casting bullets

[evel knievel]

heyeverybody
im thinking about casting my own bullets
40cal 357 sig whats the metal formula?
i copied and pasted this from web site
i dont have a clue? wich metal to buy
any advise would be greatly appreachead


ANTIMONIAL LEAD Ingot (4-6% Antimony Lead) LEAD Ingot Pure 99.9% Hardball Bullet Casting Alloy Ingot (2%-Tin,-6%-Antimony-And-92%-Lead)
Price per Pound $1.99 or less!
Price per Pound $2.29 or less!
Price per Pound $2.59 or less!



Linotype Alloy Ingot (4%-tin,-12%-antimony-and-84%-lead) 1 to 40 Bullet alloy Ingot (97.5%-lead,-2.5%-tin) 1 to 30 Bullet alloy Ingot (97%-lead,-3%-tin)
Price per Pound $2.99
Sale Price: $2.69 or less!
You save $0.30!
Price per Pound $2.69 or less!
Price per Pound $2.79 or less!



Lyman #2 Bullet Ingot (90%-Lead,-5%-Tin,-5%-Antimony) 1 to 25 Bullet alloy Ingot (96%-lead,-4%-tin) 1 to 20 Bullet alloy Ingot (95%-lead,-5%-tin)
Price per Pound $2.89 or less!
Price per Pound $2.89 or less!
Price per Pound $2.99 or less!



Super Hard Alloy (30%-Antimony,-70%-Lead) 2.667" Zinc Cannon Ball Pop Can Mortar ALLOY Special Pewter, 86% Tin, Little Cu, SB, PB
Price per Pound $3.99 or less!
Our Price: $6.90
Price per Pound $11.99

 

[MajorDude]

I use Lyman #2 with good results for handgun bullets. I bought the last batch from some place in Cleveland, don't remember the name, but the quality was great. I have made my own equivalent with lead, plumbers solder and wheelweights. You can find the formulas online or in the Lyman books. Have also used a bunch of linotype for rifle bullets. I think it's a might hard for handgun. If you can find a supply of wheelweights, those are a good base for alloy and plenty of folks use them straight. I can't find any around here. I bought a 5 gal bucket full for $20 once.

 

[Cary]

You need to go to this site and do some reading. They have a lot of useful information on casting your own. You may want to down load the reference manual they now offer as well (From Ingot to Target: A Cast Bullet Guide for Handgunners).

Cast bullet reference on lead alloy's, min / max pressure, lube, shrinkage,

Cary

 

[guesser]

I cast for all hand gun calibers from 32 to 45. For me I use very soft alloy, seldom more than 10 BHN, estimated. The fit of the bullet to the bore is much more important than "HARD". Bullets too hard will lead faster than too soft bullets. I run my 41 Magnums at top end using an alloy of 50/50 wheel weights and pure lead. I have no leading in a 6" 57, a 4 5/8" Ruger and a 10" Contender. My 357 revolvers are lead free after a lot of rounds thru them. The only gun I have that leads is a 65-1 and it leads with everything I feed it and none of my other 357 or 38 revolvers have any lead with the same loads.
Casting can be very rewarding, but keep in mind that it entails a smidgen of "black magic" to get it to work well. Somethings just can't be explained, I guess.

 

[ColColt]

I primarily cast for the 357 and 44 Magnum. Bullet hardness runs from BHN 11 to BHN18 depending on what velocities and loads I use. In order for a bullet to obturate the softness must match the velocity/chamber pressure. Most importantly to me is the fit of the proper size bullet to the throat of a revolver. Use an undersized .356" bullet in a 357 and you'll have leading problems...been there. My Lyman 358429 mold for the 357 consistently dropped .355-356" bullets. My groove diameter is .3575" and throats are .358. I had a custom mold made by Mountain Molds that had all three bands equal in width and size and it drops a .360" bullet that I resize to .358"-no more leading.

 

[longaction]

90-5-5 seems best all around. Forget the hard stuff except for rifles.

 

[epj]

Cast Boolits - Dedicated To The World Of Cast Bullets!

Check out this sight. More info there than you can possibly ever absorb. You want some slightly harder bullets for an auto than a revolver due to the shallower rifling and the potential for deforming the bullet during chambering. You can get there with common wheel weight metal by water dropping instead of air cooling.

 

[fredj338]

Lyman #2 will likely be your best bet. At higher pressures, you need a harder alloy & a bullet that fits well. Be careful w/ the cast bullets for the 357sig. They need to be the right design, which has enough of the front driving band in the short neck to work. Not all bullet can do that.

 

[nicky4968]

Lyman #2 Alloy: To 9 pounds of wheelweight metal (cleaned and fluxed) add 1 pound 50/50 bar solder.
I get the 50/50 from the hobby store. It is used by people who make things out of stained glass. Comes on a roll. Just feed into the melted wheelweight metal.
I use pure lead (Tap-A-Weight) for my low velocity wadcutter loads.
Buy the Lyman book. Go to the cast boolits site. Spend some time with a bullet caster.
As far as fluxing, I just stir the melt with an old, broken, hickory hammer handle. One of those lasts a good long while.

 

[imashooter2]

If you're going to buy virgin alloy than 2-6-92 "Hardball" or 5-5-90 "Lyman #2" would be your best bets.

Frankly, if I didn't have a solid source of scrap alloy (wheel weights, range scrap, isotope containers, etc.) to make the casting economical, I wouldn't buy the gear to start.

 

[fredj338]

If you're going to buy virgin alloy than 2-6-92 "Hardball" or 5-5-90 "Lyman #2" would be your best bets.

Frankly, if I didn't have a solid source of scrap alloy (wheel weights, range scrap, isotope containers, etc.) to make the casting economical, I wouldn't buy the gear to start.

THis is really a true statement. If you have to pay $2/# for alloy, you can buy cast bullets for that. True, you do not have control over the alloy & size like doing it yourself, but for general plinking bullets, at much more than $1.5/#, I am not casting. For specialty bullets, you just can't get a commercial caster to do them right for a decent price & casting your own is the only option.

 

[acl864]

If you're going to buy virgin alloy than 2-6-92 "Hardball" or 5-5-90 "Lyman #2" would be your best bets.

Frankly, if I didn't have a solid source of scrap alloy (wheel weights, range scrap, isotope containers, etc.) to make the casting economical, I wouldn't buy the gear to start.

THis is really a true statement. If you have to pay $2/# for alloy, you can buy cast bullets for that. True, you do not have control over the alloy & size like doing it yourself, but for general plinking bullets, at much more than $1.5/#, I am not casting. For specialty bullets, you just can't get a commercial caster to do them right for a decent price & casting your own is the only option.

I agree also... to a point. It's not always just the economy of bullet casting that makes it worthwhile. And also at some point in time if commercial casters are paying $2 a lbs. for alloy they will pass the cost along to the consumer. I don't think we've seen the full effect of higher commodity prices on the consumer end yet.

 

[guesser]

As far as buying alloy as opposed to buying commercially cast boolits, I have purchased virgin linotype in 200 pound lots for $1.00 per pound delivered. I also buy odd lots of older cast bullets still in the original boxes, gun shops are happy to see them gone after sitting on a back or bottom shelf for years and then I use them to alloy my pure lead or range pickups to make up my casting alloy. I have melted down several hundred pounds of commercial "hardcast" bullets to make useable boolits for my revolvers. Got them for a "song" from a lot of different places, hardware stores, yard sales, just keep your eyes open and have a supply of small bills in hand. Two years ago I bought 12,000 158 gr. SWC, hard cast for .$0.01 each, they made great alloy!!!!!

 

[Avery11]

I pay .30/lb for wheel weights. Melt, flux, cast, shoot.

As said before, leading is more to do with the fit.

Besides, leading is not permanent.

At my lead price I can make a box of .45 ACP for about $2.50

 

[Skip Sackett]

I'm With ya!

If you're going to buy virgin alloy than 2-6-92 "Hardball" or 5-5-90 "Lyman #2" would be your best bets.

Frankly, if I didn't have a solid source of scrap alloy (wheel weights, range scrap, isotope containers, etc.) to make the casting economical, I wouldn't buy the gear to start.

THis is really a true statement. If you have to pay $2/# for alloy, you can buy cast bullets for that. True, you do not have control over the alloy & size like doing it yourself, but for general plinking bullets, at much more than $1.5/#, I am not casting. For specialty bullets, you just can't get a commercial caster to do them right for a decent price & casting your own is the only option.

I agree wholeheartedly with both of these folks. If I had to buy virgin material, I would have never started. Most of my wheel weights I have were either free or so cheap that it makes it foolish not to cast.

The other reason to cast is bullet selection. I can have what I want, of course, I can have them anytime I want too.

Try to find these bullets from a commercial caster:

(far right)

Waiting for this mould to show up:

 

[mark454]

I agree wholeheartedly with both of these folks. If I had to buy virgin material, I would have never started. Most of my wheel weights I have were either free or so cheap that it makes it foolish not to cast.

The other reason to cast is bullet selection. I can have what I want, of course, I can have them anytime I want too.

Put me on the list of those who agree with the above. Make sure you can get alloy at the right price. I have many buckets of wheel weights. I got them in the late '90's when you could still get wheel weights for free. At least where I live (Western NY), you are not getting a bucket of wheel weights for $.30 a pound. When you do find that bucket, much of it is steel and zinc. Next year, the sale of lead weights will be illegal in my state. Most tire stores have already made the switch.
Good luck,
Mark

 

[imashooter2]

Put me on the list of those who agree with the above. Make sure you can get alloy at the right price. I have many buckets of wheel weights. I got them in the late '90's when you could still get wheel weights for free. At least where I live (Western NY), you are not getting a bucket of wheel weights for $.30 a pound. When you do find that bucket, much of it is steel and zinc. Next year, the sale of lead weights will be illegal in my state. Most tire stores have already made the switch.
Good luck,
Mark

It doesn't matter if any other states ban lead weights. Manufacturers are not going to maintain 2 production lines. CA and NY have set the direction of the nation on this issue.

I've said it many times... This is the twilight of hobby casting. When lead WW go away, so too goes the major source of affordable casting alloy.

 

[fredj338]

It doesn't matter if any other states ban lead weights. Manufacturers are not going to maintain 2 production lines. CA and NY have set the direction of the nation on this issue.

I've said it many times... This is the twilight of hobby casting. When lead WW go away, so too goes the major source of affordable casting alloy.

Very ture. They banned lead here 18m ago. What you can get, if you can get any, is 50%+ non useable. So I stopped scrounging tire shops. I'll still ask if I am in one, customers sometimes get preferece, but it's just not worth it. So I am left mining the berm @ my club, which isn't all bad. I can get 100# of range scrap in about 15min. That melts down to 85# or so fo good alloy. Soft, but useable for most shooting to 1100fps or so. I do have quite a bit of alloy on hand; ww, pure, lino & range scrap, but how much is enough when you can't get it anymore?
I have & always will cast certain bullets you just can't buy. If buying lead & tin were my only option, I would probably buy commercail cast for my plinkers. These though, ya gotta make yourself.

 

[epj]

If another wheel weight is never manufacturede, there are still untold millions of them out there. The problem is getting our hands on them before they become some sort of hazardous waste, or "too dangerous to sell to the public".

 

[acl864]

Now that I cast my own I will continue... even if I have to buy virgin alloy. Though commercial casters are buying raw materials cheaper due to their volume, they still are paying labor, packaging, shipping AND making a profit. It will still be cheaper to cast my own, just not by as large of an amount.

Plus there's the fact that my bullets work better for me than any commercially manufactured bullet. And as Skip is fond of saying- "I can get what I want, when I want it." For example I got the hankering to try some 158 gr. SWC with gas check out of a soft alloy. So I cast up 50 or so out of some 30 to 1 alloy I made up, if it works I'll cast up some more, if it doesn't I'll try something else. The ability to custom fit the bullet/alloy to the application takes reloading to a whole different level.