-for-caliber" limit.

Best to stick with lead core copper jacketed bullets if you are that concerned about BC. Clearly heavy for caliber zinc bullets would be too long causing a number of problems. Twist rate comes to mind along with COAL and bullets taking up too much powder volume. Monolithic copper bullets already have some of these problems along with cost. Copper is more expensive than lead or zinc.

Cast lead bullets with boattails and long ogives are not often seen, cast lead bullets are most often used at lower velocities again where BC is not much thought about. In a lot of applications cast zinc bullets could be substituted for cast lead bullets with a savings if the zinc bullets were available.

In some cartridges we could see a performance improvement where you approach velocities that are too much for lead bullets but the zinc bullets can tolerate. Other cases where we would be inclined to use a gas checked bullet we could get away with a plain base bullet if it was cast from zinc.

Yes, many times a lead bullet will be best and blasphamy but Jacketed bullets would be even better.

Tim

[mike_kaleigh]

Don't forget about bismuth alloy (cant use pure). Close to the same temp as lead. But you better have deep pockets.

I believe lead will dry up someday, or at least be banded from shooting. even though I have literal tons of lead, I have started collecting zinc, have maybe 40 lbs of ingots. lucky for me I can get it from work (I also get a lot of lead from work, remodeling xray rooms), I am an electrician and a lot if parts are die cast and I keep all the demo and stuff they are going to throw away.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Did you read the link, they suggest you wait at least 20 seconds and up to as much as 3 minutes between casting and cutting the sprue. You are going to need multiple moulds to get any reasonable production rate.

Tim

I have read through it, more than once, I may have even participated in the discussion. If a situation arises where myself and others need to go this route, no doubt we'll come up with tips, hints, and tricks to make it easier than this first experiment...and maybe some alloy that's even better?

[ebb]

I didn't want to start a storm. Lead is already banned in California, and if the Biden group ever figures it out they will ban lead, and get us casters and jacketed bullets with one bill. The guy that owns Wilson combat is making bullets and has decided that he is going to avoid the rush and makes only solid copper. The reason i started this was not to jump on lead, it was to find ways to shoot when everything we use to reload with is banned, or priced out of reason. Rest assured they will never get all the guns too many orphans with no paper trail. but they will regulate every aspect of it till we can't shoot. Just looking for a way to avoid the shortages.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

SNIP>>>

I didn't want to start a storm. Lead is already banned in California

Not a storm. I follow State of Minnesota politics pretty close...Land of Liberals, much like CA and NY.
The politicians here have talked about lead bans for hunting ammo. They may have Federal Cartridge talked into it, Federal is "kind of" a Minnesota company. It probably won't be long before it happens.

[Magnum0710]

There's a company called Rotometals that makes a casting substitute out of Bismuth. I think it's like $25 an ingot and you can get it on Amazon. I have no experience with it but found it interesting. Not sure what else is in it or if it requires anything to be added during the casting process but might come in handy. I believe they developed it for people in states that ban lead bullets for hunting.

[Winger Ed.]

There's a company called Rotometals that makes a casting substitute out of Bismuth. I think it's like $25 an ingot and you can get it on Amazon.

They are a sponsor for the site.
Their ad & link is at the top of the page.

[Kestrel4k]

My hat is off to the folks who are blazing the trail for zinc bullets; the knowledge base they are creating will end up serving the rest of us well.
Just like gas & oil (of which there is plenty of), lead is on it's way out politically - despite ample domestic reserves.

Good arguments have been made re: case capacities; I can imagine dwindling supplies of "our" lead being used for say, 9mm; while Zinc should be an excellent candidate for 38Spl & 44Mag, that sort of thing.

Being a metallurgist, I do appreciate these discussions & find them interesting.

[ebb]

I was thinking zinc might be good for higher velocity rifles???

[dtknowles]

If I had zinc boolits I would shoot them. I am thinking of making some, just thinking because I have to cast many lead ones first, my supply of cast bullets is getting low. I have been slacking. I went to load some 32 S&W today and I only had a little more than 100 bullets and they were not sized or lubed. I got to work and have those couple boxes of ammo but now no bullets.
Tim

[Texas by God]

New Year’s Resolution:
Get (buy,barter) a bunch of lead.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ebb]

^^^^^^^ that statement is the beginning of a very deep rabbit hole. Then when you smelt it you will say "Oh one ingot mold slows me down too much, I'll get 2 or 3 more so i don't have to wait." What am I going to do with all this lead, I should buy or make some boxes so it isn't all over the shop floor." Now that I have all this lead i need a bunch of other metals to make alloys. Now that I have all this lead I should buy some more molds and cast for other calibers. Wait if I do that I need a bigger furnace. wait if I make all these bullets tumble lube won't do I need to powder coat or maybe a lube sizer. Wait back to the smelting I need a bigger smelting pot with a bottom pour. Wait I need?????? IT WILL NEVER END, some sanity will return and maybe slow it down, but not by much. You will be assimilated! sorry that is wrong. You HAVE been assimilated!!!

[Castingcoot]

Yep got sucked back own that rabbit hole..

[dverna]

New Year’s Resolution:
Get (buy,barter) a bunch of lead.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The most useful post on this thread.

Lead is plentiful and cheap...cheap being a relative word. Now is the time to stock up. Lead does not go bad.

If you are relatively young, there is plenty of time to let others work out the alloy, molds, and processes needed to make bullets from other materials. Unless you enjoy doing stuff like that, let others make the mistakes and do the hard work.

If you are old, it is unlikely lead will be banned in your lifetime. You have even less incentive to go down a rabbit hole unless you enjoy those kinds of journeys.

I use jacketed bullets for SD and hunting. If lead bullets were banned, I would use solid copper bullets for hunting. Lead bullets are still legal for target shooting in CA; they are only banned for hunting. Think about that! Just how many critters to you kill a year that makes this a big deal?

I believe in being prepared but I weigh the risk/rewards. I cannot think of one good reason to waste time and resources preparing to use zinc, or some rather expensive alloy, to replace lead for 99% of the shooting we do...targets and steel. Even if someone needed to kill 100 critters a year, that is $100 of copper bullets.

Most of us want the cheapest bullets of decent quality we can get. Nothing beats cast lead bullets. Stay with what you know, save money and have fun.

[charlie b]

Two alternatives for me.

1) Buy a pallet or two of lead.

2) Buy a couple tons of copper rod and a small lathe to make my own copper bullets.

PS I'll never do either one. Over 70. Gov't will not do anything. They just like to make noise to gain votes. FFS, they can't even decide on pistol braces.

[P Flados]

For serious work (SD, big game hunting), existing jacketed or solid copper bullets are usually "worth the price".

On the other hand a huge volume of ammo is fired on a regular basis where the bullet could easily be a less expensive material.

When I go to my local indoor range, I see 380, 9mm, 40mm & 45 ACP being used in large quantities to make holes in paper at a distance of 10 yards or less. A good bit of the ammo used is either made by smaller outfits (all of those weird headstamps) or assembled by commercial reloaders. It is simply cost driving this. Zinc bullets would do this job just fine.

If I am selling junk metal to the scrapyard, lead will get me say 3x the price of zinc. However, if I go to Rotometals to buy ingots, the cost of zinc is higher than the cost of lead.

At a "small shop" commercial level, cast zinc bullets would only make sense if there is a real cost saving in material. For the specific application of cheap bullets for "range ammo", using a specific alloy is not really needed. Any zinc alloy that does reasonable fill out would work.

So lets say a commercial bullet caster finds a good source of scrap zinc (waste metal from a specific factory for example) and has a connection with a commercial reloader that is willing to introduce a line of "cheaper than ever" range ammo. For both of these guys, the zinc bullet stuff is just a "side stream" activity where the volume is just enough to take advantage of the cheap scrap zinc.

Making the cast zinc bullets would involve less material cost, no need for any coating / lube and be easier for handling / shipping. However, there would likely be small increase in "tooling costs" as molds probably would not last as long and there might be a small increase in cost associated with energy usage. Still there is an overall cost saving and this line of cheap zinc bullet range ammo goes into production.

The emotional side of ammo selection for the average guy is what it is. The cheap zinc bullet 9mm range ammo gets marketed to gun ranges at a lower price than anything else. Some would be willing to try it. If it works well, it would continue to sell.

And then suddenly, a California county with a big town finds out that cheap lead free range ammo is available. They get influenced by an "anti lead" advocate preaching against both lead bullets and lead based primers. So this county decides to levy and "environmental hazard tax" of $0.25 per round to fire anything that is not 100% lead free at all shooting ranges.

The above (or something similar) may never happen, but do not be surprised if it does.