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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2017 20:34:06 GMT -5
I have a neighbor who is a moderator over on "Castboolits Forum who probably has a PHD in making bullet lubes, I swear he puts it on his cereal for breakfast! He has many, many 5 gallon buckets full of different lubes & when you get talking about vescosity & heat break down, etc. it's like he's talking French, it's amazing how much this guy knows about bullet lubes. He has a different lube for every velocity & every 20 degree change in the weather & can explain why in pretty good detail if you're smart enough to keep up with him, true story. Dick Sounds like Lamar.... |
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Post by sixshot on Jan 11, 2017 21:35:36 GMT -5
Nice looking bullets! Once the mould, the casting rate & the alloy are the correct temp. you will be getting good, flat bottom slugs with crisp, square edges, not rounded corners. That's what makes consistent cast bullets. If the bottom edge is rounded off you can expect problems.
Getting back to bullet lubes & possibly using too much. Remember when you clean a barrel & then you have to shoot a few fouling shots to "season" the barrel because if you don't your group can move on you, sometimes it can move a lot. After a few fouling shots a barrel will usually go to "sleep" & continue to shoot in one place if the load, barrel & shooter are doing their part. If you are over lubing your cast slugs, shooting them slow, especially with a good soft lube you won't end up with a properly fouled barrel. This might or might not show a drastic change in grouping in a short time. You might not see it in a short barreled handgun shooting offhand but with a precision rifle it can raise it's ugly head in a hurry. Ask the guys shooting for groups with cast, they'll tell you.
Dick
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Post by boolitdesigner on Jan 11, 2017 23:09:47 GMT -5
I'll make it simple.......... People shoot too hard of a bullet, as Dick described, shoot one just hard enough for your load. Use an alloy that has low portions of antimony (about 2%), tin (about 1/2% or less) with a trace amount of arsenic... this alloy can be used air cooled or heat treated up to linotype hardness and maintain accuracy where the harder alloys fail. Use a low viscosity lube...... a butane pencil torch will show you which ones work, if it doesn't melt well upon touching the lube with the hot part of the flame, it's too viscous. And most of all, use a bullet that fits and is designed well for the application you put it to.
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Post by 2 Dogs on Jan 11, 2017 23:37:22 GMT -5
I'll make it simple.......... People shoot too hard of a bullet, as Dick described, shoot one just hard enough for your load. Use an alloy that has low portions of antimony (about 2%), tin (about 1/2% or less) with a trace amount of arsenic... this alloy can be used air cooled or heat treated up to linotype hardness and maintain accuracy where the harder alloys fail. Use a low viscosity lube...... a butane pencil torch will show you which ones work, if it doesn't melt well upon touching the lube with the hot part of the flame, it's too viscous. And most of all, use a bullet that fits and is designed well for the application you put it to. I remember talking to Bob about this issue. He told me some years before that wheel weights had changed over the years to the point where they more antimony than before. He suggested I "soften" or mix more pure lead into my alloy. Based on his thoughts I have seen remarkable results. Now I may not know much, but I know y'all outta pay close attention to his thoughts on this... |
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Post by azshaun on Jan 11, 2017 23:40:51 GMT -5
I'll make it simple.......... People shoot too hard of a bullet, as Dick described, shoot one just hard enough for your load. Use an alloy that has low portions of antimony (about 2%), tin (about 1/2% or less) with a trace amount of arsenic... this alloy can be used air cooled or heat treated up to linotype hardness and maintain accuracy where the harder alloys fail. Use a low viscosity lube...... a butane pencil torch will show you which ones work, if it doesn't melt well upon touching the lube with the hot part of the flame, it's too viscous. And most of all, use a bullet that fits and is designed well for the application you put it to. I remember talking to Bob about this issue. He told me some years before that wheel weights had changed over the years to the point where they more antimony than before. He suggested I "soften" or mix more pure lead into my alloy. Based on his thoughts I have seen remarkable results. Now I may not know much, but I know y'all outta pay close attention to his thoughts on this... I looked into getting wheel weights for lead out here, and when I talked to the local tire guy, he said they are being made of zinc now, and only some of the truck weights were lead. So, I gave up on wheel weights, and went the buying the shot route. Haven't found any free or lower cost out here than the shot. |
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Post by 2 Dogs on Jan 11, 2017 23:44:41 GMT -5
I suspect the "lead" harvest is going to be more scarce as time goes on. I plan to take it in any form I can find it. From there I will adjust the hardness.
Despite so many having success with powder coating, it's another reason to cling to the gas check.
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Fowler
.401 Bobcat
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Post by Fowler on Jan 12, 2017 8:37:12 GMT -5
Guys we unfortunately are at the point where if you load and cast a lot you have to choke up and buy alloyed lead. We broke down and started buying 92-2-6 alloyed lead a few years ago. Really you have to buy at least 1000 pounds at a pop to get it to start to be a reasonable price. Reasonable being $2 a pound or so but you have perfect, clean, 100% usable lead. A 100 158gr bullets for 38s work out to just under $5.00 in lead or so.
Wheelweights if you can get it fetch $75-120 a 5 gallon bucket that will weigh 75-100 pounds and probably be 1/4 to 1/3 zinc these days if you are lucky. Smelt it down and scrape the crud and clips off and perhaps you wind up with 50% of your weight being usable lead. Plus the haste and expense of smelting it down.
Starts to make alloyed lead not as silly expensive I think.
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Post by Rimfire69 on Jan 12, 2017 9:39:40 GMT -5
I have been looking into alloyed lead and believe it's the path for me once I clean up my old supplies. No smelting, no mess, half the work of anything else, it's looking pretty good to me.
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Post by sheriff on Jan 12, 2017 10:38:16 GMT -5
Two things that have 'improved' bullet casting for me, anyway, are the ability to order 'custom' alloy and powder coating. While some enjoy the 'foolin around' with mixing their own and playing with lubes, I don't. I do enjoy casting, reloading and 'shootin' so being able to cut out some of the steps in the process enables me to enjoy more of the 'shootin'.  You fellas that do like to 'experiment' take to it, and, write it up for those of us who don't.  |
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Post by sixshot on Jan 12, 2017 15:04:03 GMT -5
I think as the old original supply of WW's dries up, and it's happening fast, many of us will have to resort to using either a certified alloy or a mixture of lead & tin. Tin can be expensive & I never buy it, what I do to add so tin is throw in some linotype with my WW's & lead mix to bring up the tin content, this helps with mould fill out. If I'm just running WW's & lead I always run my furnace on the hot side which gives me good fill out. Adding tin doesn't add much additional hardness but it does make the bullets more malleable, you don't won't a brittle bullet. There's where too much antimony can cause a problem.
Another thing about wheel weights is you can water quench because of arsenic & antimony, also some of the alloys on the commercial market can be quenched, others can not. Linotype doesn't need quenching, its already in the 20-22 BHN range depending on how many times it's been re-smelted by the printer into pigs.
We now have basically 3 different speeds we can run at depending on lube & bullet fit. Basically a WW & lead blend with conventional lube, a WW & lead blend with powder coating & then a WW & lead blend with a GC. This last one is basically unlimited, based on the strength of your gun because you can heat treat the bullet, GC it & run it with any number of quality lubes & come very close to jacketed bullet velocities approaching 3,000 fps. This is rifle territory of course but it's amazing what's possible when the bullet & the gun are set up correctly.
Back to over lubing with slow loads. Not exactly sure how to explain the accuracy loss but it's a hydraulic thing that happens when the lube is forced out of the grease grooves upon firing where the first bullets are riding on a properly fouled barrel & as you continue to shoot you lose that fouling because your lube is "flooding" I guess is the word, your barrel & your premium barrel is loosing it's potential. Now you should see a build up of your lube star & this can be excessive on some guns. All lubes are different, with the softer lubes working the best. LBT makes both a soft & a hard lube & most all of the hard lubes need a heater to run through your lube sizer or at least a few moments with your wifes hair dryer When I'm casting in Arizona I just put one of my sizers out in the sun for a while & the Carnuba Red warms up enough I can lube without a heater. One last thing, if you are shooting midrange loads try some with the lube grooves only partially filled & see if you notice any difference, I'll bet you will see zero leading, & maybe, just maybe a slight accuracy improvement.
Powder coating reduces 90% of most peoples needs for bullet lubes. The Richard Pettys, Usan Bolt's & Fermin Garza's of the world will always need LUBE!!!
Dick
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Post by azshaun on Jan 12, 2017 15:22:24 GMT -5
Is that why with tumble lubing they say you don't need much, because most of the time tumble lubed bullets aren't hot rodded? I thought if I lubed twice, 2 coats it would help with leading and still be able to handle to hotter loads. My initial tests worked fine with full 357 loads, but I wasn't shooting for accuracy. Mainly to see if they would work and if I saw leading. I thought too much would only cause more smoke or haze...
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Post by azshaun on Jan 12, 2017 20:53:45 GMT -5
Man, talk about intimidation reading this thread. A lot of that gives me a MEGO experience. Here I have only 2 molds... cheap Lees. 1 for my 357 and 1 for my 41 mag... oh, and I use the Lee LLA tumble lube... as for alloy, I cheat and get the 25lbs of chilled shotgun shot and cast it up. Turns out about 13BHN if I am reading my hardness tester right. I think it will take a few more passes through the thread to even come close to understanding most of it. I only knew to look at the bore for leading. Here, before you run off... tell us how your targets look please!! Like you I tend to the keep it very simple if I can. Is what you are doing working for you?? If so, be sure and share your success! Ok, I went to the range and tried to pay attention. I had 2 guns. Single action 41 and a double action 357. I shot only handloads, with my cast tumble lubed bullets, and a few on 357 commercial cast bullets with their commercial lube. As far as I can tell, I didn't see any leading not the lube star. Not sure what it means... Here is a picture of the Blackhawk muzzle from about 60 rounds.  Also, you asked about my targets. Here is a picture of my cast bullets at full speeds after about 60 rounds from my Double action 357. Shot from about 10 yards double action on my hind feet. Not great, but still learning. Didn't see leading or the lube star.. (Yes, I have a 7 shot)  Oh, and for those of you double action shooters, what would cause blisters at the top of the trigger finger? I don't have pain shooting the gun single action, but when double action, it is painful there. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2017 21:28:13 GMT -5
I get blisters on the top of my trigger finger from contact with the upper curve of the trigger on certain guns. Hard kicking N frames do it to me all the time, as do 357 mag loads in lighter guns. I have a permanent scar on my finger from this. The next time you go shooting, try putting a bandaid on your finger so that the gauze pad covers the spot that usually blisters. Its hard to concentrate on your trigger release when the gun is gnawin' on your trigger finger. I imagine a couple turns of cloth tape might serve as well, you just need a little padding.
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JM
.375 Atomic
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Post by JM on Jan 12, 2017 21:41:30 GMT -5
What kind of D/A 357 is it?
Is the trigger face smooth & radiused, or is there an edge?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2017 21:42:03 GMT -5
A lot of my lead comes from local shooting ranges. Both indoor ranges will sell the scrap lead from the traps, your local range might as well. I know several guys who "mine" the berm at their local outdoor ranges as well (with permission). For tin, try scavenging the local flea markets and Goodwill for pewter dishes. Pewter is primarily tin with small amounts of other goodies like copper in them. I only use hallmarked (certified) pewter, and the european stuff is better marked than the U.S. made stuff. I found some Mexican made pewter once and couldn't even get it to melt. I brought home a British made tea set a few weeks ago. My youngest son thought it was really pretty when he saw it, but didn't say anything about it. When he came home the next day he asked me where it was, since I had moved it. I showed him the 7 lbs of ingots I got from it. I thought it was a great deal for $12.00!
Other sources of usable lead include lead shot. Chilled shot is soft, but magnum shot is high in antimony and arsenic, and heat treats well, but really needs to be cut with pure lead to soften it up a mite. Shot is low in tin, so will need about 2% or so by weight of pweter, or 90/10 lead free solder (90% tin, 10% antimony). If you salvage extruded lead pipe it will not be pure, but will have at lead a little antimony in it to make it extrude properly.
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You fellas that do like to 'experiment' take to it, and, write it up for those of us who don't. 
