Casting Boolits with bullets!

[Vulcan Bob]

Howdy folks, as for the play on words, for some of us casting types Boolits are home cast and bullets are commercial. Anyhoo, a buddy gifted me around 55 to 60 pounds of various commercial swaged bullets, mostly Hornady and Speer swaged bullets. I have wondered about the composition of these swaged bullets. As soft as they are I suspected they were essentially pure lead. Well now I can find out. I took 5 pounds of the Hornady 200gr SWC bullets added 5 pounds of wheel weight alloy with 2 oz of tin and had at it. The mold used was the RCBS-38-150 KT and with pure wheel weight alloy it throws at 155gr, with 50% pure and 50% wheel weight and 10% tin they throw at 158gr. Now with the swaged bullets and wheel weight with tin they threw at 157.5gr. Pretty close to pure lead I would say! And yes I do have too much time on my hands!

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

You could have looked in Hornady's loading manual or call Hornady and ask. Most all commercial swaged bullets are pure lead because that is as soft as they can get cheaply! Adding tin or antimony or arsenic costs money and makes the bullets harder and therefore more difficult to extrude. Most cores for jacketed bullets are pure lead for the same reason.

Ivan

 

[AtomHeartMother]

What are you casting them for? 38/357? I really don't worry about hardness for most pistol velocities. ...fit is king. For plinking I use the little Lee 105 grain swc....66ish boolits per pound stretches my lead a looong way. Love to see more casters post here....great part of the hobby but I recognize the investment in time.

 

[venomballistics]

IIRC, they are mostly pure lead, containing just enough antimony to say it's in there.

After I discovered the wonders of bullet coatings the realization that I could use soft lead at high velocity was a joyous moment.
especially with hollow point designs where I can cash in on expansion without as much fragmentation as happens with hard alloys.
Food for thought

 

[scattershot]

If any of those are .45 caliber, I might be interestd in taking them off your hands. Let me know what you ould need for them. Thanks for the research, by the way.

 

[rwsmith]

I can appreciate the gift of free lead...

But if I were me I'd consider the swaged bullets valuable enough to either shoot targets or sell because they don't come real cheap. If that's what you want though, and you did say that you had plenty of time on your hands.

 

[Vulcan Bob]

What are you casting them for? 38/357? I really don't worry about hardness for most pistol velocities. ...fit is king. For plinking I use the little Lee 105 grain swc....66ish boolits per pound stretches my lead a looong way. Love to see more casters post here....great part of the hobby but I recognize the investment in time.

I agree, you do not need "hard cast" lead bullets in revolvers or pistols. I would hazard a guess my 50% pure and 50% COWW with 10% tin is about 11-12 BHN at most. I lube with SPG and run em up to 1,300 fps in the 357 Mag with zero leading. they work quite well in the .38 Special too. I add the tin for fill out with those nasty Kieth (I love em) boolits with all their sharp edges.

 

[fredj338]

Invest in a hardness tester, saves a lot of work.
I shoot mostly range scrap, nothing added. It comes in around 10bhn, plenty hard for 1100fps. Water drop that if you want it harder for more pressure or vel.

 

[jaymoore]

Seems I cull about 10% at minimum of store bought cast bullets and about 2-3% of the Speer swaged bullets (mostly for shipping damage).

So there's usually quite a collection ready to go to the melting pot to make nicer boolits!

The Hornady swaged bullets cost rather more than the Speer versions, so relatively few get in the mix. Both have always been dead soft, though.

 

[5-Shot]

I'm with Fred. I shoot straight indoor range scrap (BHN 9 from my range) in everything from 32 S&W long to 45 Colt with no leading and great accuracy. For most revolvers it's fit, not hardness, that matters.

Ed

 

[AtomHeartMother]

I agree, you do not need "hard cast" lead bullets in revolvers or pistols. I would hazard a guess my 50% pure and 50% COWW with 10% tin is about 11-12 BHN at most. I lube with SPG and run em up to 1,300 fps in the 357 Mag with zero leading. they work quite well in the .38 Special too. I add the tin for fill out with those nasty Kieth (I love em) boolits with all their sharp edges.

I use a little linotype if I have fill issues. Still amazes me how little it takes. I wasted a lot of that stuff when I was new at casting.. Lol... but my boolits were magnum velocities hard[emoji6]

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

Al my bullets from .32 to 45/70 are cast from WW's. and lubed with my home made lube. I also pick "em" up from my home range, recast & run "em" down the barrel again.

 

[gwpercle]

50/50 range scrap and clip on wheel weights with some added tin is a great alloy for handguns , even 9 mm and 45 acp .
Hardness is way over rated . A bullet cast from this mix , that is properly sized to your bore will do just fine.
My mix is 5 lbs wheel weights + 5 lbs. range scrap or soft lead and some print type or bar solder for tin , 1/2 lb. or so . Works great.
Gary

 

[noylj]

>ou could have looked in Hornady's loading manual or call Hornady and ask. Most all commercial swaged bullets are pure lead because that is as soft as they can get cheaply! Adding tin or antimony or arsenic costs money and makes the bullets harder and therefore more difficult to extrude. Most cores for jacketed bullets are pure lead for the same reason.

NO THEY AREN'T. Most are close to 92/6/2.
"Tech" at Hornady e-mailed me that "our lead bullets will be a 95/5. Thanks"
So, contact the companies and ask them is a GREAT idea and would eliminate Old Wives Tales.