Shotgun shot for casting revolver bullets?

My first source for casting lead was the police department indoor range. We used swaged lead wadcutters for range qualifications so I was recovering relatively pure lead. Sand traps, Army entrenching tool, hardware cloth screen, and a wooden box. Took me 4 to 6 hours to clear out 8 traps, replace the sand neatly, and clean up. Usually left with 200 lbs. or so of spent bullets.

Next source was used wheel weights from tire dealers. Then I found a print shop still using linotype.

Just about everything was free for the asking. All of it was dirty, sometimes greasy. Coleman stove in the open air, large cast iron pot found at a Goodwill store, big steel ladel. Melt, stir, flux, stir, skim off the dross, flux again, stir, skim again, then into an aluminum muffin pan for ingots. Marked each one to indicate source.

Used to purchase 50/50 bar solder to increase tin content in my casting metal. Simple hardness tester gave me a pretty good idea of how to blend the metals together for the intended purposes. Cast a few and check weight, that provides more information. Antimony and tin are much lighter than lead; a bullet cast from pure lead is considerably heavier than one cast from blended alloys, so the lighter results provide a pretty good indication. Combining the two, hardness tester and weight, has always told me enough to proceed toward the goal.

50 years later and many thousands of bullets for rifle and handgun uses, velocities from ~800 FPS to over 2000 FPS.

I wouldn't hesitate to use up that shot.
 
Absolutely!!!!

100 #'s will make a pile of bullets.

Typically I use this setup filled with 150/160# of recovered bullets from the berms.
gYfZozu.jpg


That yields 100#+ of 8/9bhn alloy.
Yj0Qjnh.jpg


I use that 8/9bhn alloy for all my revolver/pistol/rifle cast bullet needs with loads 25,000psi or less.

There are casters on the castboolits website that don't have access to lead so that's all they buy/use. Is lead shotgun shot for their casting needs.

Off topic......

Damn that pot made me cringe but it looks effective. Reminds me of pictures of propane cylinders used to steal anhydrous ammonia for cooking meth (they fail catastrophically).

On another note, my dad used cast iron corn cob molds for cornbread when making ingots from wheel weights and scrap. Wonder if that was a thing back in the day or if it was just handy and he stole it from my mother?
 
Cast bullet alloy-

There is chilled shot & magnum shot. The difference being mag has 2% antimony. Antimony makes harder bullet. The mixed alloy cast bullets will need harding for 357 & 44 mag . 45 acp, should be fine, if bullets feed.

Being that there is antimony present, bullets can be dropped from mold to water to help harding. Takes 2 weeks with 2% antimony.

Oven heat treatment is a better method. https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?media/make-cast-bullets-harder-oven-heat-treating.4774/full
 
Last edited:
Back
Top