Snyd
.375 Atomic
The Last Frontier
Posts: 2,392
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Post by Snyd on Nov 20, 2013 15:42:28 GMT -5
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Snyd
.375 Atomic
The Last Frontier
Posts: 2,392
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Post by Snyd on Nov 20, 2013 15:52:09 GMT -5
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steve
.375 Atomic
Posts: 1,505
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Post by steve on Nov 20, 2013 17:06:25 GMT -5
That's a great set up Snyd. Mines nothing fancy either, but it works, Just a cheap hot plate and cast iron pot I got from salvation army. I really like the Rowell bottom pour ladle. Casting for the 500 Max. one session and the mould paid for itself The finished product Two of my favorite 500 Linebaugh moulds. A Rob Applegate 435gr and a Walt era NEI 450gr SWC. As soon as it stops raining here, I'm gonna get it in gear and cast more of these. I'll be sure to post pics.
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steve
.375 Atomic
Posts: 1,505
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Post by steve on Nov 20, 2013 17:13:40 GMT -5
I don't have any smelting pics, but I use a propane turkey fryer with an old dutch oven. To keep things simple for me WW are muffins, Linotype is corncobs and pure lead is Lyman ingot mould I'm down to my last few bars of Linotype, at one time I must have had 50-60 of these.
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Post by sixshot on Nov 20, 2013 17:20:04 GMT -5
Snyd, looks like you're well on your way to being a cast bullet junkie like the rest of us. I use an old plumbers furnace that holds about 60 lbs of melt. After fluxing with sawdust I pour them in either muffin tins like you show or 1 lb. ingots in RCBS moulds. Keep casting, those 500's get hungry in a hurry!
Dick
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2013 17:47:56 GMT -5
And boy, can they eat a lot!
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Post by dougader on Nov 20, 2013 18:28:03 GMT -5
I'm still a newbie even though I started in the early 90's. I just have a Lee pot to melt everything in. Slow going, I'll tell you.
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jsh
.327 Meteor
Posts: 884
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Post by jsh on Nov 21, 2013 5:24:26 GMT -5
Started casting about 2000. I started picking up alloy before that for quite a while for fishing weights. Got a smelting set up very similar to the one above. Had to progress pretty fast there as that point in time I had alloy all over the place and needed to get it cleaned up and stored. I decided the story bought ingot molds were a bit small for me. I ended up making my own molds from some 1 1/2" and 2" angle iron 16" long. Took me from early summer till fall to get it all smelted and cleaned up. I did about a dozen buckets and three 30 gallon barrels full of WW. Came home one night to a big pile of roof sheathing and lead pipe a roofing buddy dropped off. Must have been a ton of it. Kept some and traded the rest for more WW. Got some more roofing stuff later and kept all of that. After taking inventory decided enough was enough. A year or so ago came across a deal on some smelted stuff for cheap. A guy can't pass up a deal. I played with lubes as well. Store bought stuff worked but sure wasn't cheap. Made a batch of Felix lube and ran it through the ringer on everything I and a friend had. It performed way past our expectations. Time to start loading up on babes wax lol. Got a good supply of that put back. The Felix lube with some small modifications has run 180-200 grain proper sized bullets up to jacketed speeds with zero leading in proven rifles. Same results with same lube in pistols. Molds. I won't go to far in depth other than to say a couple of things. The multiply as fast and bad as TC barrels. I have about an equal amount now of "made for the masses" type molds and customs. Made for the masses is luck of the draw as to fit a large part of the time. If I had just went custom on several projects I would have been way ahead in money, time and powder. A custom mold with some proper measuring can cover several guns of the same caliber with good to excellent out come in all of them. Sizing dies are another area that is lacking to those of us that expect and strive for bare bones accuracy from our rigs. There are a few custom guys out there if you ask and look around. I have honed and lapped a few sizers out. Desired results were achieved. Cast boolits are like iron sights for me. I wish I had appreciated them a lot more in my younger days. I still have a lot of catching up to do compared to others. For those that say cast is just for plinking a d slow speeds. Bull butter. I have enough wood, plaques and medals to prove other wise. I am pretty sure I was not the first but I was in the first ten to shoot a 40x40 UASHS in ihmsa. I am the first and only one to achieve this at my club. Beat out a gent shooting an XP in 223. I was using a bone stock 30-30 tc. My score needed up a 40x40x8. Shoot offs were .22 chickens at 200 meters. It is a sad day when the tree huggers and do gooders pump John Q Public full of the bs they have on the subject of lead. If it is in print or on the www it is true because the read it or heard it. What a crock. As always people are afraid of what the know nothing about. Jeff
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jsh
.327 Meteor
Posts: 884
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Post by jsh on Nov 21, 2013 5:34:07 GMT -5
Meant to add and forgot. I have shot less than 400 rounds of jacketed ammo since 2000. 90% of that was in my XP in 6-223. The rest in sub 30 rifles that I just push way to hard to cast for. Swore I would never cast for anything smaller than a 30. Have since played with 7 mm 6.5 mm and a 22. All have been very picky as to what they like. When I say that I mean in a match 40 round setting and not a 4-20 round bench setting where one can clean as needed or desired. IMHO the 35 caliber has been the easiest caliber to work with in regards to accuracy and speed in rifles and pistols and revolvers with bullets of ALL weights and good to excellent designs. Most have worked well with a start load for jacketed powders. Surpassing or equaling jacketed speeds and accuracy. Jeff
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Post by Cholla on Dec 7, 2013 11:55:29 GMT -5
Interesting posts guys. I've been doing this pretty seriously now for probably 10 years. I pretty much use the same method as SNYD. One suggestion, if you're not already doing it; After melting the bulk WW's and skimming the trash and clips off, I flux the mix very thoroughly then immediately start pouring in to ingots. This way I wind up with 40 or so lbs. of ingots all of whose composition is identical. this in turn makes bullets the same from batch to batch.
Cholla
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Post by sathington on Dec 7, 2013 13:12:36 GMT -5
Reading this thread with great interest. Thinking about doing some casting.
Figuring out how to get the right hardness seems interesting. Do you guys do straight linotype for some bullets, or do you mix it in with your lead? How hard is to hard? So many questions. Forgive my ramble, haven't had enough coffee yet.
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Post by Cholla on Dec 7, 2013 18:45:45 GMT -5
Reading this thread with great interest. Thinking about doing some casting. Figuring out how to get the right hardness seems interesting. Do you guys do straight linotype for some bullets, or do you mix it in with your lead? How hard is to hard? So many questions. Forgive my ramble, haven't had enough coffee yet. I used to use two basic hardnesses, air-cooled wheelweights which are fairly soft at around 11.5 - 12 Bhn and water-quenched wheelweights which are up around 20...about the same as linotype. I now use straight, air-cooled WW's for just about everything as I've found soft bullets are better than hard ones 99% of the time. Recently I even cast some hollowpoints at 9.5 Bhn. Any pistol with proper cylinder throats will lead little if any.
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Post by AxeHandle on Dec 8, 2013 8:56:19 GMT -5
Too hard is a real thing.. I was water dropping 475/50 cal bullets to speed up the casting process. Bought a LBT hardness tester and measured them at about 27. I was wondering why they were so hard to push through the size die. Air cooling dropped them to 16. The 480 Ruger started me casting. Could not find any cast bullets to buy. I had picked up common size molds and casting stuff through the years. As soon as I decided to cast a buddy found me a deal on a Magma Master Caster and a Star Sizer with all sort of molds and size dies. I bought the equipment and never looked back. There was a time that I marveled at the crusty old coot looking though old bullet molds on the trade tables at gun shows. Now I AM THAT OLD COOT! I try to clean up most days before I go to gun shows but it isn't the priority thing it was 30 years ago.
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Post by schmidty on Dec 8, 2013 12:39:11 GMT -5
Speaking of casting, do you guys know anything about a lead-arsenic-silver mixture? I read somewhere that Garrett used this for hammerheads and such - because it was super hard but flexible. I wanted to try making up some of this alloy, but I don't know the proper ratios.
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Post by Cholla on Dec 8, 2013 12:56:01 GMT -5
Speaking of casting, do you guys know anything about a lead-arsenic-silver mixture? I read somewhere that Garrett used this for hammerheads and such - because it was super hard but flexible. I wanted to try making up some of this alloy, but I don't know the proper ratios. Here and here is some very comprehensive information on cast bullets and their alloys you'll find anywhere. I shot a buck a couple of weeks ago with a bullet out of an RCBS 44-250KT that was fairly soft @ 11.5 Bhn. Still after impacting at about 1080 fps it penetrated from the flank to the brisket and deformed very little.
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