John Z Sr Posted January 12, 2010 Author Share Posted January 12, 2010 Where do you go to find lead? Pull the wheelweights of Liberal's cars, not really, check your local scrap yards, some will sell wheelweights in small (100 pounds or less) quantities if you ask real nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Service Desk Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Gotta' be a bit careful with the wheelweights... make up small quantities of less than 50lbs per melting session. WHY ???? Used to be that wheelweights were hardened with antimony, great for boolit casting..... then they changed to antimony's first cousin.. arsenic... still OK for casting boolits, but extra care needs to be taken... then they changed to calcium - very bad for boolits ... small batches of mix means less contamination if you get a load of wheelweights with calcium (or worse.... battery plate lead.) The calcium can be cleaned out of the mix, but it takes a commercial smelter to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carmoney Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Back in the pin shooting days, we cast most of our own bullets. Knowing what I now know about the health hazards involved, I would never advise anybody to get involved in home casting. On another note, wheel weights alone are far too soft for bullet-making. If you don't have any harder alloy available than straight wheel weights, forget it. Seriously, just buy your bullets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sargenv Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 (edited) Um.. are you certain about WW's? I'm getting between 15 and 20 BHN water quenching the Clip on WW's I've ingoted and cast... if that's not hard enough I'm not sure what is.. Many people are pushing WW's to Rifle velocities (1600-2000 fps) without a gas check.. Why make someone else do the dirty work? Are you one of those people that looks at meat in the cellophane wrapper and says "Good enough for me, why bother hunting?". Standard WW alloy tends to be about 3% Antimony, 1/4 - 1/2% Arsenic, 1/2 - 1% Tin, and the balance lead. I prefer to take the bull by the horns, and with proper precautions, cast my own and not rely on a somewhat questionable source for bullets... or had you not noticed shortages lately? Though it does help that part of my job is waiting for something to break.. so while I'm waiting for calls, I can be doing other things with my time.. yours may be more valuable to you. I have not run into calcium WW's... though there seem to be steel, iron, and zinc weights you need sift out of the mix before you ingot it.. Cool, Post #1500 Edited January 20, 2010 by sargenv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPatterson Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 (edited) I am not a fan of switching back and forth because my 625 takes time adjusting to new bullets. I'm talking about after a good cleaning also it justs takes a half dozen or so cylinders to bring the POI back where it used to be. With that as a disclaimer, I have loaded 2000 BBI for practice this winter trying to get trigger time wading through the snow. Next spring getting ready for Area 1 I will switch back to Montana Gold 230's. Powder is the primary decision though as I can't decide if it should be Clays, Solo 1000, N310 or Ramshot Competition. WST and N320 seem to have more lift so they are outside choices. Helps to spell check before posting. Edited January 20, 2010 by LPatterson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carmoney Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 Um.. are you certain about WW's? I'm getting between 15 and 20 BHN water quenching the Clip on WW's I've ingoted and cast... if that's not hard enough I'm not sure what is.. Many people are pushing WW's to Rifle velocities (1600-2000 fps) without a gas check.. Why make someone else do the dirty work? Are you one of those people that looks at meat in the cellophane wrapper and says "Good enough for me, why bother hunting?". Back when we cast bullets, we got tremendous leading with straight wheel weights--not to mention an incredible amount of junk in the air from melting the filthy things down. We hardened them up by mixing in some linotype material I acquired from a printer who was getting rid of his lino equipment. Oh, and Vince.....my hunting credentials are pretty substantial. Just so you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hopalong Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 Vince, Carmoney gets at least 1 skunk a year !!!!! Hop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sargenv Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 The Smiley was a play on words and I was partly being a smart-alec.. and straight WW's that are not water quenched will likely lead your bore if they are undersized... A lot of people on that other bullet forum report using dead soft lead in 45's and no leading ever... but they are usually .001" to .002" oversize of the bore.. I'm still leary of trying that.. Stick on WW's are another story as those are usually pure lead.. and they don't water quench very good.. were you air cooling them or water quenching them? That alone may determine the issue.. When I started I didn't know about water quenching and my first bullets did lead the bore of my 610.. a little reading later and I learned that quenching aided in the hardening process. I melt all my WW's in a cast iron pot outdoors when the weather is nice.. and yep, they do stink up the place (a respirator rated for lead is good for this).. the ingoted stuff I get out of them has been sifted of all that gunk and is pretty clean when I use it for making bullets.. As for just buying all my bullets ready made.. I just would rather not and someone who wants to try casting, well, I say give it a try.. Read up as much as you can on "that other forum" and you will likely do ok.. but then.. now I have another competitor for the limited amount of WW's out there.. dang! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carmoney Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 were you air cooling them or water quenching them? That alone may determine the issue.. We always dropped them straight from the molds into a 5-gallon bucket filled halfway with water. The bullets we made with straight wheel weights leaded barrels like crazy. We cast bullets back then because $22 per thousand to buy perfect commercial cast bullets seemed like a lot of money. And it was something to do while drinking beer on winter evenings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPatterson Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 It is like every thing else, wheel weights now are not nearly as good as they used to be. Shooting a .357 with 2400 you could shoot a tree, recover the bullet and you could almost shoot it again like it was. Plinking was a .22 case dipped into Bullseye dumped into a 38 Special case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imashooter2 Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 I shoot lead for all things pistol from .32 ACP to .44 magnum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig-2008 Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 I use lead in my 610 & 625 for pratice and matches. I do not stoot much indoors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20nickels Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 (edited) When casting a hunting boolit for my rifle in .357 I was told to water drop a 50/50 mix of WW and dead soft lead. Soft enough to deform and not shatter. Bore fit is essential. Of course..... I havn't tried it yet. Edited January 24, 2010 by 20nickels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Z Sr Posted January 24, 2010 Author Share Posted January 24, 2010 Tried a new bullet mold in .45 yesterday at an USPSA match. Never had a problem with lead in my 625 until I tried this new mold. A 230 gr tl from Lee that seems to be slightly undersized. My bullets tumbled real bad. I think they were just too snall for the bore, miking them confirmed this and I will stick with my old molds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imashooter2 Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 Tried a new bullet mold in .45 yesterday at an USPSA match. Never had a problem with lead in my 625 until I tried this new mold. A 230 gr tl from Lee that seems to be slightly undersized. My bullets tumbled real bad. I think they were just too snall for the bore, miking them confirmed this and I will stick with my old molds. I detest the TL designs, they have never worked well for me. On the other hand, I film lube conventional designs and load them as cast with great success. It's a shame Lee doesn't make a traditional "hardball" profile mold with the conventional lube configuration. As it is, I use the 452-228-1R. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20nickels Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 Tried a new bullet mold in .45 yesterday at an USPSA match. Never had a problem with lead in my 625 until I tried this new mold. A 230 gr tl from Lee that seems to be slightly undersized. My bullets tumbled real bad. I think they were just too snall for the bore, miking them confirmed this and I will stick with my old molds. FWIW I use the standard 452-228-1R and size to 452. Shoots fine. Earplug uses the TL. I would send it back, I doubt it's the bore. I detest the TL designs, they have never worked well for me. On the other hand, I film lube conventional designs and load them as cast with great success. It's a shame Lee doesn't make a traditional "hardball" profile mold with the conventional lube configuration. As it is, I use the 452-228-1R. Agreed 100%. I would buy a 6 banger in the pointier hardball in a heartbeat. Their 452-228-1R has too many weird things going on with it, ....but the 625 eats em all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Z Sr Posted January 25, 2010 Author Share Posted January 25, 2010 The 228 1R at .452 has always worked great for me as well, in the 625, XD-45 and 4 different 1911's. Maybe just a bad mold, but no more tumble lubes for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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